Ok so here I am in a busy internet cafe on the sidewalk of the main street of La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. This is the highest capital city in the world, at about 3600m, with surrounding mountain ranges breaking the 6000m barrier. The city is in a big canyon with the altiplano at over 4000m surrounding the bustling metropolis on 3 sides - quite amazing. It´s hard work to walk around town here due to both the thin air and the fact the streets are so steep (and also the crazy bus drivers, uneven broken sidewalks and thousands of people make it even harder!). FIFA have just imposed a ban on international soccer matches happening in La Paz due to the altitude, a somewhat unpopular and unfair decision here (and in protest the Bolivian president staged and played in a match on a mountain peak at approx 6000m!!). You find yourself stopping to take in a few deep breaths after walking up a few flights of stairs. It's an amazing city with so many funny and strange things happening in every direction you look.
But maybe I should back track a bit... We left Buenos Aires about 3 weeks ago for Peru. Marcela and I headed straight for Cuzco after sleeping (or trying to sleep) overnight in Lima airport. The sudden change in altitude from sea level to 3400m in Cuzco was a bit of a shock - Marcela even fainted in the hotel room! But apart from the first day of the Inca trail, I haven't really had any problems (drinking
mate de coca - tea with coca leaves, and chewing coca helps a lot). Cuzco is a really pretty city with an amazing history - most of the Spanish buildings are built right on top of the inca stonework that is about 500 years old, earthquake-proof and without mortar!
The Inca trail is one of those 'must-do' things that attracts people from all around the world to Peru. Unfortunately this also means its a bit of a tourist trap. The Peruvians aren't stupid, and have imparted all sorts of costs, taxes and limits on anything remotely associated with Machu Picchu. So while the 4 day trek and one day at MP costs about what you could travel on for a month here, I can only hope it goes towards sustaining this wonderful attraction for many generations to come. And of course the experience was all worthwhile. The scenery was jaw-dropping, the inca sites en-route to MP were interesting, and the camping and hiking was hard work but rewarding. Our camp food was 5 star quality, and although it was freezing at night it was good fun to camp at 3700m overlooking valleys full of llamas and mountain peaks. The first day was extremely tough for me as I had to battle stomach cramps, nausea and fever, probably due to one too many $1 dodgy meals I had endulged in... The pot of gold at the end of 4 days of hard work was Machu Picchu at sunrise and it was stunning.
After recovering in some hot thermal baths and treating our sore stiff bodies with a $6 massage, we headed to Puno and Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world at 3810m. We visited the floating reed islands, where the locals still live permanently on these islands of reed about 4-5m thick. They have pigs and ducks, huts made of reed, boats made out of reed and they even eat the reeds too (I tried it - not much chop). Now they have turned into a sort of sideshow for visiting tourists, though apparently the islands we visited were 'less of a novelty than the others'. A much more wholesome and enjoyable experience was staying overnight with a local family on the island of Amantani, a 3 hour boat trip from the shore of the lake. It was very basic accommodation (the door entrance was chest height for me), the food was simple but lovingly prepared, and the family were humble, sincere and friendly (all 8 of them across 3 generations and all living in a tiny mudbrick house). Definitely a memorable experience. Each family member would be weaving or knitting at any time of the day using traditional methods, and I bought a woolly hat just after it was fresh off the 'production line'. At night they even dressed us both up in traditional costume (which they still wear every day) and took us to a dance where some drunken local boys played Peruvian pipe music with passion and everyone danced in the dust with gusto. I think our host parents appreciated the few beers I shouted them too, the mother Rosa must have been at least 100 years old but she couldn't stop jumping up and down with everyone else!!
Puno wasn't much of a city - once after walking out of a cafe near the plaza we caught the remnants of riot police using tear gas to disperse a demonstration (the couple of minutes it took us to realise that everyone else was covering their faces was enough for us to suffer from red eyes for the next half hour). And again after so looking forward to a hot shower after a couple of days without one, we were cursed by the hotel's promise of
aguas calientes (hot water) 24 hours a day being total bollocks. Hot water is a big issue in the mountains, because its so freaking freezing at night its the one thing that can make a lousy hotel/hostel bearable or the best place totally suck. There have been some pretty interesting methods used by hotels to deliver on their optimistic guarantee - often there is just an oversized shower head with electrical wires dangling out of it which are looped across the shower wall and hooked into the light switch. So when you turn it all on, the light dims and the cold water is 'miraculously' heated right there in the shower head!! Needless to say I'm yet to have a hot (and safe) shower in one of these hotels/hostels.
From Puno we headed for the nice town of Arequipa, which is dwarfed by huge volcanoes on all sides and the jumping off point for the Colca canyon, which is twice as deep as the Grand canyon apparently. The 2 day tour was nice, and even though our guide was a loser and the bus sucked, the people on the tour (from all corners of the globe) were good fun. Again the highlight was drinking beer in a hot thermal bath in the middle of the canyon with fantastic views, and then the next morning sitting on the edge of the canyon and watching Andean condors in the wild gliding over our heads. And as always in Peru, the joy of eating a 3 course set meal with a drink for a little over $AU1, or enjoying happy hour of 3 cocktails for $AU4 is always a highlight!
After relaxing in Arequipa for a couple of days, Marcela had to head back home to Buenos Aires and I continued on solo towards Bolivia... which I'll continue on with next installment...
Our transport between islands arrives. A merrier bunch of sailors I'm yet to see...
This little guy was good value. And yes this reed boat did carry about 15 of us a few hundred metres between the floating islands. The boys propelled the boat using long thin tree trunks pushing against the lake bed.
An amazing sunset from the top of the island - our hosts said the days finish like this everyday!
Traditional dress was easy for me - just a poncho and a beanie. For Marcela it involved layers of big skirts, embroidered blouse, blanket/shawl/headress thing, and platted hair. Note our host Julian is not impressed with Rosa - she probably drank some of his beer.
On the desert highway out of Arequipa on the way to the Colca Canyon. These are wild vicuñas, rarer than llamas and alpacas, and their wool is almost priceless (a pure vicuña wool suit will set you back $50,000 apparently!).
Wonder Woman at 4900m in the volcanic desert.
My "SO GAY" water bottle. Nuff said.
Traditional local dancing - at dawn!?? They know that the tourists pass thru this town at about sunrise on the way to see the condors, so of course they crank up a huge PA system and start dancing to pipe music in the freezing rays of the morning sun!
Just one view of the Colca canyon, it was pretty impressive (but unfortunately my attempts at capturing the condors on film weren't as impressive).
One of Arequipa's fine Spanish cathedrals built in the 15th or 16th century.
