La Paz and Death Road

The official Capital of Bolivia, highest Capital in the world is surrounded by steep hills. Almost anywhere you go in La Paz, you have to climb. That is what I do, I climb to a mirador overlooking the whole city. In the background you can see snow-capped hills, and on the other side, the road that leads to Camino de la Muerte… I stroll around in the streets, visit the Museum of fine Arts. There is a beautiful photo exhibition there: El Grito del Silencio, of the artist Katharina Muench showing women and their sufferings. I also pay a visit to the Coca museum, to learn more about these coca leaves I’ve been chewing the last weeks which is in fact the prime ingredient used for producing cocaine. Very interesting. From chewing the leaves in the antique time to using the distilled leaves as painkillers (cocaine) or as drugs… Evo Morales has allowed the use of coca leaves, for chewing. It helps against altitude sickness and supposedly helps concentrating. It certainly plays an important role in miner’s existence. Interesting fact is that most of the coca leaves produced go to the United States as cocaine where most overdoses are also found…

photos La Paz

Camino de la Muerte – twice!

68 km, 3600 m downhill, camino de la muerte is the world’s most dangerous road. It was opened in the 90s to bikers but cars would still drive there. Some years ago, a new road was built so now mostly bikes ride down, at a tremendous pace sometimes. An average of 2 deaths per year have been registered on the camino since then, bikers falling off the cliff, buses ending up in the 300m profound valley… The camino is full of little crosses commemorating the deaths and our guide Chello even calls the bends after the nationality of people who died there. A little morbid, I agree. Barracuda Bikes is the company I have chosen to survive the death road. They give us helmets, gloves, glasses and full outfit with the company’s logo, and bikes of course. The instructions are clear: stay close to the mountain, use both breaks at the same time, shout when you overtake someone and whatever you do, do not try to avoid the big rocks on the road, the full suspension will take you safely over them. The first part is easy and very fast on asphalt at maximum 70km an hour. I feel like flying. After it gets trickier as the road is full of rocks and sand. There is only one way to go, and that is down. It takes a while to trust the bike but once I do I can increase the pace. This is really fun! My arms shake, my eye can barely focus and I clutch the brakes and fly down to the jungle. Our group is very fast; we finish early and can go for a swim in the river near the restaurant. Check out the cool parrot I met there. We start the way back, uphill in the car this time, and on the new road. About ten minutes later though, there is a landslide on the road and people tell us it will take more than two hours to clean it up. Chello and our driver then decide to go back up death road!!! Actually, it is scarier uphill and in the van than on the bike and in control. What an adventure! Today I survived the death road, twice.

photos camino de la muerte

Sucre

I knew I would like Sucre, only the name makes me want to visit it. The buildings are all white and look like sugar and I would personally have thought the city received its name because of this. General Sucre, the revolutionary leader fighting for Bolivia’s independence gave his name to the town, is what I learned in Casa de la Libertad, where the Bolivian constitution was signed. Nowadays, La Paz is the Capital of Bolivia whereas Sucre remains the constitutional capital and they are very proud of it. I am particularly interested in the indigenous culture, so I first go to the mask museum, where different masks used for ceremonies are kept. Diablada, Cueca, Puillay are only one of the few dances I remember. Each dance has a special story, and special masks that go with it, a wolf, a devil, a pig… It has been a long time since I have climbed a hill, so I decide to go to the Mirador, Elke has told me they have the best hot chocolate in town there, which is true. A nice sandwich, sun, a beautiful view, a fresh fruit juice, and a hot chocolate, what more can I ask for?

If you ever go to Sucre, you must visit the museum of indigenous art. It is one of the most beautiful museums I have seen, and the explanations are clear and extensive. Bolivian women, and men make remarkable weavings; of heaven, of earth, and of hell. There is also a section on music instruments, clothing, archeology and other subjects related to indigenous art, history and culture.  Have a look, I wasn’t allowed to take pictures there:

http://www.asur.org.bo/en/museum/rooms/tinkipaya

In the evening, Elke and Daniel invite me to join them to see a performance of traditional dances, of course I want to! It is beautiful, and I can see how all the masks, costumes and musical instruments I have seen during the day are used.

The Sunday market in Tarabuco is very famous. Indigenous people from surrounding villages flock to this quiet little town to sell their production of weavings but also fruits and vegetables. Nice but a bit touristy, and the dance performance at lunch does not match what I saw yesterday.

Next day is a lazy day in Sucre with Katja and Vero, from the mine tour, walking around, eating, talking…

photos Sucre - Tarabuco

Potosí and mining in Cerro Rico

Potosi competes with other cities for the title: highest city in the world, at 4060m above sea level. Remember Litang in China, 4200m above sea level? One could say that Litang is more of a village whereas Potosi is a real city but this discussion I leave to the experts. As a result, Potosi has the highest restaurant, the highest brewery and probably many other highest things as well. Potosi’s history is closely linked to the mining industry and Cerro Rico, where silver was found in the 15^th century. Since then, millions of people have worked in the mines, and millions have died there as well due to accidents or poor working conditions. Today, the silver deposits have all been extracted but more than 20.000 miners still work in the mountain to extract other minerals such as zinc. The conditions have improved a little with the use of electricity and the protection equipments, but they are still appalling: most of the work is done by hand, temperatures are extreme and the workers are exposed to noxious gases.

After visiting the city, I book a tour to the mines…

Johnny, our guide, is an ex-miner. He has worked nine years in the mine before becoming a guide. Before setting off, we get a full miner’s outfit: boots, solid pants, a jacket and a bag in which we can keep our water and gifts for the miners: lemonade, alcohol and coca leaves. Then we enter the mine… It is dark, muddy and narrow. Our guide moves quickly, we try to follow through the many tunnels. Up a slippery rope just next to a 30m deep hole, down a ladder standing on one leg. No wonder there are accidents here. Then Johnny asks us if someone bought dynamite. Yes, someone did, niiice, we can set it off. One of the miners dig a hole in the rock, prepares the explosives and asks us to move away. We wait, then we hear a huge bang and the whole mountain shakes. I shake too… The rest of the visit we socialize with the miners. They open up the bottle of 96° alcohol, mix it with some lemonade and share it with us. We are not allowed to say no, that is an offence. A little bit for Pachamama, the rest for us. The miners also chew coca leaves, every day a bag. It helps against altitude sickness and helps them concentrate. One miner is called Spaghetti, he has worked 15 years in the mine. Another one has basically dedicated his whole life to the mine, 35 years, and when we ask him if he likes it, the answer is YES, he needs the money to support his women, he has 5 of them.

The boys start working in the mine when they are strong enough, somewhere between 14 and 16 and when they don’t die of lung diseases or accidents, they continue as long as they can.

Before leaving the mine, Johnny show us a statue of El Tio, the spirit owner of the mountain. According to miner’s traditions, he rules over the mines, simultaneously offering protection and destruction. Miners leave offerings for El Tío—tobacco, liquor, coca leaves—in hopes that he will spare their lives.

Have a look at the film: Devil’s miner if you are interested.

photos Potosí

Uyuni salt flats tour

I am not going to share the 700+ photos that I took during this 3 day tour through the Bolivian Altiplano… All I can say is that it was amazing! We left the Bolivian border in a 4x4: Fred, Jasmine, Laurie, Camille, Elke our driver and guide, Simon, and me of course.

On our first day, we visit lagoons of different colors, caused by algae and minerals in the water. Then, we stop at Dalí desert where we can literally imagine the melting watches hanging from the rocks. Nothing is better than a bath in thermal waters before lunch, then geysers Sol de Manaña in the afternoon. Laguna Colorada is our last stop for the first day. A lagoon with red water and full of flamingos, I have rarely seen anything as beautiful. We go to bed at 8, and sleep at once after this very tiring day of seeing beauty in its purest form.

The second day is if possible even more beautiful than the first one. A Stone tree and other rock formations, a volcano, strange plants, and flamingos, my new passion. We arrive in the evening at the salt hotel, the floor is covered in rough salt, and the walls are built with salt blocks. Just look at the photos, I think they speak for themselves, although reality was even better.

Day three: the Uyuni salt flats, the world’s largest salt desert, formed over the years with lakes drying out and rain draining the mountains of their minerals. It is situated 3600 above sea level and measures 150X100km. There are some islands in the desert; we visit one of them, Isla Inca Wasi, full of giant cactuses. As the desert is all flat, there is no perspective, and as the good tourists that we are, we take some of those photos you have probably seen before. Next up are the salt mines. Every family owns a truck and transport what they collect to town where it is transformed into salt sculptures or other souvenirs. We finish the tour in Uyuni, where we visit the train cemetery, the city’s only attraction. These old trains used to transport minerals to the pacific ocean but when the mining industry collapsed around 1949, the trains were left to die here.

photos Salar

San Pedro de Atacama

After a spectacular bus ride from Salta to San Pedro, sitting next to…a Belgian, I arrive in the afternoon. San Pedro is situated 2400m above sea level, in the world’s driest desert: Atacama. It is small and very touristy, no wonder considering all the things there are to do there. I check in to hostel Florida, nice and clean and with a courtyard in the middle. That is where I meet Alice, from Brazil, and we decide to rent bikes together the next morning to go to Laguna Cejar. Not too far is what we think, but 30 km one way is far enough, especially if you add some km because we get lost on the way, twice. Laguna Cejar is a beautiful lagoon situated in the middle of the desert. Its salt concentration is very high and we can see many salt crystals and salt formations inside and outside the water. Just next to it is Laguna Piedras in which we can take a swim, or more specifically, in which we can float, due to the salt concentration, said to be higher than the Dead Sea. What a beautiful day!

photos San Pedro de Atacama

The next day, I want to try another type of activity: Sandboarding. I have never done snowboarding, so I must admit I’m a bit nervous, but as soon as I’m on the board, the only thing I can think of is to stay on it and after a while even to turn or go faster. How fun!! After two hours of walking up and sliding down (there are no chairlifts in the desert), we finish the day in Valle de la Luna to watch the sunset. I return to my hostel full of sand and exhausted.

photos sandboarding

On my last day in San Pedro, I meet up with a couchsurfer, Juan Pablo, and we walk to Pukara de Quitor, an archeological site 3km out of town. The sun is burning as we climb up to the old ruins. The English signs are quite funny. Apparently they have been translated directly from Spanish, which makes them at times difficult to understand, see for yourself!

A definite highlight of my stay in San Pedro is the Astronomy tour. I didn’t know this before, but the Atacama desert is one of the best places in the world to observe the stars. A French Astronomer recognized this and set up a dozen of giant telescopes to catch the beauty of the sky above us, and show it to curious travelers like myself. With a great deal of humor and passion he starts explaining the general principles of Astronomy: the earth is a planet, the sun is a star, the planets gravitate around the sun, our Galaxy is just one out of many many other Galaxies that are situated light-years away. He shows us some constellations and teaches us how to recognize them.  Then we move on to the telescopes where he has zoomed  in on some interesting phenomenons: Saturn with its belt, the jewel box; three aligned stars with different colors, the Milky Way, Sirius It makes me dizzy to try to think of the immensity of the universe, its creation or it’s current expansion. There at is definitely more to it than we can see and that makes me feel really small…