Resume of trip in Bolivia
Hello boys and girls,
The english member of the team has been cordially invited to participate in this ´blog´.
Day 1: Our aircraft flew in to La Paz, passing by a snowy peak level with our flight path at around 5000m. The cabin pressure actually dropped when the doors where opened and we stepped into the 4050m air. Dusk in La Paz. A taxi ride through the shanty town near the airport, fat women in bowler hats everywhere. A steep decent over a stunning view of the town which sprawls into the valley below. Lights merge into stars in the deep blue sky.
Day 2: Culture shock. Altitude sickness. Fanfar in La Paz. Heat during the day, cold at night. Tentative conversations learning to negociate in sums of money that seem silly.
Day 3: Night bus to Sucre. Nightmare bus. All night wrapped in smelly old flea ridden blankets hurtling across an unknown landscape. Bolivian have extrodinary bladders. In the morning we made it to Sucre town centre. A stunning white city of colonial architecture surrounded by concrete and rubble. Great breakfast and a cool and calm hotel. Fruit juice in the market, Ade and Ced pay 3 bolivianos for two with added split fruit decorating the rim of their glasses. Elsa and I share a single glass of orange and some spiky fruit we don´t know. No decoration. 3 bolivianos and like a gringo I leave a 1 boliviano tip. Much to learn. Fruit juice later much regretted by the delicate french stomachs.
Day 4: Trekking near Sucre. River beds and a landscape alive with geology, no boring sedimentary basins here. Hot and dry. Probably not the best for a delicate french stomach trying to digest yesterdays fruit juice. Scary drive home in the back of a 4x4. Great opportunity to take photos from behind the plastic sheeting in the back of the jeep.
Day 5: Four hours in another bus to Potosi. The town is overlooked by what was once a mountain and is now an open cast mine. The Spanish killed 8 million here in the quest for wealth. The mountain once held most of the worlds silver, and Potosi was one of the richest and biggest cities in the world. Once again the architecture is a mix of colonial power and unstable concrete, all at over 4000m. Bus tomorrow for Tupiza.
Day 6: French stomachs can take no more. No bus. A great opportunity to see south america´s best museum La Casa de la Moneda. Built like a fortress by the spanish (with a little help from the slaves) to process silver into ingots and coins. The state takes control of the wealth, taxing every ingot leaving the town. Black men from Africa cannot survive in the mines due to the altitude, heat and cold. Indiginous people fill the gap. Mules have a life expectancy of 6 months. The evening is merrier, with fiesta in the streets.
Day 7: Happy at altitude. Morning bus to Tupiza. I wondered why the wheels were so big, rather like a JCB´s wheels. The bus has a military look to it. 20mins after leaving Potosi we are in the desert on a dirt road. 7 hours of stunning desert, tiny acacia trees, cactii, hill after hill after mountain after mountain... and then Tupiza, and its´ internet cafe.
Paul
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