The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

We´re a little late in writing this next entry, and that is partly because we´ve been on buses for the past couple of days trying to get to where we are now, but we´ll get to that later... We´ve got a lot of ground to cover.

Tupiza

We went to Tupiza because our guide book described it as the ¨Wild West¨. I pictured us riding horses into the sunset and eating cans of beans around a roaring campfire. It didn´t exactly go as planned.

1. Our guide didn´t show up at our arranged time which meant we had to leave an hour late for our 3 hour ride.

2. The horses were a little skinny, and probably about 50 years old. They weren`t able to move very fast and our guide proded them with sticks to keep them moving "fast enough"

3. After explaining 3 of the 100 sites we saw along the way, our guide returned to town 45 minutes early.

4. Melissa and I went to our tour agency to complain about the lateness and lack of ride and it took about 20 minutes of arguing to get some of our money back.

5. ¨Wilson¨ our guide had the audacity to tell the agency guy that we were the ones that had wanted to move along so quickly when clearly, everytime my horse would begin to trot or gallop I would get a look of terror on my face and slow him back down. (the thinness of the horses made them uncomfortable to ride any faster then a walk.)

So Tupiza was kind of a bust but it was ok because our Hostal was overpriced.

And they wouldn´t let me exchange my book at the book exchange because they were not the same size! Despite the fact that I was paying money for the service!

Boo Tupiza I guess.

PICTURES OF TUPIZA

Potosi

After leaving Tupiza we made our way north to what is considered to be the highest city in theworld at 4060 meters above sea level. (Bolivia is known for having pretty much the highest everything) Potosi was formally the wealthiest town in Latin America due to a healthy amount of silver in the surrounding mountains and a healthy number of slave labourers to extract it. It is estimated that 8 million slaves (African and Indigenous) toiled and died in the mines under medieval working conditions. The big draw for the town is of course... MINE TOURS!!!

So we descended into (walked into) the mines with our trusty guide Jose who himself is an ex miner. Thats right the mines are still active and employ approx. 15 000 miners to this day! Before going to the mines its necessary to stop at the market to pick up gifts for the miners (Pop, cigarettes and Coca leaves) You use the gifts to pay them for photo ops. We spent 3 hours walking and scrambling up/down ladders, looking at silver veins, and of course taking pictures of the miners. The working conditions are still ridiculous with most work being done by hand. The only useful piece of technology they used was a pneumatic drill. (we stood right beside them while it was operated by 2 men)

It was my first time in a mine and it was really intense and a little shocking that we were allowed to just wander around aimlessly. At one point we were walking under a shaft and Chris had rocks and debris fall on him.

Oh yeah... I was a little shocked too. I found the mine hard to breathe in at some points due to our undergroundness and the altitude which made the job pretty thirsty work. I tried to chew coca leaves like the miners but was horrible at it. Its supposed to be a nice ball in your cheek, but mine was more like a slurry that didn´t allow me to talk without spitting the green mess out everywhere. (Although I did get some of the desired effect which were a numb face and more energy)

Potosi itself was gorgeous because it was constructed during the silver hayday in the colonial period. Ornately carved wooden balconies and white washed buildings everywhere.

PICTURES OF THE MINES

Sucre

The big draw here was dinosaurs. Apparently somewhere in the surrounding area are tracks and such. I say apparently because we didn´t actually get to see them. We kept putting it off and the day we were supposed to go it poured rain and they cancelled the trip.

It was a bummer, but Sucre was also a beautiful city. It was actually Bolivia´s 1st capital. Its the constitutional capital which means nothing to me other then it is the capital according to the constitution. Apparently that means something to the residents of Sucre because while we were there, there was a peaceful/noisy protest to have the capital moved back to Sucre. People were circulating fliers with everything from the afore mentioned capital move to splitting Bolivia in half to civil war... But it was peaceful.

PICTURES OF SUCRE

Samaipata

This little town is really close to Che Guevara´s last stand and offered 2 day tours to walk in the foot steps of the revolutionary, during his last days. We arrived expecting to go on the tour but found that the price was a little higher than we wanted, but we had no fear because there was plenty to do tour wise in the area.

Not only was it out of our price range but most companies weren´t offering the tour due to poor road conditions. Being the wet season, there have been a lot of landslides and roads being completly washed over. We found that out on our bus ride in which should´ve taken 10-11 hours but instead took 19!

At one point passengers helped clear rocks from the road, and later on we had to wait for 4 hours to have a few boulders removed from the road. The ride was hampered by mud and rocks.

We opted for a tour of a little known pre-Incan ruin called El Fuerte. (The Fortress or The Strong) It was a settlment of between 3-6 thousand inhabitants, but the interesting part was that there was an alter, or series of temples carved completely into 1 giant rock more then 200 meteres long and about 50 meters wide. The entire surface of the rock was carved and there are a number of explanations as to what the rock may have been. Interesting.

PICTURE OF EL FUERTE

Bus Ride

After leaving Samaipata we had planned to travel into the north to a remote town called Rurrenebaque. (Where we are now) We were told the roads were underwater and rubble. We estimated over 30 hours of bussing if the road conditions were good, but we knew they would be lousy so it was a tricky decision. We decided to go at it from a different side and at the lastmoment decided to head back to La Paz. (15 hours by bus we even had to walk across a land slide area because there weren't any vehicles able to transverse it) Our luck was pretty good and we got there in time to catch a 16 hour bus to Rurrenebaque. We were even told the road was good because it was a ¨new road¨by the woman in the information office in La Paz.

The road we took turned out to be the "safe half" of THIS ROAD which bi-passes the most dangerous parts. We had no idea when we bought our tickets beacause we were told that the death road was only open to mountain bikers now.
Needless to say the road was terrifying in parts and we, along with many others have opted to purchase plane tickets at 10 times the price to return to La Paz.
The rear set of wheels on the bus were double wide and at times the outside wheel wasn't on the ground at all, and we were also forced to back up to allow others to pass. Check out the link above and on the side bar.
So safe and sound we are in Rurrenebaque preparing ourselves for a 3 day treck into the Amazon basin known as the "Pampas" to see all sorts of wildlife including pirhanas, monkeys, pink fresh water dolphins, all types of birds, and possibly the largest snake species in the world known as the anaconda.

PICTURES OF THE BUS RIDE

until next time
C + M