Mighty Machu Picchu and Unboliviable Bolivia

We left our group safe in the cradle of indigenous culture in Raqchi, but it was time to run for the hills (or walk slowly, running at altitude is even less fun than at sea level) and to head back to Cusco which we had visited a few months before but this time it was with the aim of getting to probably its biggest attraction - Machu Picchu, just a train ride away for some, or a 3-4 day hike for others.

A sizeable proportion of the group opted for the hiking option which meant following the paths that had been used for centuries by the Inca people to move from place to place. Some opted for the Classic Inca trail which ends up at Machu Picchu itself and others for the Lares trek, a less popular and less crowded hike through the same spectacular scenery.

Team Lares

Wayne, Hannah, Danielle, Joanna & Guide

Ann catches a lift

Joanna and her birthday cake

Relaxing in the Lares hot pools

Inca Trailers

Le, Tee, Kelly, Johnny & Mike

It was a tough but massively rewarding few days for all the hikers, camping out under the stars, hiking in the dark and rain and struggling for breath from the thin air, but the edge was taken off it by the porters who carried their bags and the fantastic cooks who whipped up unbelievable food after hiking all day too and even threw together a birthday cake for Joanna. It was generally agreed to be one of the best hikes anyone had ever done and was worth every gasping breath and ride on the emergency donkey!

Of course the hike was rewarding in itself but finishing off at Machu Picchu is quite an experience, voted the newest ‘wonder of the world’ it sits in the jungle completely inaccessible by road, which is one of the reasons why it stayed hidden from the Spanish conquistadors and untouched by humans from the fall of the Incas until just over 100 years ago when it was rediscovered. There is some debate about what it actually was, a temple, a university or something else entirely, but there’s no denying its impact when you first spot it in the distance.

Triona enjoys the less stressful way to get to Machu Picchu

Dawn at Machu Picchu

Guided tour

Meanwhile back in Cusco it was Easter which meant party time for the Peruvians - any excuse! It was also a sad goodbye to Hannah and Andrew, Hannah had a new exciting job to go back to and Andrew had a broken ankle to attend to.

Easter celebrations in Cusco

The crowds enjoy the Easter parade

Goodbye Andrew

Goodbye Hannah

Onwards and upwards was to be the theme of the next couple of weeks as we headed to the ‘Altiplano’ the flat high plains that stretch from Lake Titicaca in Peru through to the border between Argentina and Bolivia, high altitude became a way of life for everyone. Puno was to be our next stop, a town on the shores of Lake Titicaca and stopping off point to visit the Floating Islands. Made of local Totara reeds they are home to a sizeable population who build and rebuild the squishy ground beneath their feet and welcome tourists in to experience life on the lake.

Floating islands

Local ladies

Group floating around

Danielle & Wayne try the reeds - they're edible too!

Johnny & Mike in local dress

Demonstrating how to build an island

Reed boat

We also visited the Sillustani ruins just outside Puno, they are a series of tombs in the form of towers which were built around the time of the Incas with ingenious stonework and provided some good photo opportunities.

Ann celebrates our time in Peru

Beautiful scenery around Sillustani

Steve at Sillustani

Steve checks for bodies in the towers

We were definitely on the downhill stretch back towards Argentina and the end of the trip but first we had to get over a small hillock known as Bolivia. It is a completely unique country, it’s the poorest country in South America yet it has vast reserves of silver, gold, zinc, tin etc, it has lost every war it has taken part in - even to Paraguay, which is a source of great embarrassment. The majority of its land seems completely inhospitable, either too steep, too much jungle, too high or too salty and yet it is dotted with villages in completely improbable places. Because of that it has probably the toughest population in the world, the indigenous ladies are called Cholitas, wear bowler hats, smuggle televisions and are absolutely terrifying (see Cholita Wrestling below).  All in all it is a recipe for a brilliant travel destination and it is a huge shame that it only gets 120,000 visitors a year (compare that to Machu Picchu and Cusco next door which get 1,000,000!

As soon as we reached the border the difference was clear, Peru is a country with a growing economy, impressive infrastructure and a population of entrepreneurs. In Bolivia we were greeted by a sign that said ‘it is illegal to enter Bolivia with carrots’ and as we tried to leave the border we got stuck in what can only be described as a complete and total shambles of closed roads. After getting some of the market sellers to move their stalls out the way we were finally on the move!

Border crossing

Ithaca waiting patiently at the border

Effigy hung enroute to La Paz as a warning to would-be criminals

Our first stop was La Paz, actually not the capital of Bolivia as many believe, despite being the seat of Government and largest city by a long way (hopefully you’re getting a sense of Bolivian logic here.) La Paz is brilliant, you come across the flat high plains at 4000m above sea level, through the sprawling suburb of El Alto and then like a massive waterfall of ramshackle half-finished buildings La Paz suddenly cascades down a huge canyon in front of you, it’s up there with Rio de Janeiro as the most impressive setting for a city in South America.

La Paz

Cholita with bowler hat in La Paz

The wonderful Julius took us on a city tour where we walked through the weird rock formations of the Valley of the Moon, ate Salteñas - a Bolivian speciality that will now make Cornish pasties seem a bit of a let down, visited the old town and listened to stories of the President Evo Morales, who, according to our guide, was second only to George W Bush in stupidity. He told us tales of his beloved country with a fantastic sense of humour, including how for nearly 100 years Britain refused to acknowledge Bolivia’s existence after they chopped the ears off the British ambassador and paraded him on a donkey - Queen Victoria was so incensed that she drew a cross through Bolivia on the map and until the 1960s it didn’t exist! As Julius said: “Bolivia: it’s a bit like Game of Thrones.”

Valley of the Moon

Trying Saltenas

La Paz

Colonial Jaen Street in the old town

Julius tells us about Evo Morales

La Paz also offered us the opportunity to do some truly ridiculous things: 

A) Buying a llama foetus from the witches market for luck

B) Cycling down the world’s most dangerous road ‘Death Road’

C) Watching the local indigenous ladies wrestling WWF style

This resulted in

1. A)  Johnny’s bag developing a distinct llama feotus aroma and alot of discussion about British customs feelings on unborn preserved animals
   
2. B)  Bartley getting up close and personal with the world’s most dangerous road and looking like he’d been beaten up by a Cholita
   
3. C)  Walking out of the wrestling stadium thoroughly confused about the mayhem we had just witnessed
   

La Paz was greatly enjoyed by everyone, particularly when our hotel put on a wonderful meal for us with views across the city, despite its complete lack of reputation we were thoroughly won over by Bolivian wine that night too!

A formal dinner just for Ellie?

It was time to head South so we wound our way out of La Paz and across the vast deserts and plains of Central Bolivia. Our destination was Potosi, somewhere not many people have heard of but historically it has played a huge role in the building of modern South America. It is home to the Cerro Rico mountain and the silver and tin mine within. The Spanish Conquistadors set about mining the minerals here in a BIG way, with no qualms about working standards they slowly worked their way through the Indigenous population then when they ran out of those they imported African slaves, sending them down in to the mine, where tragically they rarely saw the light of day again, it is said that 8,000,000 people have died down there over the past 500 years. Well with a sales pitch like that who could refuse a visit! A group of us headed down in to the mine where they encountered real working conditions that make any other job seem pretty cushy. Their guides were ex miners who know the mountain well and took the group through low, winding tunnels that made for uncomfortable walking for a few taller members of the Odyssey family - Bolivians are a fairly small race. They also visited a shrine to ‘Tio’ the god of the miners who they leave offerings to (cigarettes, 96% alcohol and llama foetuses though Johnny couldn’t be persuaded to part with his.) It was a very interesting, tough and humbling excursion for everyone.

Dynamite costs US$3 in the market

Not designed for tall people

Miners setting dynamite charges

AJ leaving offerings of 96% alcohol to Tio

Pots

Meanwhile Emma had got the exciting news that, continuing the Game of Thrones theme, Uyuni, our next destination, was actually under siege by upset locals protesting about a new bus station, the roads, railway and airport were shut and didn’t look to open for the rest of the week. After a bit of muttering along the lines of “unboliviable” she made some phone calls and rearranged the rest of the Bolivian itinerary.

The group had the surprise news that evening that they would in fact be going to the Bolivian Altiplano on a 4 day off-road jeep trip which would take us through the Eduardo Avaroa Reserve, to red lakes, green lakes, trees made of stone and lakes made of salt. Funnily enough everyone was quite excited about it, and packing up our warmest clothes (we would reach 5000m above sea level at one point - it can get a little chilly up there) we got a few hours sleep before setting off at an hour of the morning no one really wanted to see to head to Tupiza with an extended fuel station cake stop for Ellie’s birthday!

Happy birthday Ellie!

Then we were off, on a fantastic adventure with the good people at Tupiza Tours. We made for quite a convoy with 4 jeeps, 4 drivers, 2 cooks and a guide we drove through beautiful canyons, red valleys, dried up river beds dotted with llamas and ice-capped marshes, all the time climbing higher and higher in to the most remote corners of the altiplano.

Thermal mud pools

Johnny & Mike

Flamingoes

Getting some more altitude

Emma tries to jump over the volcano

Photos

Danielle

Simon

Tee & Le

By night we would stop in tiny villages and sleep in refugios (refuges) wrapped up in sleeping bags and a big pile of blankets after a tasty meal whipped up by our lovely cooks.

Setting up lunch

Dinner

Cozy

The scenery was spectacular, every turn brought another amazing view and we lost count of the photo stops. The nights were cold but up that high there is no pollution and looking up at the stars you could really believe you were on top of the world. I’ll let the photos tell most of the story here.

Deserted haunted village

Viscacha (Andean rabbit)

Bartley warms his hands on the jeep engine

Llamas

Simon on his moss seat

Laguna Verde

Canyons

Group up high

Ann and Ellie make friends

Ann

Triona and Bartley at the Stone Tree

Simon goes climbing

Vicunas

More flamingoes

Relaxing in the hot pools

Spectacular altiplano sky

Our last night was spent in a rather lovely hotel made entirely of salt, which might seem strange except for the fact that we were next to the world’s largest Salt Flat ‘The Salar de Uyuni.’ We had another painfully early start the final day but again it was more than worth it. We drove out on to the salt in the pitch black, our drivers turned their lights off to navigate by the slowly emerging outlines of mountains in the inky dawn sky across the vast expanse of white nothingness. Just before sunrise we walked up one of the rocky islands that dot the salt just in time to catch the beautiful dawn.

Dawn on the salt

Ellie finds a dog anywhere!

Then it was down to the salt and time to lose all sense of perspective with some silly photos! A salt flat right of passage!

Triona disposes of Bartley

Danielle & Waynette

Jo-in-the-box

Ellie

Ann prepares a photo

Traversing the salt

Janet, our guide, with Toby

Triona and our cooks

Team Altiplano

Our final stop took us to a train graveyard just outside of Uyuni (the blockade had lifted for the weekend) where British-built trains had been left to rot when they couldn’t be repaired.

Hide and seek

Johnny train surfing (or possibly trying to get down)

Odyssey saves another car from soft sand on the way back - all part of the service!

Sunset near Tupiza

It was an amazing 4 days and thoroughly enjoyed by all, despite the cold and all piling in to shared rooms and putting up with each other snoring no one had a bad word to say about our trip up to the Altiplano and everyone agreed the end of the trip was shaping up to be a real highlight.

As we dropped down to Tupiza on our long downhill route South we had time to reflect on the country. Bolivia is a slice of a side of South America that is disappearing rapidly as the continent gets richer and more developed, it’s the wild west, it’s a law unto itself, it’s not for the faint of heart but it is worth every gasping breath and cold night, go in with a sense of humour, a love of the wilderness and a love of the ridiculous, it’s breathtaking, (literally it’s really hard to breath there!) It’s beautiful, it’s brilliant, it’s bizarre, it’s completely unboliviable!