La Paz, Bolivia

A 9 hour overnight bus got us to La Paz about 6:30am. Straight to a cheap hotel (wasn't quite as cheap as we thought, we had payed for one night when we thought we had paid for two...but was still cheap). Didn't do much that day, Steph needed a rest, so I sat and played guitar all afternoon.

The next day we explored the city a little, La Paz is your average South American metropolis apart from the fact that the city sits at 3600m and is really hilly, so all these massive buildings look like they are about to fall off the side of the hill. The views are pretty crazy when you are coming back into the city, some deep valleys surrrounded by hills and all covered by buildings and houses. The hilliness is hard work at that altitude even when strolling around the city.

This picture doesn't do the view justice

We checked out the instrument museum where you can play some of the weird and wonderful instruments of the world. The museum was guitar central, some with two necks, one with five necks, some with multiple sound holes...Even had a stuffed three toed sloth with a tiny baby in tow sitting outside next to some of the instuments, maybe a little out of place. We checked out the presidential palace, we must of looked a little suspect as one of the many security guards came over and told as to keep moving...We caught up with Wilson for dinner and a couple too many cheap cocktails (damn long island ice tea are hard work at 3600m)...

Seen better days?

At least this guy didn't get made into a guitar like a lot of his friends in the museum

what do you play the fifth one with??? (Steph's comment)

mmmm stuffed sloth with baby

and we think our bank queues are bad....

The next morning to the airport to fly to Rurrenebarque to check out Bolivia's share of  Amazon jungle. Our flight was due at around midday and on the way out to the airport it started to sleet! Not so good for flights......while we waited for check in after being told to come back in an hour we watched the sleet become snow, snow and more snow. Every hour we would go back to the counter and get told to come back in an hour until about 3:30pm. The weather had cleared a little and the first plane had taken off since early in the morning. We finally checked in at around 4pm but were told we may still not fly....we clear security and wait at the gates as we watch them prepare the plane to leave, with our luggage on the tarmac (in the rain mind you).  After a while one of the staff comes over and tells us the plane has been cancelled, the airport of Rurre closes at 6pm (large grass runway with no lights) so we have to come back the next morning for the 6am flight. We headed back into La Paz for the night and found a cheap hostel.

snowwww....not good for flying

The flight the next morning was fun, in a tiny little duel propellor plane with 18 passengers, we watched them hose off the ice from the plane while we were waiting to board. We could see out the front window on the plane, the pilots could barely see through all the ice...

The Beni river, one of the main tributaries of the Amazon

The plane and "runway"

The Salt Flats - Atacama to Uyuni

After a few days of delay we were finally on our way. The delay had been due to snow blocking the border between Chile and Bolivia. 

The first morning we travelled by bus through the Chile and Bolivian borders. The Bolivian border crossing was a tiny little building perched between mountains at 4400m with ice as far as you could see. Easily the nicest border crossing we have had, there was even a couple of foxes begging for bread while we had breakfast there... It was cooooold! The group of 24 people divided up into four 4X4's. There were 6 of us in the car, Martin the Latvian (he was sandboarding with us), a french couple, and a girl from Columbia -  a godsend as the driver/guide only spoke spanish... but it made us lazy - after a while we stopped trying to understand and waited for the translation...and us.

Nice icy border crossing

The Andes

Fox

 We will let the pictures do most of the talking..day one we saw an assortment of 'lagunas', white, blue, red, green with some flamingos....geysers....hot springs....and WILSON a good mate from home....Steph was pretty fluey and chesty, the icy wind and the in and out, in and out of the car wasn't helping so much...that and the freezing little shack we stayed at the first night.

Laguna Blanco - white due to the slate-like rocks in the area

Laguna Verde - the green appearance caused by a large amount of arsenic leaching from nearby volcanos. No life exists here.

Too cold for us to swim, note the frozen lake just meters from the warmish pool....

Something we found along the way...

Geysers - these are all in essence small areas of active volcano escaping. There was boiling mud and steam everywhere. The main geyser was huge, spewing steam and sulphur. The howling icy wind hitting the escaping steam made a huge roaring noise.

Laguna Rojo - the red lagoon due to an abundance of micro-organisms in the water. A favored watering hole of flocks of flamingos.

Our extremely warm house night 1.

Day two involved the car misbehaving a little bit, a few stops the drivers would stand around the engine laughing as much as they were tinkering. But no major problems which was good...the landscapes are crazy, lots of ice, frozen and partially frozen lakes, towering mountains and volcanos, a tree rock, a volcano with smoke pouring out, more Michael Wilson, and this night we stayed at the salt hotel - surprisingly, a hotel made out of salt. Our room had a salt floor, salt bedside tables, salt salt salt! Salt being the insulator it is, allowed a more comfortable nights sleep as well.

The stone tree...

Andean Gull

Don't fall in Hew, I don't really trust that ice!

Another lake

Lake Chiar Kkota was our lunch spot. It was also home to lots of flamingos, who were doing their group marching

Its a Wilson, and a smoking Chillean volcano

Rocks here are ancient lava flows eroded over time

Train in the middle of nowhere. Getting salty here...

The Salt hotel, made of salt...salt bedside tables, tables, chairs, beds....

Day 3 and we were up at the crack of dawn, literally, to watch the sunrise before breakfast then a drive throught the salt lakes to incahuasi or cactus island...a little island of rock in the middle of the salt flats that was covered in cactuses that were 3 or 4 meters tall...here and at our next stop we started the salt flat tradition of taking corny perspective photos with weird props. We didn't have much with us to use apart from a wine bottle, can of beer and an empty pringles container... Our best effort is below....

Our last taste of the salt flats was an area where they collected the salt by making little mounds or salt pyramids.

Before we finished the trip in Uyuni we headed to the train cemetry just outside of town. Old dead, rusting trains..Steph LOVED that stop.Hew thought the photo opportunities were going to be better than they actually were..

Sunrise over the salt lakes

Salty water as far as the eye can see

Nice view

One of the large cactuses on incahuasi, they can grow to 4m!

Steph being silly

Steph sitting

Yes, we were very bad at this!

A bit better :)

Some salt pyramids, this is how they collect the salt

The train cemetery in Uyuni

Chile - San Pedro De Atacama

We left Arequipa at 7am and arrived in Tacna, a small Peruvian town near the Chilean border at 1pm. After some negotiations with some shady locals we were on our way to Arica, Chile with another couple in a taxi. We arrived in Arica around 3pm and waited for a bus to San Pedro de Atacama, we left around 9:30pm.  The bus stopped a couple of times, we had no idea what was going on as we were awoken by some man shouting some rapid fire spanish and the bus emptying. Turns out it was just a luggage check, so we had to grab all our lugguge, unlock it, have it checked and have the whole bus then try and jam their lugguge under the bus at once. We arrived in Calama around 9:30am the next morning had a quick bus change and an hour later we arrived in San Pedro.

It wasn't our original intention to head to Chile, we were going to cross the border into Bolivia through Lake Titicaca. But the border had been closed on and off for the past three weeks or so due to some striking Miners, they literally cover the roads in massive rocks and boulders to prevent any traffic from passing through the one road to Bolivia. We thought it would be much safer, quicker and smarter to head through Chile, as it really wouldn't be that much out of our way and we can get to La Paz through the Salt Flats from here.

Awesome little town with dirt roads and lots of whitewash buildings

San Pedro De Atacama is a sleepy little desert town close to the Chile-Bolivian border. It is really small with dirt roads with friendly dogs running rampant.  The place is quite expensive, our double room costing amost $60 a night - more than double the rest of the places we have stayed.
We didn't get up to much the day we arrived apart from book a three day tour of the Bolvian Salt flats that would get us across the border and explore the town a little.

The next day we went Sand boarding.....heaps of fun down a massive, steep sand dune a few km's out of the town. We did alright, took a while to get the hang of the thing, but by the end we could make it down the dune without falling arse-over-tit.  

We headed  to the travel agent to check when we would be departing in the morning, turns out this border into Bolivia is closed!!! This time due to snow! There is no clear timeframe for the crossing to be unblocked as the same has happened to the Chile-Argentinian border and that one takes priority (not sure why three countries need to prioritise a border clearing...but anyway)....So we are stuck for another day here....So we went sandboarding again!

Nice view after sandboarding, went nicely with the pisco sour we were drinking....

We were a bit better the second time, but we both had a pretty big wipe out, so we were really sore...With the days delay we had to move into the dorm as the hostel was full....the border closures are stopping people from leaving....so it is very busy.... we were all ready to depart on the tour and we were about to go to bed as we had an early start when we had a knock at the door. It was someone from the travel agent to say the tour will be postponed another day!! grrr

Finally the next day we were able to leave for the Salt Flats....

Arequipa and the Colca Canyon

Another easy 10 hours on the bus to Areuipa. Arequipa is famous for the Andean Condors residing in the Colca Canyon a couple hours north. We spent a couple of nights in Arequipa before heading to the Colca Canyon. We caught up with some people from the Lares Trek a couple of nights for dinner, we also went to a museum that houses "Juanita" the ice maiden. She is an almost perfectly mumified Incan that was found at the top of a nearby Volcano after an eruption disturbed her grave. It was interesting - she was sacrificed at 12-14 years old to appease the gods (erupting volcanos). Unfortunately we didn't get a photo of her as cameras where not allowed into the fridge that is kept at -20 degrees and 99% humidity. Gotta love Google

Juanita the Ice Maiden

El Parque Central

One of the three volcanos surrounding Arequipa

The Colca Canyon

We did a two day tour of the Colca Valley and Canyon. The canyon is the worlds third deepest and has some absoultely amazing views that include the unique inca terraces that were built to farm land at altitude on difficult angles. The tour covered a huge amount of territory and included a pass at almost 5000m above sea level. The views of the ice capped Andes, canyons, mountain ranges and valleys were awesome. 

We encounted hundreds of camelids - Alpacas, llamas and vicunas, and many locals in a  few small towns and villiages. At the end of the first day we went for a trek to some ruins and down to some hotsprings that sat next to a river in a valley with mountain ranges on either side - an awesome setting. 

Vicuna - one of the wild camelids

Llamas & Alpacas, the domesticated versions..

The hot springs

Rickety Suspension bridge we had to cross in the dark to get home from the hot springs

Day two surrounded a trip to the Colca Canyon to view the Andean Condor. The Andean condor is one of the biggest flying birds in the world, weighing 5kg's with a wingspan of over three meters. We were quite lucky on the day being able to view at least 10 birds.

An adult Condor and a brown juvenile flying off.

Some Incan terraces, many still in use.

Adios PERU!!!