Puno

I've now arrived in Puno, which is my first stop in Peru, on the opposite shore of Lake Titicaca from Copacabana. There's not very much to see in Puno itself, so the reason most visitors come to the city is to tour the nearby Islas Flotantes (Floating Islands) of the Uros people. The islands are unique in the world, and are built using layers of reeds - the reeds rot from the bottom, so a new layer is added to the top every couple of weeks.

I duly booked myself on the tour, and it was interesting, but it was also one of the most shamelessly touristy things I've ever done. Lonely Planet describes the islands as like a reed Disneyland, which isn't far from the truth.

After a half an hour boat trip we disembarked at one of the 50 or so islands, where we were greeted by about ten Uros people in traditional dress. Firstly two men gave us an explanation of how the islands are built, even building a model to help us understand (one of them joked that they have to anchor the islands to the lake bed to avoid them floating into Bolivia).

One of the families then invited me into their house, where they were happy to pose for photos.

Predictably enough, the hard sell of the souvenirs then began, although they were polite enough when I declined to buy their handiwork. I managed to escape long enough to take another photo from their lookout post.

At the end the island's inhabitants gathered to sing us some songs in a variety of languages (the English song was Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star). That was a bit much to take, and it made me think that these people probably are being exploited by the tour companies.

In the afternoon I had my first South American haircut, and despite a few communication difficulties, I was very impressed. I've never had someone take so much care when cutting my hair - he spent half an hour on it, and it cost me the princely sum of 3 soles (about 70p). In London they'd do it in a third of the time and charge more than ten times as much.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Cuzco, where I'll try to book myself on a trek to Machu Picchu.

Copacabana & Isla del Sol

After watching the general election results on the BBC on Thursday night, the following morning I took the bus from La Paz to Copacabana, which is a resort by the shore of Lake Titicaca, the largest high-altitude lake in the world. There are a few Inca remains in the town, including the Horca del Inca astronomical observatory, which I climbed up to see.

In the afternoon I walked up Cerro Calvario, a nearby hill, which gave me a great view of the lake.

I also got a good view of Copacabana town and of the harbour. I then stayed to watch the sunset over the lake.

The following morning I got up early to catch the boat to Isla del Sol, which is a small island about ten miles from Copacabana, and which according to Inca mythology is the birthplace of the sun. I got off the boat in the north of the island, where there are some Inca ruins, as well as the sacred 'Puma's head' rock. Well apparently some people think it looks a bit like a puma's head. Below is a picture of me near the rock.

There are also some impressive views across the lake of the Cordillera Real, part of the Andes.

After lunch I walked the entire length of the island along the ridge trail, until I reached the southern end of the island. It was about a three hour hike, a lot of it up steep hills, and considering the altitude is about 4000m, it was extremely hard work.

The island has no paved roads or motor vehicles, so this is how most goods are transported. The island is very peaceful as a result (apart from the noise of donkeys braying). It was also extremely dark during the night, due to the lack of street lighting and also because there was a new moon, so it was one of the clearest night skies I've ever seen.

I spend the night in a hostel in the southern part of the island, and the following morning I caught the boat back to Copacabana, from where I took the bus to Puno in Peru. That brought my time in Bolivia to an end, a bit prematurely because I had planned to spend time in Rurrenabaque. As a result I'm now well ahead of schedule.

By the way, I found out yesterday that the road to Rurrenabaque has been blocked for over two weeks, so I'm a bit annoyed that the lady that sold me the bus ticket chose not to tell me that. On the other hand I'm sure I'll have plenty of other opportunities to go to the jungle.

The World's Most Dangerous Road

There's been a bit of a change of plan. I was told at the last minute that my bus to Rurrenabaque had been cancelled because protesters were blocking the road, and nobody knows when the road will be clear. Also all of the flights to Rurrenabaque are fully booked for the next two days, and they're often cancelled anyway due to rain. All of this means that I've decided not to go to Rurrenabaque, because I could end up spending days waiting and still not be able to go. Instead I'm now spending a fourth day in La Paz, and tomorrow morning I'm taking the bus to Lake Titicaca about a week earlier than expected.

This also means that I've had a chance to get the CD from the biking company and upload some photos and videos. There's a photo of me near the top of the road and another of me as the weather got a bit worse. Below is a picture of us at probably the most famous spot on the road.

There's also a group photo as well as the obligatory jumping in the air photo.

Finally I've uploaded a couple of videos to YouTube. In both of these I'm the one in the orange helmet.

La Paz

I've enjoyed La Paz a lot more than I was expecting to. It's not the easiest city to explore - at 3660m above sea level and situated in a steep valley, walking around the city is seriously hard work. But the sight of the buildings clinging to the sides of the canyon is pretty amazing. I've got a good view from my hotel room, but to get a better view it's necessary to put in a bit of effort. I walked a long way up a very steep hill to bring you the following photo (there are a couple more in my May 2010 album).

If you stand in the right place, you can also get a glimpse of Mt Illamani looming over the city in the distance.

I did a bit of sightseeing on Monday and Tuesday. I saw the Palacio Legislativo, the Cathedral and the 16th century Iglesia de San Francisco. I then went to the Calle Jaén museums and the Museo de Instrumentos Musicales, which had on display a lot of strange and unique musical instruments. I also paid a visit to the Witches' Market, which among other exotic things sells dried llama foetuses - apparently locals believe that burying these under the porches of their new homes will bring them luck.

And yesterday I went for a gentle bike ride down the WMDR.

If you're wondering what the WMDR is, it's the World's Most Dangerous Road, also known as the Death Road. It leads from La Cumbre down to Coroico, and it's 39 miles long and not much wider than a single vehicle in places, with a vertical drop from one side that explains the road's name. In reality the road is nowhere near as dangerous as it used to be, because a replacement road opened in 2007, which means that the old road is now mainly used only by cyclists and support vehicles. However, there is still a risk to cyclists, and we were told that an Israeli girl died only a couple of weeks ago after going over the edge in wet and foggy conditions. We also passed numerous other memorials to people that have died on the road (before the new road opened, an average of 26 vehicles per year went over the edge).

I decided to do the WMDR trip with B-Side Adventures, which is one of the companies recommended by Lonely Planet. It was a good choice too, because there were only four in our group (me, a Russian/British girl called Jana, and two Swiss guys), whereas some of the other groups had 15 or more people with only one guide, which is surely less safe.

It was a good day out, and not particularly dangerous, because the weather conditions were good (the most frightening bit was the drive back up the road afterwards in the minibus). Our guide took some photos and videos during the day, and we were all meant to get a CD with them on, but I haven't been able to pick the CD up because I'm leaving La Paz this morning and the office isn't open yet. I'll add some of those photos if I ever get hold of them, but for now I'll just show a couple of photos of the scenery (here, below and a couple more in my May 2010 album).

On Tuesday I bought a fairly ridiculous-looking alpaca jumper, which will hopefully allow me to cope a bit better with the cold nights in the mountains. I won't need it immediately though, because later this morning I'm getting the bus to Rurrenabaque in the Amazon Basin, where heat and humidity (and mosquitoes) are more likely to be the problem than the cold. I'm told it's been raining in Rurrenabaque, which means that road conditions may be bad, so it'll be interesting to see how long the scheduled 18-hour journey actually takes.

Sucre

This post is a bit late, due to a lack of internet access again. I wrote this yesterday.

I spent the weekend in Sucre, which is Bolivia's former capital city. It's still the judicial capital, but La Paz is now the capital in every other respect. Sucre is known as La Ciudad Blanca (The White City), and you can see why from these photos of the Supreme Court, Liberty Square and the Cathedral.

I went for a step up in quality of hostel this time. For the first time I had a private room with en suite bathroom and TV, and it would have been quite relaxing if the room hadn't been so disgustingly filthy. I know I can't expect luxury for £8 a night, but it would have been nice if they'd cleaned the room.

Saturday was May 1st, which is Labour Day in Bolivia, which meant that almost everything was closed, so it probably wasn't the best day to be there. On the positive side, there were some celebrations, including a big parade through the city (see photos here and below).

On Sunday I went to a market in a village called Tarabuco, about 40 miles south-east of Sucre (photos here and below).

I didn't buy anything, but I did bump into Alessandra from the Salar de Uyuni tour while I was there.

I decided to skip Cochabamba, so I'm now in La Paz after what was probably the most unpleasant bus ride of my life. It was a 13-hour overnight journey, in near-freezing temperatures, in a bus without any heating. It was unbelievably cold. I arrived in La Paz at 5:30am, and then sat in the freezing bus station, teeth chattering, for an hour until it was a reasonable time to check into a hotel. I'm surprised I feel so good today after that ordeal - maybe it's because I'm so glad that it's over.

Potosí

On Wednesday I arrived in Potosí, which at 4070m above sea level is the highest city in the world. Potosí owes its existence to the Cerro Rico (Rich Hill), which was discovered in the 16th century to contain silver ore. Potosí became the wealthiest city in Latin America, and the Cerro Rico mines apparently underwrote the Spanish economy for two centuries.

The mountain is still being mined today, but most of the silver has gone, so these days they extract mainly zinc and tin. And best of all, tourists are now allowed to visit the mines, so that’s what I did on Thursday morning. I went on the mine tour with four of the group with which I went on the Salar de Uyuni tour (Ben from Australia, Hanno from Germany, and Tamara and Alessandra from Switzerland). Here’s a picture of me ready to go down the mine.

It seems pretty crazy that tourists are allowed to go into an active mine where miners are regularly exploding dynamite, but I guess this is how things work in Bolivia. I think the only reason the miners put up with it is because everyone that goes on a mine tour is expected to take gifts with them to give to the miners, so before our tour we were taken to a shop where we bought things like dynamite, fuses, cigarettes, coca leaves and fruit juice.

Going down the mine was a pretty hairy experience - in some places the tunnel was not much more than a metre high, and we had to keep dodging out of the way of trolleys being pushed along by the miners. We also had to jump over a couple of deep holes where the floor had caved in. And to give you an idea of how crazy things are down there, Julio (our guide and a former miner) told us that if the tunnels being dug by two rival groups of miners ever happen to coincide, one group will try to drive the other group away by burning rubber boots and even lobbing small sticks of dynamite at them.

Here’s a picture of a miner packing dynamite into the rock face. Here’s a picture of Tamara and Alessandra down the mine, and another of Julio and Alessandra after the tour.

On the way back to town we stopped to look at the view of Potosí.

We also saw the miners’ football pitch, which Julio told us was the highest football pitch in the world.

In the afternoon I went for a walk around town to see the sights of Potosí, including the Cathedral and the Plaza 10 de Novembre.

In other news, I've had to go sock shopping because the hostel laundry lost all of my socks. And I've also now shaved off my beard because it was getting too irritating. I managed to block one of the hostel washbasins in the process, but I don't feel too bad about that, because they did lose all my socks. The beard may make a reappearance later in the trip.

After spending nearly a week travelling with Ben, Hanno, Tamara and Alessandra, we’ve now gone our separate ways, and I’ve moved onto Sucre, where I’m planning to take it easy for a couple of days.

Salar de Uyuni

I've spent the last three days on a tour of Salar de Uyuni (the Uyuni salt flat) and the surrounding region. I arrived earlier this afternoon in Uyuni, and as I can't find wi-fi anywhere, I'm writing this blog post in an internet cafe with one of the slowest internet connections in the world. I'll be here all day if I try to upload any photos now, and anyway the USB ports on this computer are taped up, so I'll add the photos when I can. I always thought it would be more difficult to write this blog once I arrived in Bolivia, and it looks like I was right.

There were ten people on the tour I took, and we were split into two groups of five, with each group going with their driver in a separate Toyota Land Cruiser. There was a variety of nationalities, including British, American, Australian, German and Swiss.

The border crossing into Bolivia was in one of the most inhospitable places I have ever been, with sub-zero temperatures and howling winds. It pretty much set the tone for the next couple of days - this was definitely not a luxury tour.

On days one and two we saw a number of volcanic lakes of differing colours (white, green, red, etc.), several of which were populated by flamingoes, and we saw some interesting rock formations, including the 'Stone Tree'. We also saw some more hot springs and geysers, and the active Ollague volcano.

On the first night we stayed in a refuge with no mains electricity, heating or hot water. The electricity generator went off at about 8pm, so we had little choice but to get an early night. I think the temperature outside got down to about -5C, but I managed to stay warm by sleeping fully clothed underneath six blankets.

The hotel on the second night was definitely a step up in comfort. It was a salt hotel, i.e. a hotel made almost entirely of salt (although in fact I was disappointed with how many non-salt materials were used in its construction). At least it was warmer, and it had hot water so we could have a shower.

On day three we visited Salar de Uyuni, which is an incredible sight. It's the largest salt flat in the world, at 4086 square miles. We got up at 5am to see the sun rise over the salt flat, and spent the next couple of hours there. Later in the morning we visited the salt museum and saw a salt mine, before ending our tour in Uyuni.

Uyuni is a pretty awful place, but I'm forced to stay here for one night because the next bus to Potosí isn't until tomorrow morning. I'm staying in the same hostel as five of the people on my tour, so I may travel with some of them for a while.

That's it for now. I'll try to put some photos up once I get to Potosí.

EDIT: OK, I'm now in Potosí and have wi-fi, so I've put up some photos. There are some pictures of the White Lake, Green Lake and Red Lake, and there's also a picture of me at the Stone Tree and of a flamingo. There are also several photos of the Uyuni salt flat here, here, here and below.

Finally I've put up a couple of photos of a weird train cemetery that we went to, a few miles outside Uyuni.