Sucre
The original plan was to stay one night in Cochabamba and take a bus to Sucre the following night. But when we (i continued travelling with Thomas because we had about the same route in mind) got to the bus terminal from Toro Toro, just to ask about the buses, we had to make a quick decision and changed our minds because 'last minute' bus tickets were being sold and we found one for an unbeatable price. So we got on that bus at that moment, without having eaten anything, and woke up in a new place in the early morning hours of the next day.
The first difficulty in Sucre was to find a hostel - it's a very touristic place, full of Europeans, and prices were high for Bolivian standards (which doesn't mean it was high for European standards, but still). But after a while we found a cheap, though not very nice, place right across from the central market.
It turned out that that was great because Sucre's market is one of the richest and cleanest markets I have seen so far. The breakfast and lunch was cheap and good, but the best part was the juice section. Fresh juices and milkshakes made out of fruits that you're never gonna find in Austria for the price of about 50 euro cents for two glasses. That was definitely the best part of the breakfast every day.
Our first day in Sucre we just spent walking around the city. Sucre is the old capital of Bolivia and due to its white colonial buildings far more beautiful than any other Bolivian city. It's also a very clean place and people are different - all in all it felt more European.
In the afternoon I went to look for another place to stay for the following days. After asking around a little bit I was successful and found a hostel that was a little more expensive but also a lot nicer and it had a kitchen.
So the next day in the morning we moved with all our stuff and since Thomas was taking Spanish classes I had some time to wander around on my own. I spent some hours drawing, and in the afternoon we went to the market. At that point we were being joined by a French guy, who wasn't staying in our hostel but he spent a lot of time there with us.
In my time in Sucre I also went to a museum, which had an anthropological section and an exhibition of Bolivian contemporary art. But most of the time I spent walking around, drawing or cooking. I had a good time there but at some point I just felt like there wasn't really any more to do for me, so I decided to move on to Potosi after a few days. At that point Thomas had also given up his Spanish classes, and so we continued to Potosi together.
Potosi
The bus ride from Sucre to Potosi wasn't that long and the landscape was worth being seen.
When we got there we first had a little difficulty with orientation, but then found a bus from the terminal into direction of the center, where we started looking for a place to stay after a quite exhausting walk uphill for a couple of blocks. But we found a good place, and after dropping our stuff we went to explore the city a little bit.
Potosi is a medium-sized city at an altitude of about 4000 msnm. It has quite a heavy history, having once been one of the richest cities in South America because of the so called 'cerro rico', the 'rich mountain'. Working under the worst of conditions in the colonial times, the miners had made this city as rich as it used to be. They exploited mostly silver, but after years the mountain not only shrank, but the silver veins disappeared, leaving the city with impressive churches and buildings but little else.
The mines of the cerro rico are still active and working conditions have improved (most miners now work in cooperatives), and even tourists are being taken into the mountain to see and learn about its history and the miners' life. If you ask me, you can not only argue about the fact that tourists are being taken to a place where the workers suffer from severe illnesses after about 10 years of working, but also about how far working conditions REALLY have improved. The tunnels are as dark and claustrophobic as always and the walls are full of toxics, that you have to breathe in every step you take.
I was very sceptical about doing a tour like this but at the same time I found the intense, and still very present, history interesting.
Since I couldn't make up my mind if I should do a tour or not, we spent our first morning at a hot spring called the 'ojo del inca' (eye of the inca), a perfectly round lake in the middle of the mountains with thermal water. Potosi was pretty fucking cold, but swimming in the warm water and then being exposed to the cold wind felt relaxing and cleansing.
And after a lot of thinking I finally decided to go for the mines tour in the afternoon. I made it to the agency just in time and landed in a multicultural group of four girls. Our guide was a miner himself, and it made me feel at least a little better that he didn't have to work in those terrible mines as long as there were tourists like us.
I'd already heard from several people that visiting the mines is one of the memorable experiences in Bolivia, and I think they were right. It really was an intense experience - we spent nearly two hours inside the mines of the cerro rico. The only light that existed was the one from our headlamps - without them we were surrounded by the darkest of darkness. Some of the walls were covered in shades of blue, green and yellow, all of that making the already stuffy air not the healthiest to breathe. The ceiling of the tunnels was partly so low that we almost had to crawl and I hit my head several times (thank god we had helmets).
We met one working miner and all I'm going to say about that is, that I'm happy that we didn't meet any more.
After those hours in the mines I definitely wasn't in the happiest of moods, but at the end I think I'm glad I did it. But at the same time I don't think I would do it again.
After the second freezing cold night in Potosi, we left for Uyuni on a Sunday morning.
Unyuni
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| laguna colorada |
We got there some time in the afternoon, and after dropping our stuff at the first cheap hostel we found, we went to book a classic three-day-tour through the salar and surrounding desert/volcanic landscape.
The tour started on the following day in the late morning hours and we ended up being in a group with two Japanese and two French. Age-wise we were completely mixed, ranging from a 63-year-old Frenchman being the oldest to me being the youngest with my 19 years. But during the following days we found out once more how unimportant age is when it comes to traveling and we all got along well, including our super friendly guide and driver.
After leaving Uyuni our first stop was the 'train cemetery', a place in the desert where they had just dumped their old iron trains. It looked cool, but also had something of a horror movie scenario. After that we drove into the salar, the probably most impressive part of the trip. We first visited the salt hotel (completely built out of salt, but not being used as a hotel anymore), where we also had lunch out of the back of our truck, looking at the endless white salt that surrounded us.
Our next stop was an island in the middle of the salt desert, overgrown by huge cactus plants. At that point we really were in the middle of nothing but salt, only being able to make out some mountains in the far distance.
At the island we also had time to take our 'crazy pictures', and then moved on out of the salar to the village where we would spent our first night. Our hotel was nice, partly made out of salt as well, and we were accompanied there by a huge group of Coreans. The dinner was good and all of us passed out pretty early after having had a long day and two more in front of us.
On the second day we left earlier in the morning, because we had a long way to kill that day. We went south, stopping at lakes and big volcanic rock formations. We entered some national park, which was quite funny because the guard was still sleeping when we got there. We had to wake him up and out of the house came a sleepy, drunk guy, almost falling over his empty beer cans from the night before.
Our lunch we had again out of the back of the truck, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We made it down almost to Chile, visiting a turquoise-white lake at the bottom of a volcano which was half on the Bolivian, half on the Chilenean side.
Then we went back up north, passing some geysers, more rock formations and an active volcano.
The place where we spent our second night was freezing cold and only existed as a lodging place for the tours. Which means that other than a couple hospedajes there was nothing there. The best thing about that was the night sky, which was incredibly beautiful.
On our last day we got up early in the morning and started to make our way back up to the town of Uyuni. We stopped at the Laguna Colorada, a kind of reddish lake with a ton of flamingos hanging around there, some more rock formations and other lakes.
We got back to town some time in the afternoon, and I was ready to go back to La Paz and to Peru from there. But it shouldn't be that easy..
The first thing I found out was, that there were no buses leaving to La Paz because of a miners' strike. When I went to ask the bus company what's going on and to change my bus ticket if necessary, the office was closed. So I went to the ATM to get some cash. That didn't work. When I wanted to pay the internet where I had to go to check my bank account, my wallet was gone. Including my bus ticket, my bank card and the last 7 Bolivianos I had. Together with a police officer I went back to the bus agency's office to get my us ticket back. Luckily they were open, and even said that the bus would leave. But they weren't sure if it would really get to Oruro (the town where I had to stop before going to La Paz) and it was a night bus. It was still a better option than selling the bus ticket and being stuck in ugly Uyuni without money or anything.
So I got on the bus, and it actually did arrive in Oruro in the middle of the night.
Oruro
When I got into the bus terminal, there was a guy selling tickets to La Paz. But when I asked him if the bus would actually get all the way to La Paz, he couldn't really give me an answer. And I still didn't have any money so I had to wait for the money exchange to open anyways (I had some Soles left). I made myself comfortable next to the police office and tried to sleep. Head on the backpack, on a freezing cold floor.
Next to me was a couple, waiting for the morning to come. I talked with them a little bit and they were super worried about me. Before they left they borrowed me some money to get to La Paz. And bought me a warm drink, whatever the hell it was.
When daytime finally came, I thought that the worst was over and that there had to be a bus to La Paz sooner or later. More later as I had to find out...the miners kept blocking the roads and no one knew when anything. So I spent my day at the marvellous Oruro bus terminal, waiting for something to change. Some time in the afternoon met an Australian couple, with which waiting got a little easier. At least I could leave the terminal without my backpack and get something to eat.
Josh and Emma originally wanted to cross the border to the Chilenean coast, but the border was closed because of the earthquakes there. It was the same as going to La Paz: nobody knew anything, but everybody said that "soon there will be buses". Other than that not much exciting happened all day long. Until some one, first very quietly, and almost hard to hear, started selling tickets to La Paz. I almost couldn't believe it (and actually didn't until I arrived in La Paz), but apparently two buses just got in and the roads were more or less clear. I got more positive when, after a while, more and more bus companies started to sell their tickets, and was excited when the bus finally left. Only one more stop on the way to Peru!
La Paz
If you ask me, there was not a single sign of a road block all the way, and we arrived safely. Only that we didn't arrive at the bus terminal, but outside because "officially" there were still no buses.
But I could wait inside for my couchsurfing host to pick me up, and while I was waiting I met another guardian angel, who gave me some money so I didn't have to change my Soles for one day. Or two, as my plans got delayed by a massive hangover and a lost camera.
More than that is not to say about my second visit to La Paz.
