La versión español esta bajo … “Going Down has never been better!”…Well that’s what our t-shirt says after cycling down the “World’s Most Dangerous Road”, more on this later … Because I’ve met lots of Spanish speakers I’ve also challenged myself to get a version of my blog going in Spanish … so below is my first attempt!
Lizzy and I in our 80’s wear ready to start our descent of the world´s most dangerous road
We have now crossed into Bolivia and have been doing quite a broad range of activities, from chilling in hammocks (something I am very good at!) to cycling at full pelt down the World’s Most Dangerous Road (something that initially scared me half to death!). We have also been in the Amazon, doing a spot of swimming with, fishing, catching and eating piranhas!! But, I must start my blog on Bolivia at the border crossing …
Even crossing the border into Bolivia was a crazy experience, it seemed that going into the tiny little immigration office (or shed as it looked) to leave Peru was really quite optional … then we just strolled across the border, once we were on Bolivian soil, again the onus was on us and it seemed somewhat optional, to head into the Bolivian immigration for our stamp. Actually the pushy women selling cheese empanadas (a Bolivian speciality) at the border were more authoritative than the immigration officials. Then as we re-boarded the bus, the driver simply asked us had we got our stamps and then the bus kept going, very relaxed indeed!
The cute llama that belonged to the little man with the boat who took us out to Isla del Sol
Copacabana and Lake Titicaca
We went straight to Copacabana, a gorgeous little town on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest lake. Here we had a chill-out day or two where we enjoyed lying in the hammocks of our cute little hostel on the lake and catching up on reading, diaries, sleep with our only mission in the day being to catch the sunset and dine on delicious trout, the local speciality! It was also on the way to Copacabana that we were reunited with Bree, our Aussie amiga, who amazed us with her art of deciphering a menu in Spanish (and any words associated with food!) .. needless to say we have been travelling with her ever since!!
Here we also did a great 15km walk around the lake from where we met a quirky little Bolivian man who came out to greet us on the walking track, and after giving his llama a quick kiss, he then proceeded to show us his name (highlighted but faded) in a dilapidated 1994 guidebook and also about 100 random postcards from all around the world, apparently from happy customers. Of course he was trying to sell us a trip in his boat across to the Island of the Sun … as we were quite amused by his enthusiasm, and we were heading that way anyway, we soon found ourselves on his little boat cruising across the lake to the shores of the Island of the Sun, where, as legend has it, the children of the sun were born and thereby the beginning of the Inca civilisation. On the Island of the Sun we enjoyed a beautiful sunset and afterwards ate in a tiny restaurant on top of the hill that had no electricity, yet somehow managed to produce delicious homemade pizza and pasta. Later the owner came and chatted to us for ages, he is the local indigenous leader and filled us in on all the local politics!
Our only mission each day was catching the sunset from a lookout above the town!
At the world’s highest oxygen bar, of course only preparing for the ride the next day.
La Paz and The World’s Most Dangerous Road
We reluctantly headed back to a capital city after a tranquilo time at the lake, but really only to organise to get back out of the city again! However, whilst in La Paz, a major challenge we set ourselves was conquering the World´s Most Dangerous Road. In order to prepare ourselves, the night before we headed out to the World´s Highest Oxygen Bar (I know Australia does lots of ‘big’ things but Bolivia takes the cake for having the largest number of ‘world’s highest’ things). Here we sucked back 4 different flavours of oxygen (vanilla, berry etc) for 10 minutes, and despite looking like I was back in hospital for asthma, we didn’t feel remarkably different afterwards, but i guess we´ll never know the effect it had!
Once we got our bikes and were geared up to look like either bad rock stars or bandits from the 1980’s , we then got slightly worried when the guide handed out a small bottle of what smelt like methylated spirits (and he later advised us that it was!) and we were told to spill a few drops on the ground and then take a sip, all in order to protect ourselves during the ride ahead, apparently it was an offering to Pachamama or mother earth so she wouldn’t claim our life instead! Again, like the oxygen bar, I guess we´ll never know if it was what kept us safe during the ride!
The ride was mostly downhill but also a couple of difficult uphill section that were made more difficult by the torrential rain that haunted us throughout. Lizzy and I have drawn the short straw in terms of weather, but it definitely added another dimension to our trip down the road that claimed its latest victim only 2 weeks ago ….
The motorbikes we hooned into town on after arriving in Rurrenabaque
Spotting Rattlesnakes in the Amazon
We then went for 5 days into the Amazon on a tour of the Pampas or wetlands region. We loved this little town, called Rurrenabaque, from the moment we arrived, which involved the tiny plane landing in a field that could easily have been confused as being the local footy pitch! We then jumped on the back of motorbikes (the local taxis) and hooned our way into town to find our hostel. The temperature here is divine, and with the exception of the mosquitoes, we were loving it. It is also the only place I’ve been that serves a beer in a full thermal flask (see the pic below!).
You can tell the heat of a place by the size of its beer flask hey!
We had a few surprises the next day, the first being our 3 hour drive into the jungle in a 4WD which had so many cracks in the windscreen that the driver had to put his hand up to hold it in place every time we passed a car, so we were feeling quite secure at this point! Our second surprise was when our tour guide, Norman, suddenly stopped the car after about half an hour and pointed to a distant tree saying “in that tree there is a slut, do you want to see the slut?”. When we looked quite confused, he just kept repeating “it’s a slut … there is a slut”. This went on for a while but we did work out that he meant “a sloth” and not a slut and poor Norman couldn´t really understand why Lizzy was laughing hysterically in the back seat. Anyway, after a close call with getting bogged (which involved us helping push!) we eventually arrived at the place where we then caught our own private dug-out canoe up the river to a quaint little thatched cottage that would be our home for the following 3 days.
At this point Norman also decided that my Spanish was better than his English (which didn’t surprise us after the ‘slut’ episode) so he proceeded to conduct the whole tour in Spanish from there on. I felt sorry for Lizzy though as he didn’t leave me much time to translate so by the time I began recounting the life cycle of the anaconda to her i’m not sure I remembered all the finer details, translating is a skill in its own right i realised!
Sitting on the front of our canoe on a typical day going up the river looking for dolphins and monkeys!
In the jungle we had the joy of swimming with a large group of pink river dolphins, these guys became very important friends as they kept the piranhas away from us allowing us to enjoy our swim and leave the water fully intact! Later that day we fished for piranhas and I managed to catch a baby one that was actually quite delicious when the cook surprised us with an entree of grilled piranha that evening!
Lucky they weren’t relying on our fishing ability for dinner .. it made a nice entree though!
We also went walking in search of the infamous anaconda that can often be found in these areas. Although the anaconda managed to allude us, I did manage to spot a rattlesnake curled up under a tree when poking around in search of the big A! Our tour guide had only ever seen a rattlesnake once in his life and got quite excited when I let out a big scream at spotting the snake. He then got his big stick and proceeded to get in under the bush that the snake was in and was thrashing around to try to get the snake to get into a better position for our viewing, all the while telling us .. this is the most dangerous snake in the world … one drop of its venom can instantly kill 5 people. As we were only 3 people in the group, we figured we´d have enough venom to share with an extra 2 friends if Stormin Normin kept thrashing around the way he did. Every now and then, from quite a distance, we could hear the deathly rattle noise the snake was letting out to warn Norman that it was not happy … Needless to say we got away unscathed and Norman had a great story to tell everyone back at the lodge!
Shortly after this photo the monkeys jumped into our boat … crazy little things.
Back in Rurrenabaque, we thought we were hallucinating at breakfast when we lifted our heads from the menu to see none other than Jesus riding a donkey through the streets surrounded by a throng of people .. of course it was the local celebration of Palm Sunday but it certainly flipped us out a little!! It was then a little bit touch and go as to whether the tiny plane could take off from the footy pitch after quite a bit of rain but luck was on our side and we were soon winging our way back to La Paz.
The next installment of our adventures is in a town called Sucre where we are stopping for 2 weeks to learn spanish an do some volunteer work ….
So … until next time … Adios chicos y chicas 😊
Ahora en español … y lo siento … seguro que comete muchos errores en mi escrito … No esta un traducción exacto pero espero que uds disfruten …
Nunca antes bajar habia sido tan bueno
Que escribe en nuestras camisetas que recibimos despes completando ´La Carretera mas peligroso en el mundo´.
Pero necesito comenzar este blog donde cruzamos la frontera de Peru y Bolivia. El bus paró en la frontera y parece opcional a entrar el edificio de la inmigración (como un cobertizo pequeño) y despues recibimos nuestro sello, caminamos a través de frontera a Bolivia y otra vez, parece opcional a entra la inmigración de Bolivia. De hecho las mujeres que estaban vendiendo empanados (una comida tipica de Bolivia) parecen sermas autoridado que la oficina de inmigración.
Copacobana y Lago de Titicaca
Fuimos directamente a un pueblo en el lago de titicaca, se llama ´Copacabana´. Aqui llevamos algunos dias a descansar, estabamos tumbado en las hamacas, leimos, escribimos en nuestros diarios y vimos las puestas del sol. Aqui tambien disfrutamos comiendo trucha (la especialidad local).
Aqui caminamos 17 kilometres en un camino alrededor el lago hasta le conocimos a un hombre, quien vino a nos encontrar, pero primero el le dio su llama un beso! El nos mostró un guía (desde 1994) donde su nombre fue escribir y tambien approximente 100 postales desde sus clientes felizes … por supuesto el queria vendernos boletos en su barco a la isla del sol. Porque estabamos yendo en esa dirección, fuimos con el al lugar donde las civilización de las incas comenzó.
The night after we conquered the road, relaxing with a Pisco Sour
La Paz y ´La Carretera mas Peligroso en el Mundo´
Tenia que regressarnos a una cuidad para organizar a salir otra vez. Pero cuando estabamos aqui, conquistamos ´la carretera mas peligroso en el mundo´. El dia fue bueno despues adjustamos a las bicicletas y la carretera de suciedad. Tambien, antes comenzamos, nuestro guía nos dio una botella pequeña de alcohol (que olía como licore fuerte) y el nos dijo beberla y tambien poner un pocito en la tierra (una ofera a pachamama para que ella no llevaría nosotros!)
Despues recibimos nuestras bicicletas y la ropa de protección (desde los años ochentas!), estabamos listas. Este carretera llevó su ultimo victim solamente hace dos semanas.
Buscando Serpientes de Cascabels en el Amazon
Ibamos por 5 dias a el amazon en un tur de las pampas. Nos encontra este pueblo pequeño, se llama rurrenabaque, desde el momento que llegaramos. Fuimos en un avión pequeño a Rurrenabaque cuando aterrizamos en que se puede confudir facilmente por un campo de futbol! Despues montamos motos (el taxi aqui) al pueblo a buscar un hostel. La temperatura aqui es bueno, y excepto para los mosquitos, todo estaba bien. Aqui es tambien el unico lugar cuando se recibio una cerveza en un termo grande (ver la pictura bajo).
Teniamos algunos sopresas el proximo dia .. el primero fue nuestro 3 horas de conducido a la selva en un carro que tenia tanto rajas en el parabrisas que el chauffer necessita agarro el parabrisas cuando pasamos otros carros! No pude traducir la proxima broma porque no sé la palabra en español!! ¿Vds pueden ayudarme?
Our first bit of sun for ages … relaxing at our hostel ´La Cupala´ overlooking Lake Titicaca
En la selva, nadamos con un grupo grande de delphins … fue increible. Ellos eran muy importante porque ellos parieron las piranhanas desde mordiendo! Despues pescamos para piranhanas y saqué una pequeña que cocinaron para nuestra cena!
Un dia caminamos mucho para buscar una anaconda. No pudimos ver una anaconda, pero vimos una serpiente de cascabel. Yo lo busqué, abajo algunos leños. Nuestro guia nos dijo que ese serpiente es la mas pelirosa en el mundo! Aparentemente, una gota de su venom puede matar 5 personas y nuestro guia queria cambia la posición de la cascabel para tomar un foto mejor … loco loco!!
Ahora, estamos en Sucre por 2 semanas, estamos estudiando español and trabajando voluntario.
Hasta luego, Besitos, Tamara
Cracking a bottle of wine with Bree, Lizzy and Emma in Copacabana
Lizzy and I about to head down … in the mist!
Showing off the teeth, and that’s only a baby!
Our typical positions each day, deck chairs on a dug out canoe … Norman in the background steering us along and spotting the wildlife!
The little boy that lived at the lodge where we stayed in the jungle that came running to help us off the boat whenever he heard us returning
Norman thrashing around while the snake is rattling and he’s telling us that 1 drop of its venom can kill 5 people – loco loco!
The windscreen that was so cracked that the driver held it every time we passed an oncoming car!
The skin of an anaconda that we found .. the closest we got. I was loving the big hat that we could borrow from the lodge!
Shortly after seeing Jesus pass on a donkey …
Tamara's Travel Blog 