Barry Manilow woz ere (or not...)

At the Copa...Copacabana...but not THAT one! After an immense kerffuffel involving bus times leaving La Paz our journey to Copacabana on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca was finally underway. The bus had to cross the lake on some weird floating flat thing, but we arrived safe and dry after all.

You can just about see our bus in the middle of the lake

"Hooray we have made it Inca Brother!"

We arrived at Copabana (which was a bit like a Bolivian Barry Island) just in time for the Good Friday/Easter Sunday celebrations, so the small town was filled with tour busses and pilgrims from all over Bolivia, as well as tourists like us. The best view of the town was to be had at the top of a nearby mountain, so we joined the pilgrims in hiking up to the top, an also in the perilous scramble to the bottom!

The people hiked up to the top of the mountain (even really old women and men with crutches) 

to light incense and put flowers near the Catholic icons at the top

Bowler hatted lady eatin´ ice cream with a view out to Isla del Sol, 

the supposed birthplace of the Inca religion

Argh! Don´t look down

Celebrating hordes and a surprising number of duck pedalloes (duckalloes) on the lake shores

In the evening we joined the crowds and walked up to the cathedral for the Good Friday procession, which was a little bit sinister, with hooded and robed figures carrying a graphic model of Jesus´ corpse to the hill. The band played a creepy dirge and the whole procession stopped every few metres to read the Lord´s Prayer.

We didn´t follow them for very long.

As the crowds dispersed we booked ourselves on an overnight trip to visit the famous Isla del Sol, for a hike over the island and a visit to some Inca ruins.

Chincana ruins

Sacrificial table

Matt made his own Inca ruin

After a good night´s sleep we missed going down the Inca Stairs, and opted instead for a donkey filled mud path to get us to the boat launch! But here is a picture of the stairs anyway.

(not us)

The boat back to Copacabana was a bit over filled and tediously slow, but we got there eventually. The town was almost deserted now that the weekend Easter hordes had gone, so we thought we´d join them and jumped on a bus to Peru!

La Paz-portes es perdido!

From the small town of Sucre we headed for the bright lights of La Paz, Bolivia´s capital city, where the old women all wear huge dresses and bowler hats and they sell llama foetuses in the nearby witches market!

Plaza near our hotel

Wítches market on ´Gringo Alley´

La Paz is the world´s highest capital city and spreads out over the nearby mountain ranges.

We spent our time in La Paz trekking to and from the embassy in a desparate bid to re-unite us with some manner of leaving the country. With not too much hassle we obtained some interesting looking emergency passports and spent the rest of the time eating, sight seeing, drinking and shopping with Vicky, Ben, Annie and Jorge. Yey!

Guided tour round the cities main cathedral

Knowing we were soon to return to La Paz we left the city for the Bolivian Copacabana on Lake Titicaca.

Jenny Yey!

Sucre blur

The group sped up north for a quick gander at Sucre, the ex-capital of Bolivia. Unfortunately we timed it so that we arrived just as the president of Argentina arrived for a meeting with the president of Bolivia, so the town centre was rammed full of people, soldiers, marching bands and policemen. Aside from that, there wasn´t really anything very exciting there...except for a DINOSAUR PAYPHONE!!!!!!!!!!!

We sat in the square soaking up the sunshine and playing with the local urchin shoe-shine children.

Potosi - It´s all "mine" (ARF!)

After a night in Uyuni we took the bumpiest bus ever to the highest city in the world, Potosi. The bumps were fun but losing our passports wasn´t... more on this later.

The famous silver mines in Potosi brought the city it´s incredible wealth in colonial times, but now, with it´s silver resources depleted (and lack of imported slave labour) the city has diminished somewhat. Now the mines are worked for the minerals it produces, and the workers submit to extremely harsh working conditions to scratch a decent living. Dust filled holes? Narrow passages? Extreme heat? Sounds great, thought Matt and Jorge as they took themselves to the mines for a fun day out.

The Llama "lovers" and their dynamite

Into the mines

Jorge in a hole

Our guide, the "Master of Disaster"

Matt pulling his weight

It takes 4 hours to drill a hole for a stick of dynamite using this method -

hammer, twist, hammer,twist, hammer, twist...

The holes got even smaller than this

Tio, the devil god who watches over the mine,

he enjoys his offering of 96% alcohol - just like the miners!

After surviving the mine it was time to see those dynamite sticks in action!

The Master of Disaster living up to his name

yes it is lit...

Explosions!

Matt returned to the hostel after a hard day at the mines to find Jenny,Vicky, Annie and the supposedly sicky wicky Benny in floods of tears over Dirty Dancing. Next stop Sucre!

Gringos chasing ´mingoes

The most exciting way to leave Chile and continue our journey onwards was to take a 3 day jeep trek over the famous Salar de Uyuni or bloody great salt flats in Bolivia! Having teamed up with the aforementioned Ben and Vicky, we met Annie and George and we all battled to clambour into the same 6 person jeep for the trip with our driver Pablo!

Left to right: Matt, Jenny, Annie, George (Jorge), Ben and Vicky

The tour took us past lots of amazing lagoons, volcanoes and flamingoes. First up was Laguna Verde:

All over the desert people had made loads of rock piles, so Annie and Jen decided to join in the party. Wild!

Salvador Dali rocks

Stephen!

At around midday we soothed our aching bones from the traumas of off roading with a quick dip in the hot springs.

Next up was the thermal field. More Geysers!

We arrived at our hostel for the night near Laguna Colorado for a spot of lunch, before heading over for some flamingo and llama spotting!

´Mingoes

As the sun went down we feasted and settled down slumber party stylee for the night, complete with giggling and a pants dance from Jorge.

The next day took us to more lagoons and some interesting rock formations...

Rock that looks a bit like a tree (?)

Being letters - clearly a W and possibly an N are visible, but I think most people were being I´s

Active volcano

We spent the next night in an hotel made out of salt. Even the beds, tables and chairs were made of salt. For dinner Pablo provided a bottle of wine and something he swore was flamingo, but which we strongly suspected may have been chicken.

View from the salt hotel

The next morning we got up bright and early to drive to the salt flats for the sunrise. Excellent photo opportunities!

Time for breakfast at Fish Island, which we shared with an interesting visitor.

Pancha the ñandu (rhea) and Jorge

Then we took a brisk stroll around Fish Island to take in the Cacti and views.

The first salt hotel which was established on this trip had to be closed down, because of improper disposal of waste materials, but it is now a museum which you can visit. So we did.

Salt sculptures

Gringos chasing ´mingoes

The final stop was a visit to the eerie train graveyard in Uyuni.

This area was where the locals of Uyuni dumped all of their rubbish, including old trains, just outside the main part of town.

We had finally reached Uyuni. We said goodbye to Pablo and started to explore Bolivia without his watchful guidance.