April 22nd – April 30th

Copacabana

We started our foray into Bolivia by hopping half an hour over the border to Copacabana, a tourist trap lying on the shore of Lake Titicaca. The lake itself is the highest navigable lake in the world, stretching over both eastern Peru and western Bolivia for almost 200km, and it is really rather pretty.

Copacabana is where the cool guys hang out – lots of dreadlocks, baggy fisherman’s trousers and music on the beach – but it was on our route so we thought we’d pop in anyway. The first thing we noticed was how cheap everything was. We got two nights in a hostel with laundry included for only £27; bottles of beer were £2 and under and we got the worlds biggest breakfast for £3 each. The food here was pretty good too so we were happy customers. 

The only issue we found, which we later realised was true of all of Bolivia, was that curtains were a rarity, and something to be cherished. In Copacabana, we were deprived of them and so were awake with the sun.

We spent time at the church and even climbed Cerro Calvario, a ‘hill’ which had the Stations of the Cross positioned every 30m or so along its ascent. At the top was a statue where locals placed miniature versions of things they’d like God to gift them over the coming months – cars, money, crops etc. Lauren suggested leaving a pair of healthy lungs there but I didn’t laugh, mainly because I was out of breath. 

La Paz

LA PAZ IS NOT A SAFE CITY screamed the guide book. BEWARE OF SCAMMERS, MUGGERS AND THIEVES! PEOPLE MIGHT SPIT IN YOUR FACE AND STEAL YOUR PASSPORT! 

Needless to say we were excited about La Paz. 

It is no higher than many other places we’ve been, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way. For every one breath you take, at least 60% of your inhalation is petrol fumes, so it’s quite easy to lose your capacity to breathe normally. La Paz reminds me of one of those optical illusions where stairs seem to only go up – it didn’t matter which direction we took, we ended up climbing higher, stopping for breath and wondering why the hell we were so unfit. It turns out La Paz just does that to you, and Lauren felt the effects of altitude sickness soon after arriving. Apparently your heart rate increases by around 45% when you move to a greater altitude, which we knew was normal, but perhaps unhelpfully it does this while you’re resting – usually as you are going to sleep. This led to much discomfort for us both (Lauren unable to sleep; me having to hear about it (only joking Maz and Elaine, I looked after her)) and sadly Lauren was left bed-bound by this until we left. 

As a result, La Paz has been visited but not seen. It is a giant concrete patchwork of a city, where enormous hotels lean over crumbling houses, colour bursts out of each and every street and footpaths are pockmarked with holes just to keep you on your toes (or off your feet, should you fall into one). 

In terms of curtains, we had two windows which looked out onto the corridor – one from the bedroom and one from the toilet. We managed to stick some tape to a towel to cover up one window but the toilet was left for the peeping Toms. 

I had a few wanders of my own while Lauren was poorly, sometimes looking for oxygen (you can buy it in canisters), sometimes trying to find bookshops, always looking for food. The one night we went out together was at a lovely Moroccan restaurant with a very enthusiastic owner. I went back alone the following night and there was only me there. The owner put on George Michael’s Careless Whisper and I was left unsure whether he was taking the Mick or was trying to seduce me.

We slipped out of La Paz under the cover of darkness, glad to not have been MUGGED or SPAT ON, to catch a night bus where we were given a hot meal, drinks and an extremely thin blanket to protect us from the cold temperatures of the altiplano. 

The blanket was too thin. 

Uyuni

Uyuni is a small town of around 10,000 people which sits at around 3600 feet, built mainly for tourists who visit the nearby Salar de Uyuni and seemingly for the 9,500 students of the local schools. The curtains here were a tease – they looked perfect for the window of our room but ended up covering around 2/3.

Lauren’s altitude sickness was a distant memory and she was well enough to jump into a 4×4 to set off for the salt flats. She took me with her too. 

First stop was a train cemetery, full of rusting locomotives from the mid 20th century. Built in Sheffield, they played an important role in building Bolivia’s economy until they were ruined by the very thing they were transporting.

The salt industry is still important to the locals here, as we were shown when we visited Cochani, a small village that relies totally on farming and salt mining. Families are supported by the government to mine the salt from the flats and add in whatever is needed to make it edible before selling it to national chains and wholesalers. Salt is also a demonstration of wealth: houses built with salt are for the well-to-do and have to be torn down and rebuilt every ten years. We ate a beautiful lunch in a salt house, where the chairs, tables and even one of the condiments were made of salt. 

After this we drove for an age into the centre of the flats, where all that could be seen was a vast milky-white sea which reaches across 4000 square miles. It is a protected area, mainly because of its beauty but also because it holds up to 70% of the world’s lithium, which the Bolivian government are understandably keen to exploit and benefit from. 

In the salt flats we were encouraged to take a variety of photographs in groups. As you can imagine we were thrilled by this. We jumped, crouched and acted through various poses until we couldn’t take it anymore, then we were asked to do some more. Some of them came out really well, particularly at sunset which was stunning in itself. We only opted for the one day tour – perhaps with the benefit of hindsight we’d have stayed out in the flats for a night so we could have seen the stars. 

We left for the Bolivian/Argentinian border on the Friday night, taking the bounciest train we could find for an overnight jaunt. It doesn’t really feel as though we’ve been to Bolivia in the truest sense but you can’t plan for illness. Besides, Argentina is calling and that is full of steak and wine and dancing and football and hopefully curtains, so we can compensate for a whistle-stop tour of one country by spending much more in another.