June 14, 2008 by Naomi.

Poor Bolivia! It really has quite the traumatic history, even for a South American country. Utterly savaged by the colonial Europeans, the best part of the indigenous population was enslaved by the Spanish to work in silver and gold mines, mainly around Potosi, and worked in horrendous conditions which they survived mainly thanks to the chewing of coca leaves. At this time the country was known as Alto Peru (high Peru). Once it gained its own independence, it had a nice big chunk of land giving it access to the sea until this was grabbed from them by its greedy neighbour, Chile, who wanted the stretch of land for its nitrate fields (an export which it has been living comfortably off ever since). There are various monuments around the country mourning this event and it looks like Chile is ruminating the idea of returning just a little stretch of land to its most unfortunate neighbour to help heal their historically bad relations. Despite a period of relative economic stability in the late 19th century brought by Bolivia’s wealth of silver and tin, the general population lived and worked in deplorable conditions, without access to education or political participation. Bolivia did not manage to escape the trend of military dictatorships that demeaned the whole of Latin America in the 70s and 80s, although the country did pull through especially after opening up a substantial proportion of the country’s infrastructure and mineral wealth to foreign investors, denying the indigenous population any hope of benefiting from its country’s natural resources. Even though Bolivia sits on a big bed of natural gas, one is really quite hard pushed to find a hot shower, unless of course you are a tourist who can afford to pay for it (and yes it’s relatively cheap for us). There is hope for the native population yet however, as the current president is indigenous himself and therefore trying desperately to represent the needs of his fellow countrymen by redistributing Bolivia’s general wealth, but richer regions are making it very clear they are not going to share their coffers with anyone and doing their utmost to become as autonomous as possible as soon as possible. So once again the interests of the rich and poor are at loggerheads, and FIFA has merely added to the poor country’s problems by ruling that football players must have 3 weeks to acclimatise to the altitude for all matches played above 2,500 metres, which of course means no international football games can be played in the higher regions of the country.

In a country with so many difficulties comes a certain fear for tourists, who are warned of all sorts of crimes that might or might not affect them while visiting the country. Therefore, despite being quite nervous on entering the country, we were delighted to find that the immigration officers didn’t actually try to take all our ‘fake’ dollars off us, the locals going round in minibuses shouting La Paz did not kidnap and murder us and we did not find ourselves sprayed with mustard and pick-pocketed.

Our first stop was the much-visited Copacabana, a wee town famed for its brown virgin on the shores of Lake Titicaca. A bit of research on the internet helped us find the best hotel in town, Hotel Cupula, where we found ourselves in a fantastic room, with the double bed up on a mezzanine in an actual cupola. Hot showers and an excellent restaurant, all very good value for money made it difficult to leave the place, especially the following morning when we were supposed to get the 8:30 boat over to the Isla del Sol, the supposed birthplace of the first Inca gods. A huge downpour put us off going anywhere so we missed the (only) boat, the deluge subsequently stopped so we spent the day exploring the Catholic and Incan sights of interest aroound town. On the Catholic front, we went to see the brown virgin in the cathedral, where despite lots of blatant signs demonstrating that flash photography was not allowed, lots of devout Catholics were devoutly snapping away. On being told by a church official that flash photography was not allowed, they carried on happily away, clearly ignoring the fact that their flash was actually ruining the icon they were so determinedly ‘paying their respects to’.

Incas, being the Incas we know and love, meant we had a good hoof up a hill to get to their historical offering to the town, which was a piece of rock with a hole in it and a second piece of rock onto which the sun would shine through the hole of the first rock, but this event can only be witnessed on summer solstice. Clever astronomical stuff, and probably lots more animal and star related phenomena which hasn’t yet been discovered. The 21st June is a very busy and touristy time round Inca parts!

From Copacabana we hopped on the local bus to La Paz (despite more warnings of dangers) which crossed first the mountains by the lake, and then the lake itself on a little ferry (actually a boat) – passengers on one ferry and bus on another (more of a floating platform) – and then, after paralleling the cordillera blanca, arrived in El Alto on the edge of the vast deep bowl which contains La Paz itself. A few wrong turns and reversals by the bus driver raised apprehension levels a little but then we went over the edge and right down into the bowl and to the centre of La Paz, which went straight in to our most photogenic cities list.

Despite being led to believe otherwise, La Paz actually has a lot to offer: colourful colonial streets, aesthetically pleasing architecture, millions of streetside stalls selling all manner of things at very cheap prices, an excellent skyline of cordillera and even a posh neighbourhood. Most of the Bolivians one sees around are indigenous so it’s quite unexpected to find yourself in an area of skyscraping apartment buildings, posh restaurants, a big supermarket and bars filled to the brim with fair-skinned youngsters drinking away to their hearts’ content, and you realise that maybe Bolivia isn’t quite so poor after all.

After missing a Copa Libertadores (South American’s Champions’ League) match in Santiago, and with hopes of getting tickets for the superclasico (Argentina’s biggest derby: Boca Juniors vs River Plate) in Buenos Aires fading fast, it was good to see that the La Paz derby might provide at least some South American footballing action. So off we went to see The Strongest vs La Paz on a Sunday afternoon with a steward escorting us to the best seats in the house ($4). We could, it turned out, have sat anywhere as segregation and separate seating areas have clearly not reached Bolivian football yet, and all the better for it. The football was entertaining at times, the half-time cheerleaders too (interestingly much lighter-skinned than the players), but in the duller moments plenty of entertainment was had watching the wannabe WAGs behind us spend more time with make up and mirror in hand rather than show any interest at all in the football on show.

Our other pending task in La Paz (having had our numerous calls to San Pedro prison to arrange a visit knocked back due to “problems with the guards” and “new rules”), was the infamous ‘Most Dangerous Road in the World’ (copyright somebody) which we arranged to do through Downhill Madness after some recommendations from Inca trail friends. We had been advised that if you go with a reputable company, and decent bikes, the danger element pretty much disappears so it was rather disconcerting to hear in the 4×4 on the way up to the top of the pass that a client of the other reputable company in town, Gravity-Assisted Mountain Biking, had died two days ago after cycling over the edge. Putting those thoughts to the back of our minds, and with Rusty our guide reassuring all, we set off down the mountain looking forward to the 3000 metres of “downhill madness”. Despite the cold and the rather pathetic sight of most of the 18 – 22 year old males jumping back in the van for the few kilometres (out of 65km) that were uphill, we sped our way down the mountain, eventually leaving the asphalt for the narrow, rutted, muddy and infamous road, which hugs the mountain most of the way down. Things got much slower at this point, partly because there were plenty of stops illustrating the various details of where a bus or a lorry went over, or even more worrying, where the Italian guy, the French girl and the Israeli guy, all on bikes, went over the side. Some of us were pretty determined not to join them and therefore went at a reasonable pace, while others clearly had something to prove by going as fast as possible. Things became more difficult, as we hit the jungle it started to rain, emotions became a little frayed and shortly after lunch we were brought to a screaming halt with the news that one of our group, the Kiwi, had gone over the edge after taking a corner wide, making the mistake of using his front brakes (something we’d repeatedly been advised against) and going over the handle bars into a big pile of foliage below. After a long, long pause (of various people peering over the edge) the news arrived that he was alive but bruised with suspected broken ribs and dislocations. Very very lucky indeed. The rest of the descent followed in a more sombre tone as the Kiwi was gently taken off to hospital in the support jeep, and the rest of the group gingerly continued on down (N went at a particularly slow pace). A few days later we heard that there had been more fatalities on the road when a packed 4×4 crashed in to a group of cyclists not far from the top of the mountain and it is inevitable there will be more calls for the closing of the road, or certainly its closure to thrill seeking tourists.

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June 6, 2008 by Naomi.

We somehow managed to find the energy to hit the tiles with all our Inca friends on the Saturday night, but the rest of the weekend was spent recovering from the trail and copious amounts of locally brewed conconctions.

On Monday morning, it was absolutely time to get out of Cuzco and all its Beatles pan-pipery (for some reason that’s what they think the tourists want to hear!), so we headed off to the Sacred Valley, namely Ollantaytambo (took us a week to figure out to say it!), and Pisaq to explore yet more Inca ruins, many of which took on animal forms and faces - ‘facts’ based on a book written by a couple of Peruvian ‘academics’. One of our guides on the Inca Trail suggested that these forms reflected more their fondness for mind-altering drugs. Although some of their drawings and pictures were somewhat tenuous, there is definitely some truth in their theories, but how far one wants to take it is debatable. (See photos)

We eventually made our way to Puno, which is on Lake Titicaca, and not the most inspiring of towns, but it manages to attract tourists all the same as it is the departing point for the man made reed islands to be found just a few kilometres into the lake. Touristy as it is, the experience is actually very interesting. After explaining how they are made, and everything is made of reeds, you are invited around to speak to the locals and look in their houses, at which point they all come over and fight over you and of course put you under enormous pressure to buy things you don’t need or have room for (giving them money is discouraged to avoid begging). After watching (somewhat cringingly) a little thank you/goodbye song and dance that the islanders perform for you, you are given the opportunity to have a ride in a boat, you guessed it, made of reeds, which is slow but fun, and also historically relevant as it seems the reed boats are very similar to those in which that aforementioned Polynesian islanders crossed the Pacific many thousands of years ago.

Recommended after this visit:
The ruins of Ollantaytambo and Pisaq
Casa del Corregidor Cafe in Puno (opposite the cathedral)
Hostal Corihuasi Cuzco and the flat in lovely colonial house the owners rent out on the other side of town

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