So off we went, Sandra, myself and our new found ‘amiga’ Vicky (or Bicky as they say round here!) on a voyage south. Below is a brief summary of our adventures:

La Sarena

Our fist stop was La Sarena. After an overnight bus ride we arrived early in the morning. We found the hostel Residencial Joffrie after a short walk from the bus terminal. It was a very welcoming place and they let us check in immediately and also gave us a good breakfast to settle us in. Refreshed, we took a stroll into town, which seemed very nice, had a look round and booked up on a tour at the Mamalluca observatory for some night time star gazing. The view of the night sky was amazing, and the guide was very informative pointing out the Southern cross and countless other galaxies including the Milky Way and our nearby neighboring planets. Amazing!!

This region across Chile, especially in the Attacama dessert, has the best atmosphere and the skies here are clear from cloud and transparent making it perfect for star gazing and it’s the reason so many observatories choose to have their telescopes here. Indeed at Mamalluca they competed with Hawaii to host the worlds biggest telescope, though they eventually lost out. Though they do have a VLT (that’s a Very Large Telescope to the rest of us!)

Valparaiso

We left for Valparaiso the next day on a what was a 5 hour bus journey. We decided to stay in the Cerro Concepcion part of town as it sounded the most appealing being on one of the more chilled/bohemian hills (Cerro’s). We really liked Valparaiso, though we met some people who didn’t like it at all. It’s quite a unique town what with all it’s hills, connected by a countless number of fernicular/cable cars (Asuncions), and it’s windy cobble-stoned streets lined with colourful houses and buildings. We stayed at the Hostel Horizonte and it reminded me of the old house I rented in Holloway some years ago. Coco, the owner was very like-able and gave us some good advice, though I’d recommend Cinzano over Mastodonte for Chorrillana (plate of spicy pork sausages with onions and egg, on top of a mountain of chips) any day of the week!

We spent 5 days here just chilling and walking round the town from the wonderful markets and the close by Vino del Mar - billed as the place the Valparisians go to ‘play’!
We saw another football match here in Vino del Mar: Everton Versus Universidad de Catolica (who were top of the league). It was a strange game that suddenly came to life 5 minutes from the end. Everton were winning 1-0 when suddenly the referee sent 2 Everton players off for only-he-knew-what allowing U.Catolica to equalise in the last minute. This really created a bit of tension and the talk of the town over the next few days was of scandal and match fixing. I’ve got to say it looked very suspicious from where we were sitting!

Santiago

Next up we took a short bus ride (1 hour) into Santiago. We went to the Baquedano district and stayed for 7 days at the Hostel Provencia. It wasn’t bad and was full of colourful characters. We celebrated another Independence day celebration here and the Chileans certainly know how to party! The strangest drink so far has got to be the Terramoto - translated it means Earthquake. A potent mixture of ice cream, wine and a liqueur all mixed together. The second one was much better than the first and after that, well, lets just say it was just a bluur!

The Chileans are extremely friendly people and especially welcoming to visitors. In Valparaiso a young group of people on a night out spotted us walking past and immediately called out to us ‘Hey, Welcome to Chile!‘ and here in Santiago a small boy went up to Sandra and said the same ‘Welcome to my country, hope you enjoy your stay!‘.

Puerto Varas

It was time to say goodbye to ‘Bicky’ as we headed further south to Chiloe, and she went east into Argentina to Mendoza. We took another overnight bus to Puerto Varas where we decided to stay for a few days to break up the long journey. It was a lovely small town with a strong Germanic influence, evident in it’s architecture and local food and beer. It lies on the shore of the Llanquihue Lake, one of the largest natural lakes in South America and is watched over by the active Osorno volcano and the snowcapped peaks of Mt. Calbuco and Mt. Tronador.

We stayed at the aptly named Villa Germana run by 2 sisters who originated from Frankfurt. Ideally we could have spent a bit longer here exploring the surrounding area, especially a trek up to the Volcano and a tour or two of the surrounding Lake district. Our come-back-another-time list is growing as this town, and area, have certainly been added!

Chiloe: Castro

After a 5 hour bus/one hour ferry crossing we finally made it to Castro, the main city on Chiloe island. At first we were a little disappointed with it as, always, we had built up a different impression of what to expect. Timmy, the Belgium chap we met in Lima & Cusco had tipped us off about the place as he has family here, and was here himself a few weeks before us. And he really sold it to us.

Luckily though we found, or rather Marta found us, a lovely hostel to stay. Marta was waiting at the bus terminal and promptly persuaded us to check out her ‘Hostal Cordillera‘ as she said it was only around the corner from the one we intended to stay at. Indeed it was, and it had such a welcoming and homely feel to it that we decided to stay, and at 15000 Pesos for an ensuite double (admittedly after some of Sandras negotiating skills) was an absolute bargain! We ended up staying for 5 days !!

Marta turned out to be extremely accommodating and we’d heartily recommend a stay at her place if you should find yourself in Castro. So after a ropey start Chiloe was a delightful place to spend some time and the National park was wonderful to see. In hindsight we wished we had stayed at one of the cabins there, or during summer you could pitch up a tent… This too has been added to the list for sure!

After 5 wonderful days we took a bus to Bariloche in Argentina, take your seats for the next round, it gets pretty hairy!

After a few days in San Pedro the one noticeable thing was the dogs. They’re everywhere. In the day they mostly sleep in the shade, wherever they find it, but at night they kind of stroll around town in big packs, almost like they own the town. Some dogs take up their positions in the doorways of Cafes, Restaurants and shops, kind of like guard dogs, while the others are on the hunt. This normally involved a hungry pack of males fighting for the attention of a surrounded and hounded female. These dogs would be haring around town all night until the victor would claim his prize in front of a full audience, and they weren’t fussy about where the stage was!

In this one, not-isolated, incident it happened to be a small Panaderia (Bakers) and there wasn’t a thing the poor owner could do to stop them. Eventually a bucket of water was produced but that only managed to remove them to just outside her shop entrance. Much later the dogs could be seen resting up by the side of the main street. The ‘top’ dog next to his ‘prize’ and all the other contenders in close proximity. I’ve really never seen anything like this before.
One other thing of note is that all dogs, so far throughout South America, seem to be extremely wary of humans. And the majority carry a limp. Sadly I think it has something to with most dogs getting beaten from a very young age. Here, dogs are just dogs…

Well I’ve got to hand it to him, he put a real good show on of how important this bit of paper was to leave the country, but 50 Bolivianos would make it alright!! It could have been worse really and as luck would have it I had exactly that amount on me. The only thing that annoyed me was I could have got the exit stamp for 20 Bolivianos before starting the tour in Uyuni. Though I didn’t know that at the time and I presume there would have still been an issue with the missing departure card.

All sorted I ventured outside and one look around confirmed that I was the only one left waiting at the border. I’m suddenly transported back to my childhood when I used to be the last kid waiting for his mum! [Don't worry Ma, all's forgiven!].

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, I saw a figure looking as stranded as me. I went over and before I reached a voice said “Please tell me you’re going to Chile?” with this we both started laughing, more in relief than anything else, and this is how I met Vicky. It turned out we both had the same transfer ticket and so felt better about waiting at this desolate out-post. Soon though a truck pulled up and the driver went into chat to the immigration officer. After a short time they both came out and started speaking in Spanish to us both. Unfortunately Vicky’s Spanish was as good as mine so it was a bit tricky to make out what they were saying, though this was the jist - “No more buses today but we could hitch a ride in the pickup to San Pedro de Attacama [Chile]“.

After much confusion we both decided to risk it and threw our backpacks into the back and hopped in. 5 minutes down the road we saw a bus coming towards us and on close inspection it was ours! With this the driver pulled over and motioned for us to get out. He didn’t seem to understand my request to kindly drive us back to the Bolivian border! So we had a bit of a hike back but as luck would have it it was our bus, though we’d have to wait while the driver fed the passengers he’d brought who were doing the opposite tour to us. One hour later we were again on our way. We now felt quite privileged as we had a whole bus to ourselves!

The drive was mostly down hill as we descended from Bolivia’s high altitude and as such it started to become much warmer. Just before the border the driver turned around and mentioned that we weren’t allowed to take any Coca leaf or any plants (including souvenirs made from reeds and palms) through into Chile. Well I was OK as I used all my Coca up on the treks (with loads of help from the last guide we had) and I didn’t buy any souvenirs made from reeds or palms but Vicky was looking a bit concerned. She handed one bag of Coca leaves over to the driver, who promptly threw it out the window, handed over a boat made from reeds and palms but she couldn’t remember if she had any more Coca leaves stashed in her backpack! On reaching the Chilean border we got our passports stamped and had to have our bags scanned. Vicky went first and there were no problems, although I did notice the guards weren’t really paying attention. When my bag went through they stopped it, studied the monitor screen, reversed it, had a conversation while glancing over at me, then put it back through the scanner and finally waved me on - no idea what that was about, maybe just for show?? Still we’d finally made it into Chile, and it was hot! On reflection maybe it was me sweating in a big hoody that made them suspicious??

We reached San Pedro de Attacama roughly 15 minutes later and took a short stroll into the center to find a hostel. It didn’t take us long to find Residencial Vilacoyo which seemed charming and within both budgets. We had a room each for 7000 pesos (roughly 980 to the GBP). Mine was a 3 bed dorm all to myself so I could really spread out! After a lovely hot shower I took a stroll around town, which after a month in Bolivia felt like paradise. San Pedro de Attacama looked and felt like a kind of Mediterranean town with it’s sunshine, white buildings, tiny streets and slow pace. Just my kind of town and after checking my emails I would have two more days of doing nothing but swinging in a hammock while waiting for Sandy - it sure is a hard life at times but hey, if someones got to do it, you can count me in!

I soon got myself booked on a bus that was to leave Potosi at 11am. It actually left at 12pm as it waited to fill up. The bus company were really quite cheeky in that they had a big luxury bus parked outside their office to which I thought I had bought a ticket. 10 minutes before it was supposed to leave a driver came and drove the empty bus away and replaced it with a smaller and much more basic bus! The luggage went on top and I squeezed on with the rest of the passengers. I had to move from my allocated seat, although not fully understanding why. It seemed that a local guy needed my seat for his spare wheel that he was carrying… quite odd! Eventually the bus left on what was a long 6 hour journey across a very bumpy and dusty road.

Getting off the bus in Uyuni we were greeted by a few tour agencies offering tours into the Salar. Most were 3 day tours but you could also do a day trip. After talking to 3 of the agencies I decided to go for the company that offered me a hotel for the night in Uyuni, the 3 day tour through the Salar and also a transfer into Chile at the end. I also got her to throw in a sleeping bag for 700 Bolivianos. It seemed a fare price at the time, although I was to find out some people got the tour for 550 Bolivianos, including a transfer to Chile.

After spending the night in an extremely cold Uyuni I made my way to the office and waited for the agency to pick me up. I must have waited for 45 minutes and was just getting worried when the lady I bought the ticket from turned up in a taxi. She handed me my transfer to Chile ticket and put me in the taxi which took me to another agency that was just over the road from the hotel I had stayed in! I soon realised that it really doesn’t matter who you book with, you still get lumped together in any group that needs filling! My advice is to just go for the cheapest. Although all the tour agencies go to great pains to tell you of the importance of booking with their tour company, in reality they are just a tour agency and you end up going through one central company and get put in any group and any 4×4 to make up the numbers…

The adventure started and I was with 5 others: two Irish girls, two New Zealand boys and a Scottish lad. They had all been travelling together for a couple of months so it helped when we kind of joined another group at the hotel in the evenings, I was less of an outsider!

First stop was an old Train Cemetery. Quite surreal. There were a few long trains and countless other carriages and engines all rusting in the dessert where they last stopped. It looked like one of the trains came to a halt as it ran off the tracks and into the sand.

Straight after this it was into the Salar itself. The landscape now turned from the baron rocky desert to a brilliant white salty flat void. Spread out at various places there were mounds of salt awaiting to be taken away for processing. It’s hard to explain this part of the world, it really is magnificent. There appears to be nothing except volcanoes and mountains on the distant horizon in all directions. The salt beneath our feet is set in a cracked looking pentagonal pattern that stretches for miles. I’ll let the pictures explain!

The first night we stayed in a salt hotel. It was built from bricks made of salt and had cactus wood furniture inside. It was very cold at night here, but thankfully the group that arrived before us had been out to get some booze so we were able to get our beer coats on and stave off the cold!
Taking pictures outside at sunset it suddenly made sense that this whole area used to be covered by water. It was obvious from the coral and reef like plants and rocks.

The next day we were up early and out the door by 4:30am. It was absolutely freezing! The day was full of lakes, flamingo’s and volcanoes. We stopped off at the Salvador Dali inspired rock formations. I was a little disappointed with this part, I thought they would be slightly different having seen Dalis paintings but then he did have a fantastic imagination right?!

At night we had a kind of party, mainly to stave of the cold again but it was all good. Felt a bit rough in the morning as we had another really early start to get to the geysers for sunrise. After it was a quick stop at the thermal pool to warm up from the extreme cold, then a quick look at Lago Verde surrounded by live volcanoes then off to the Bolivian border to end the tour and cross over into Chile. Exhausting but a fascinating few days.

Check out the gallery here »

When our tour began at 14:00 I was joined by two Bolivian girls, we took a short taxi ride to the “miners market” in town, together with our Spanish speaking guide. There was a selection of gifts that we could have chosen from, this is customary for tour groups to bring for the miners. This included dynamite and Coca Leaves. No worries there, we went for the safest option. Just in case we blew ourselves up before we got there! So we each bought a bag of coca leaves and large bottles of soft drinks for gifts. After buying our gifts and slipping into our finest mining gear of rubber boots, rain suits, helmets and a head-lamp we continued our tour to the Co-Operativa mine. This started with a walk through a tunnel that looked more like going into a black abyss. There were rail tracks below our feet, these were being used for the trolley’s to dump their loads outside, along with mud and puddles, there was also some wooden supports around us, some air compressor lines loosely strung above our head, and the air was thick and humid and there were drops of water/acid coming from everywhere. The actual tunnel was so low and cramped with cables, wooden gates that I had to keep a crouched walk for the entire tour as I kept bagging my head most of the time, not that I am that tall but these mines are built for Bolivians and they are not the tallest of people!

To be perfectly honest I wasn’t sure of what I got myself into, and was thinking Lionel had made the right decision! But at this point it was too late to end the tour, so I decided to put a brave face and carry on with it. Our guide took us up one of the 4 levels so that we could see the miners digging and collection of the minerals. We took a ladder one level up, at this point I was really frightened of getting up, the ladder looked very unstable, it was a wooden ladder which did not have much support on the ground and the next floor was very high up. Our guide just kept saying: “It’s OK, just come up!” So up we went! We then went on a really narrow passage to meet some workers on this level. In this area there were 3 miners who were collecting minerals. They had a very good system going on: one worker was about 60m below breaking and collecting the minerals then placing them in a big leather basket while another one on the top level was managing a very archaic winch and a third one would grab the basket and empty it and send it back down for more. This was such a dynamic team to watch, it was absolutely mind blowing, specially because we were so close to the action, amazing to watch but yet so dangerous. We could have had an accident easily! At one point the tour guide told us to take photos which I was a bit reluctant but I then joined the group. I only realised of the danger after seeing one of the photos where I had my neck almost hanging in one of the cables.

The mountain of Cerro Rico (Rich Mountain) currently has 15,000 miners working in 400 mines, this is a huge operation. This mine is filled with silver, lead, zinc and copper - over 5.5 million metric tons of ore. On that particular day the mine that we visited was pretty empty, which I thought:” Great!” This is after seeing the precarious conditions the miners work under. Some miners are on a pittance daily rate of 50 Bolivianos (4.50 GBP Appx) for a 9 hour shift but the vast majority work for themselves or as part of one of the co-operatives, they have to buy everything that they need themselves (including dynamite); and instead of earning a salary, they make money solely by personally selling the materials that they dig out of the ground. These men and women work down here for 8 hours straight, without any food or water, and without much decent air. Apparently chewing coca leaves alleviates the harsh conditions and gives them strength

It is unbelievable that people are still working under such medieval conditions, the mine was so dark, very cramped, the heavy smell of arsenic was very asphyxiating, very disturbing. I was there for only 1.5 hours but I found it extremely difficult to breath.

Before making our way back we crouch-walked to where the ´Tio´ (Uncle/Devil) was. The ´Tio´ is a very respected guardian or God of the mine. This is where all miners come and pray to get more minerals in the mine and pay their promise. And because of the indigenous beliefs that the mountain is where the Devil lives, so men who remove the minerals from his domain should pay homage. This Devil that they have set up is life size, he has a hand open for coca leaves a hand open for 98% alcohol which the miners drink, he also presents a huge manhood between his legs (this symbolizes fertility). His mouth is slightly open and a burning cigarette is placed in his mouth and if this doesn’t burn it means that the day isn’t going to be very productive. The miners usually gather on Fridays to have a bit of a party and drink with this idol. The legend as it goes is that if they pay homage to the devil he will keep them safe in the mine and also show them new ´veins´ of minerals (zinc, tin, lead and silver).

But there it is, a city which helped maintain the splendour of Europe from the 16th to the 18th century, fueled the European Renaissance and helped fund the “Invincible Armada” but it is now impoverished and struggling to survive.

At the end of the tour I placed some coca leaves that I had saved in my bag and paid homage to the “Tio” for bringing me to the end of the tour safe. So we finally said goodbye to the miners, and made our ascent back up through the levels of the mine, toward the surface and to fresh air.
!Yes, we made it!

Feeling a tad awkward we set off up the hill, with me trying to make certain that there was indeed a bar at the top. Anyway after a while an old man, who had been following, suddenly intervened and after a very disjointed conversation took over from the boy, who he told to go away, back down the hill. I gave the boy a Boliviano for his trouble and said goodbye. Now feeling very awkward I was split between telling the old boy not to bother and also intrigued as to where we would end up.

Eventually we stumbled across, and entered, ‘Sociedad de 15 Mayo‘, basically a working mans drinking club. As we walked up to the bar, everyone to a tea were following us with there eyes with an air of bemusement. The old boy had straightened his posture and, I noted, was almost proudly showing me off! We took our place up at the bar and ordered 2 drinks of Bolivian pisco with some added lemon soda… not too dissimilar to a pisco sour and not bad for 1 Boliviano!

Soon there was quite a gathering as some curious locals had joined us at the bar. We were all talking, them asking me where I was from and they were eager to know what I thought of Bolivia. I told them I was from London in the UK and that I liked Bolivia very much to which they all cheered, shook my hand and ordered the barman to pour more pisco! I asked them about the local football team and this brought more cheers as they happily told me Potosi had a very good football team [Real Potosi], infact one of the best in Bolivia and someone added in South America; with this remark it was quite obviously the Pisco taking it’s toll!

After about an hour of drinking with these old boys I said my goodbyes and had to shake everyones hand in the bar before I could make it outside. Some of them even followed me to the door and waved after me, cheering and smiling. It was such an enjoyable yet strange night. I guess it could have gone so wrong but it turned into one of the most enjoyable nights out I’ve had in South America so far. And it’s just brought it home how friendly, welcoming and curious the Bolivians are to visitors of their country!

I stumbled along my way, back down the hill and into the old hostel. Sandra was asleep and it wasn’t long before I joined her…

So, our first stop was Oruro where we stayed overnight. It was a really cold and a fairly windy town. It was laid out in a large grid and within the center it was extremely busy with both people and traffic. The best thing about the town was a bakery we found that served up delicious cakes and hot chocolate!

We left Oruro the next day towards Sucre, the constitutional Capital of Bolivia. Being at a much lower altitude, 2700m, it was much warmer and as such we decided to stay put for a while. We found the lovely Pachamama Guest House and for around 100 Bolivianos we had a double ensuite room with ‘hot’ water (that really was hot!) and the use of a shared kitchen along with a rather nice grass covered court yard to relax in. The owners were really friendly and helpful.

Sucre was a lovely town to walk around in. It had an impressive market in the center where you could buy everything you needed from fresh fruit and veg, meat to kitchen utensils and appliances. On the upper floor was a selection of food stalls where you could eat a filling, tasty meal for around 10 Bolivianos. On the lower floor, around a court yard, there was loads of fruit juice sellers that would mix you up a healthy concoction of fruit. My favourite being the ‘Super Vitamino’ that literally had every fruit you could imagine in. What was good was that you didn’t just get a tall glass of fresh juice, but when you’d finished they refilled your glass with the remaining juice from the blender! I think these juice stalls where similar to our pubs. Everyone, of all ages, seemed to stop by at lunch and after work for a quick drink and a chat before heading on their way. Great invention!

At Pachmama we met a great couple from Austria, Claus and Ursula. They are also doing a round the world trip and started just before us in November. We had a couple of good nights in the kitchen exchanging travel stories and the different destinations we had all been to. Our ‘other’ list is growing all the time!

Eventually it was time to move on and we caught a bus to the old mining town of Potosi. Set at just over an altitude of 4000m it is one of the highest cities in the world and got very cold at night. We stayed at the Hostel Maria and the room was equipped with hot water, heating and some extremely thick blankets that were certainly very welcome at night! I spent most of the days walking around the city which I found quite interesting, in particular sitting in the Main square and doing a fair bit of people watching. Sandra went off to explore the mines, which I decided to steer clear of for fear of claustrophobia. Having read lots of blogs and reviews in travel books it seemed the best idea. They are very hazardous places to visit with extreme enclosed spaces. They are actually ‘working’ mines, so you get to meet the miners in action. Over to Sandra…

[...miners visit will appear here...]

Next up Sandra decided to go to Tupiza to do a bit of horse riding, while I decided to go straight to Uyuni for the salt flat tour. Now I really would have to use my ‘pigeon’ Spanish…!

We left La Paz and drove, with our guide and his wife, for an hour and a half to La Cumbre where our trek started. This was the highest point of the trek at 4700m and it was all down hill from here. The air was thin and still and it was a beautiful, fresh day. We started our descent along a narrow mountain side path. This first part of the trek was across an extremely baron mountainous landscape which gradually eased into a bit of greenery as the descent evened out. By that stage though I was again suffering from ‘hobbly’ legs! I had twisted my knee after about 20 minutes and it got progressively worse. The path we were on had so many loose rocks, coupled with the steep descent, that it made hard work on the old knees and feet. The guide was getting a bit worried and he told of a guy on his last trek whose shoes had been too small so eventually his toes were bleeding and he couldn’t walk. He had to get a mule to carry him at a cost of 100GBP per day. Well, if anything was going to get me walking again it was that! I put some extra strapping on my knee, acquired an old boys walking stick at one of the gates within the reserve and hobbled on my way.

A full 7 hours later we arrived at the campsite. It was nestled in a valley and you had to cross a rickety old rope bridge to enter. It really was a beautiful spot. The guide gave me some ointment for my knee, similar to Tiger Balm so I covered my knees with that, along with some Deep Heat that we had ourselves. We all relaxed around the main table while the guide and his wife cooked us up some dinner.

Again we were really lucky with the group. Well to be honest it was just the three of us: myself, Sandra and Karin but another small group, a dutch couple, had joined us at the campsite and it made for an enjoyable night, swapping tales of where we’ve all traveled so far.

The next day my knee hadn’t really improved, but I covered it in more ointments, strapped it up and off we went for another 7/8 hours of trekking. The guide kept assuring me that today’s trek would be mainly flat with a ‘few’ ups and a ‘few’ downs, just like life, he said!. Now, these guides have a great sense of humour. As with the Salkantay trek it was all up and then down with rarely any flat bits! The ups for me were fine it was just the downs. We were now passing some really beautiful scenery. It had totally changed from the mountainous start. We were now in the jungle and the air was fairly humid. We were among the clouds and it created a mystical feel. This region is called The Yungas and it is the traditional region for coca crops. All along the hillsides you can see them.

After 8 hours we reached a campsite where we stopped but we were given an option to walk a further hour and stay at the next campsite, The Japanese garden, or just pitch up here. Now, I was kind of done, my knees were yelling at me that enough was enough. Sandy was pretty beat and though she probably wouldn’t admit it, Karen was nearly on the floor ;). So we set up camp and soon realised how really, really basic the site was. They didn’t even have a table! It had started to rain and it got quite muddy. So more lotion on the knees and another early night.

We awoke to a beautiful view of the jungle below. It was another gorgeous day, bright sunshine and blue skies. The light really accentuated the greens of the vegetation surrounding us. After breakie we were soon on our way again and for the first time since we started my knees felt like they were regaining their strength. The walk didn’t seem as arduous and after an hour of trekking we reached the Japanese Garden and realised what we could have had if only we had pushed ourselves a bit further. Easily said with hindsight! The campsite was set on an amazing mountain top, which included a separate eatery with tables aplenty covered by a roof. The camping area was surrounded by tropical plants and flowers, a true Japanese garden embraced in the Bolivian jungle. Rumour has it that the Japanese owner fled to the Bolivian jungle during the 2nd world war and set up the Japanese garden to make him feel at home. It now is a popular resting stop for the last night on the Choro trek. Again, if only we had gone that further hour…

It was a good mornings trek of around 4 hours and we finished up in a small village called Chairo. From here we got a mini-bus to Corroico, a small mountain top town. I felt like a new man as I was almost skipping at the end, that ointment from the guide must have done the trick! We stayed in Corroico for the night and got a bus (chapa/matatu/van!), along ‘The world most dangerous road‘ back to La Paz. Another wonderful adventure!

The next morning we started our journey into the Amazon. We were both very excited but I was especially - it was also my birthday! There were loads of tours and companies to choose from but after dong a bit of research, although very expensive, we went with a company called Madidi Travel who were one of the originators in the creation of the Madidi National park & conservation area in this side of the Amazon. Also they were really conservationists, which is what we wanted and not just a tour operator interested in your money and profit only and unconcerned with the conservation and importance of sustaining the longevity of this unique eco system. We had booked the tour in La Paz before we arrived but we could have done so in Rurrenabaque itself.

Although called Madidi travel our tour would actually go to a different area called ‘Serere‘ and not into the Madidi national park. Serere was a relatively new venture by the Madidi travel organisation to create a true conservation area.

For more information about the organisation and their work visit their website here: http://www.ecobolivia.org/en/ .

I digress, on with the story… So we set off, on my birthday, in a small boat along the Beni river for what turned out to be a 3 hour journey until we alighted at the Serere conservation area. We hiked for around 30 minutes into the jungle to where we would be lodging. The whole set up was quite amazing. The central building was a 2 story structure, built from local wood and the walls were made up of mosquito netting! This would be the eating and meeting area. Next we went to our lodge where we would be sleeping for the next 2 nights. We couldnt believe it when we arrived. A big double bed in the middle, bathroom complete with flushing toilet and shower (amazing when you think of some of the places we’ve endured!) and storage space to hang our clothes. All this in the middle of a jungle!

So, on our first day as an introduction to the jungle, our guide had something relaxing for us to do. We jotted off on a small rowing boat, exploring the jungle fauna from the river. We saw lots of different birds, some cayman (similar to a crocodile, but smaller) and in particular lots of Serere birds - the bird that the park is named after. We ended our day with a gorgeous sunset and some ‘cold ones’ to celebrate Lionel’s birthday.

On the walk back to our lodge it was totally different in the dark, on our own and with no guide. We found that we were walking a lot closer together and noticeably quicker than earlier in the day. The talk of the evening had consisted of puma sightings and other stories related to local wild life that by the time we reached the lodge we were practically running! Once we got into our cabin and shut the door we felt relatively safer until we blew out the candles. Then, with the sound of the jungle at it’s height we started to imagine all sorts of wild beasts just outside the lodge. Convinced that the puma had somehow got inside, we, hiding behind our pillows and feeling somehow protected under the mosquito net, slowly turned on our torch to nervously inspect the lodge. After about 10 minutes, convinced we were puma free and safe from any other wild beasts we tried to be big and brave and go back to sleep, as we had an early start in the morning.

Having survived the night we awoke nice and early at 07:30am and kicked the day off with a nice fresh fruit breakie. We went for a trek into the jungle to see Cappuccino monkeys, Howler monkeys (very loud and fierce sounding) and the vast flora and fauna of this amazing conservation area. We returned back to the base around 5 hours later covered in all sorts of jungle muck and sweat. We went back to our ‘5 star lodge’ and had a nice cold shower followed by a nice long nap for some of us (Lionel), while others continued to explore the jungle (Sandy).

After lunch we went piranha fishing, we didn’t catch any, and on our return we were greeted by one excited worker who kept pointing towards the main hall. Confused at first, we soon got wind of it that there was a big Anaconda that had come to visit us! Indeed it had, lying across the entrance there was the biggest snake that either of us had seen in the flesh. Amazing to see these creatures free and in the wild. After about half an hour, the Anaconda moved slowly on it’s way and we excitedly entered the hall and got ready for dinner.

The next day we went for another trek in the morning before heading back to Rurrenabaque by boat. What an amazing couple of days, We reflected on it all over a nice fish stew and a bottle of Concepcion, one of the better makes of Bolivian wine.

Next it was back to La Paz for a few days before going off on another trek!

We quite liked Copacabana but were a tad disappointed as a lot of people had talked it up to us, so that when we arrived it wasn’t exactly what we had imagined. But it certainly was a very friendly and a lively little town. It lies on the famous Lake Titicaca, the highest (3800m above sea level) navigable lake in the world (so we were told?). We didn’t make the trip to the Sun & Moon Islands (Isla del Sol y Isla de la Luna) which on reflection we kind of wish we had as they are supposed to be wonderful. But then after the floating islands we were a little ‘islanded out’!

Next up we took a bus to La Paz, which we were looking forward to. We arrived about 6pm and from the main center we walked roughly 20 minutes to a hostel we had chosen called Residential Sucre on Plaza de San Pedro. This hostel was opposite the famous San Pedro prison which we heard you could visit. It’s run by the prisoners themselves and is quite unique. Unfortunately we soon found out that tourists could no longer visit the prison. Something to do with the amount of actual buying and selling of drugs that was going on, apparently there was quite a system in place, that they eventually closed the gates.

The hostel was nice, quite old but with a lovely feel about it. There was a slight problem with the showers though. We thought something was up when we saw the plastic tape wrapped around the shower taps, but it wasn’t until after the third minor electric shock that we realised why! When we mentioned this to the owner he looked surprised and said we were the first people, in 30 years, to complain! He suggested we should wear Havaianas (flip-flops) and we would be fine - Welcome to Bolivia…!!

After exploring La Paz for a couple of days we booked up to go into the Amazon at Rurrenabaque. Not looking forward to a 20+ hour bus journey we decided to take a flight of 1 hour! Though not cheap it sure was going to save on time, and on our rumps! Plus the thought of getting a bus on ‘The Worlds most dangerous road’ wasn’t really that appealing.

Next up: The Amazon…