Tuesday morning, not less bitterly cold than any other morning in Puno. With bags packed and ready we have our final 'contintental' breakfast (bread, scrambled eggs, cup of tea, butter and jam, freshly blitzed fruit juice - after six months of 'proper' scrambled eggs I have a desperate longing for the microwaved variety I enjoyed in my childhood) and our taxi appears at 6.45am. PNS$6 to the Terminal Terrestre, tickets in hand thanks to our hosts of Hostel Sariri. I was asked had we enjoyed our stay in the hostel, I replied "yes, very much, but just one thing, the water in the shower is too cold". Our hostess nodded sagely.
Another bus terminal where you pay a PNS$1 tax to use it, there are less hallions around at 7am trying to bother you, and after a bit of fun with the security ladies we found ourselves standing beside the Lago Titikaka Bus Company's Big Bus To La Paz. We are a little dubious that receipts are not being handed our for luggage stowed in the hold. "Don't worry" says the driver "This is a Bolivian bus and very safe. Dirct to La Paz. No Peruvians on it!". We have a chuckle to ourselves and show a nervous smile.
Naturally the bus didn't go directly to La Paz. We ascend the hills between here and the Bolivian border, suddenly there are little patches of unmelted snow at the sides of the road. A glance up the hills and we are only a hundred metres of so below snow level. I took no chances this morning, hat and gloves and scarf and whatnot, so I feel safe. Still, I look a little battering from the UV yesterday out on the lake. My face is a little red, and covered in sunscreen today.
The view of Lake Titikaka from here is simply mouthwatering.
Fortunately we have found ourselves on a bus with folk who haven't been told that this is beautiful, nor have they paid a few hundred pounds to see it, therefore they aren't even remotely interested. As we gawp out the window (Sarah cowers from the height more than gawps, but still), our fellow travellers check Bakebook on their phones on have a snooze. Some adventurous Magnum types look at the photos they have taken on their paperazzi cameras. This is our departing scene from Peru.
After a hour and a bit of driving through obscure villages proclaiming their Aymara heritage loud and clear (lots of banners for festivals, folklore, and a hell of a lot of statues of indigenous peoples doing brave things) we pull up on a straight road glancing over a hill. This is where we, with regret, check out of Peru (we have spent seven weeks here, 49 days, much longer and we would have found ourselves paying taxes on our accomodation). I take advantage of the little shop beside the bus which changes Peruvian Nuevo Soles to Bolivian Bolivianos, then across the street and join the queue. First in to see the Policia Nacional, who stamp our entry / exit paper 'positivo', then into the immigration office where we, after a little wait, get stamped out of Peru. Now we walk up the road and over the hill where we get our first proper look at Bolivia. There's an stone arch, on this side there is a big sign for all the wonderful things to do in Peru, and on the other side there's a collection of ladies selling kitchen roll and cases of Pepsi.
The Bolivian Immigration Office is the most cheerful place I have ever been. The boys in there aren't working very fast because, hell, they're having too much banter! Still, passport scanned, stamped, and we're in our final new country of this trip. Bolivia! I've waited a long time for this one. Even now its quite hard to believe I'm actually here.
The queue behind us grows and grows. We are priviledged to hear some English folk discussing with some American folk just HOW MUCH fun they've had, best fun ever, better than everyone elses' fun, the people they've met are SO crazy, craziest ever, they can't wait to get to Salar de Uyuni, etc etc. I dread returning to a country where I can understand what other people are saying. Especially culchies. Although I don't always understand what they're saying. A small consolation is watching a few folk having to hand over a small fortune to pay for their visa to Bolivia (we, lucky UK citizens, have no such visas to buy in South America. Unless, of course, you have your passport stolen).
So we escape across the road and Sarah takes a moment for the Border Fear to pass. I buy my first saltenas (the Bolivia equivalent of empanadas, but these coming with a variety of ingredients enclosed in delicious slightly-sweetened pastry shells - mine had chicken, an olive, and an interesting sweet pickle mix) and we enjoy the sunshine and the view. At the wall separating Bolivia from Peru three military men stare into their neighbour, watching for trouble. Perhaps they know bad boys when they see them: our bus passes through the border without a second glance, and no one gives a damn about what we've got in our bags. After all, who is smuggling something INTO Bolivia?
After a while we gather our fellows together and we get into the bus, take a ten minute ride up the road and stop in Copacabana (the other Copacabana, the one you get off at to visit Isla del Sol, another very important Inka site, sadly flanked by a small, tedious, overpriced and tourist-ridden town). "Everyone off!" announces a new chap. Apparently we change buses here, the next one will be along in an hour, and we ought to go and find some lunch or something. Which is exactly what we do. One cup of (not very good) coffee later and we're back on the corner, patting a stray golden retriever, and then onto another coach and away. We lost half our idiots from the first journey but have acquired a new contingent of muppets. There must be something very interesting on Bakebook today, they are absorbed in it. It must be pictures of them having the most fun ever somewhere. How else could you explain their disinterest in transversing the Andean Altiplano, a plateau in the midst of the mountains, flat, at times scorched earth, but ceaselessly beautiful?
That is yet to come though. More driving around the edges of Lake Titikaka, staring at its strange blue, the hills with traipse down to its edges, and spotted with little houses here and there. That Southern European green again, occasional tree, dry earth, stone walls, enormous sky that cares not one whit what lies beneath. Back down the hills and we pull up, unexpectedly, at a little port, something like Strangford, where we are treated to a short journey across the lake on a twelve-man boat (only BOB$2 each), watching our bus make the journey on a barge a short distance away. The lake is only a few feet deep, you can see the weeds stretching up from the bottom at us. Ten minutes and we're on the opposing shore. This is the split town of San Pedro de Tiquina, important stop on Ruta Nacional 2. So far, Bolivia, you have not disappointed us.
So we are back on the bus, sitting behind us are a retired English couple, he looks and sounds exactly like Dave Houghton, she does not, and to our right we have a girl from Moscow chattering inanely to a chap from Boulder, Colorado. I smile a wry smile and get back to, what I suspect will be, the only time I will ever take this bus journey through somewhere I have known of my whole life, and never dreamed I would see.
This is the final two hour drag to La Paz, Bolivia's capital city, smothering the valley which protects it. It's the highest point of our trip, over 4000m up at its highest point (although the bottom of the valley is a few hundred metres below that). The Altiplano here is otherworldly, ghostlike, a yellow-green plain sprinkled with houses that seem to be collapsing, snow-capped peaks appear to be at head-height in the distance. There aren't many words to say to each other here, and Sarah and I dream through the windows of the bus as everyone else seems to be asleep (except the English couple, who snap occasion photos with the paparazzi camera). This road could not go on long enough.
The city of El Alto, the one which runs across the top of La Paz's valley, creeps up. A few unfinished peripheral buildings. A garage or two. Someone selling bricks that are drying in the late sun. Then suddenly you have a beautiful, albeit garish, block of neon green, blue or orange, and the gaps between the buildings begin to shrink, and more people are at the sides of the roads selling fruit or chicha or sandwiches. The gates on some of the houses feature ornate ironwork and airbrushed, Rothko-esque finishes. You can see nothing on either side but brickwork. The traffic jam begins.
We suddenly take a sharp left up a dirt track (given that we have driven on a dirt track through most of El Alto, this is a serious statement) and onto a back road. Suddenly we are somewhere that blindingly reminds us both of North Belfast. Or maybe West Belfast. Probably Northwest Belfast. Some builders sit on top of a house they are probably supposed to be working on and glare at us, impassively, as we drive by. Another sharp left and we're back on the main road. It's rush hour. A big sign on the pedestrian bridge across the main road announces "If you are driving, don't consume alcoholic drinks", sponsored by all the local mobile phone companies.
We had seen a few pieces of grafitti in support of controversial president Evo Morales on our way through the countryside. Here there is blanket coversage. "EVO = HONESTIDAD" one scrawl makes clear. The President's face smiles down from huge signs announcing public works, and most notably from the adverts for one of the TV stations which, I assume, is taking advantage of the satellite the President fired up recently to broadcast his ideas on how to take the Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia forward in the 21st century.
Then we all see it. La Paz. A blanket spread out to our right as we round the corner of the highway. Everyone is awake and pointing their cameras at the vision. Perhaps some of those who are only here for tonight before making their way south to Uyuni are slightly regretting it now. Maybe they don't have enough soul for regret.
The vision barely lasts a couple of minutes, then we have descended too far down a road that feels eerily like the top of the Antrim Road (around the zoo), and we cruise down the valley and into La Paz Terminal de Buses. This is not the backwards shack you might expect. This is a big, glorious, iron structure in the style of fine British railways stations, full of companies and eateries, and notably lacking the edginess of border hubs like Tacna or Ciudad Del Este. We have a quick scout around for companies heading straight to Buenos Aires, find a few options, grab a taxi to our hostel, a mere kilometre away, and leap out happily at Hospedaje Latino, BOB$15 poorer but not resentful for it.
Our accomodation options in La Paz were sorely restricted. Unless you want to stay in what Sarah has dubbed 'a party hostel' then you've got to look at hotels, and they are priced far in excess of our now dwindling budget. Hospedaje Latino seemed to be the only middle ground open to us. Once again our judgement (and the reviews on the various booking websites we use) had not let us down. Friendly staff, comfortable private room, cable tv, HOT WATER SHOWER, all for US$14 a night each. Plus we get a sparse breakfast until 9.30am! Wonderful!
One big bonus for me is that, taking that single step through the archway earlier, we went forward an hour. The sun no longer rises at 6am and no longer sets at 6pm. I expect my sleep patterns to improve. We have also heard from everyone on this trip that Bolivia is the cheapest country by far in South America. We both longed to see how true this was.
The short answer to this: yes and no. But more on that later.
It was about 5pm by the time we had dumped our bags down in the hostel and stretched our legs. 7am departure from Puno, 4pm arrival in La Paz. For PNS$30? An utter bargain.
Our pruck is now covering every surface of this room. We have a fast PC downstairs that I can use to upload all the photos I have gathered together over our time in the Sacred Valley where communal PCs and fast internet were sadly lacking. The little shop across the road sells me big bottles of water, American candy (Lifesavers! Yes!) and tins of Pacena beer at BOB$11 a go (Pacena! Tastes like being 15 years old! Sit up straight or get horrific heartburn!) and the little woman who works there knows me on sight now. We have a few ATMs a block away, and the beautiful Plaza Murillo is three blocks downhill from us. The view on that street of the opposing side of the valley is spectacular. Pizza is just as big here as in Peru, and on that first night I went a-walking round our neighbourhood, up several blocks towards the station, and picked up a huge pepperoni pizza (so big they split it between two boxes) and some beers for about GBP9, including some sugary supplies for Sarah. That first night, our first of many movie nights here in La Paz, we devoured the pizza and beer and gave our time to the Warner TV channel, English sound, Spanish subtitles, and it feels a little like you're learning something along the way.
Another bus terminal where you pay a PNS$1 tax to use it, there are less hallions around at 7am trying to bother you, and after a bit of fun with the security ladies we found ourselves standing beside the Lago Titikaka Bus Company's Big Bus To La Paz. We are a little dubious that receipts are not being handed our for luggage stowed in the hold. "Don't worry" says the driver "This is a Bolivian bus and very safe. Dirct to La Paz. No Peruvians on it!". We have a chuckle to ourselves and show a nervous smile.
Naturally the bus didn't go directly to La Paz. We ascend the hills between here and the Bolivian border, suddenly there are little patches of unmelted snow at the sides of the road. A glance up the hills and we are only a hundred metres of so below snow level. I took no chances this morning, hat and gloves and scarf and whatnot, so I feel safe. Still, I look a little battering from the UV yesterday out on the lake. My face is a little red, and covered in sunscreen today.
The view of Lake Titikaka from here is simply mouthwatering.
Fortunately we have found ourselves on a bus with folk who haven't been told that this is beautiful, nor have they paid a few hundred pounds to see it, therefore they aren't even remotely interested. As we gawp out the window (Sarah cowers from the height more than gawps, but still), our fellow travellers check Bakebook on their phones on have a snooze. Some adventurous Magnum types look at the photos they have taken on their paperazzi cameras. This is our departing scene from Peru.
After a hour and a bit of driving through obscure villages proclaiming their Aymara heritage loud and clear (lots of banners for festivals, folklore, and a hell of a lot of statues of indigenous peoples doing brave things) we pull up on a straight road glancing over a hill. This is where we, with regret, check out of Peru (we have spent seven weeks here, 49 days, much longer and we would have found ourselves paying taxes on our accomodation). I take advantage of the little shop beside the bus which changes Peruvian Nuevo Soles to Bolivian Bolivianos, then across the street and join the queue. First in to see the Policia Nacional, who stamp our entry / exit paper 'positivo', then into the immigration office where we, after a little wait, get stamped out of Peru. Now we walk up the road and over the hill where we get our first proper look at Bolivia. There's an stone arch, on this side there is a big sign for all the wonderful things to do in Peru, and on the other side there's a collection of ladies selling kitchen roll and cases of Pepsi.
The Bolivian Immigration Office is the most cheerful place I have ever been. The boys in there aren't working very fast because, hell, they're having too much banter! Still, passport scanned, stamped, and we're in our final new country of this trip. Bolivia! I've waited a long time for this one. Even now its quite hard to believe I'm actually here.
The queue behind us grows and grows. We are priviledged to hear some English folk discussing with some American folk just HOW MUCH fun they've had, best fun ever, better than everyone elses' fun, the people they've met are SO crazy, craziest ever, they can't wait to get to Salar de Uyuni, etc etc. I dread returning to a country where I can understand what other people are saying. Especially culchies. Although I don't always understand what they're saying. A small consolation is watching a few folk having to hand over a small fortune to pay for their visa to Bolivia (we, lucky UK citizens, have no such visas to buy in South America. Unless, of course, you have your passport stolen).
So we escape across the road and Sarah takes a moment for the Border Fear to pass. I buy my first saltenas (the Bolivia equivalent of empanadas, but these coming with a variety of ingredients enclosed in delicious slightly-sweetened pastry shells - mine had chicken, an olive, and an interesting sweet pickle mix) and we enjoy the sunshine and the view. At the wall separating Bolivia from Peru three military men stare into their neighbour, watching for trouble. Perhaps they know bad boys when they see them: our bus passes through the border without a second glance, and no one gives a damn about what we've got in our bags. After all, who is smuggling something INTO Bolivia?
After a while we gather our fellows together and we get into the bus, take a ten minute ride up the road and stop in Copacabana (the other Copacabana, the one you get off at to visit Isla del Sol, another very important Inka site, sadly flanked by a small, tedious, overpriced and tourist-ridden town). "Everyone off!" announces a new chap. Apparently we change buses here, the next one will be along in an hour, and we ought to go and find some lunch or something. Which is exactly what we do. One cup of (not very good) coffee later and we're back on the corner, patting a stray golden retriever, and then onto another coach and away. We lost half our idiots from the first journey but have acquired a new contingent of muppets. There must be something very interesting on Bakebook today, they are absorbed in it. It must be pictures of them having the most fun ever somewhere. How else could you explain their disinterest in transversing the Andean Altiplano, a plateau in the midst of the mountains, flat, at times scorched earth, but ceaselessly beautiful?
That is yet to come though. More driving around the edges of Lake Titikaka, staring at its strange blue, the hills with traipse down to its edges, and spotted with little houses here and there. That Southern European green again, occasional tree, dry earth, stone walls, enormous sky that cares not one whit what lies beneath. Back down the hills and we pull up, unexpectedly, at a little port, something like Strangford, where we are treated to a short journey across the lake on a twelve-man boat (only BOB$2 each), watching our bus make the journey on a barge a short distance away. The lake is only a few feet deep, you can see the weeds stretching up from the bottom at us. Ten minutes and we're on the opposing shore. This is the split town of San Pedro de Tiquina, important stop on Ruta Nacional 2. So far, Bolivia, you have not disappointed us.
So we are back on the bus, sitting behind us are a retired English couple, he looks and sounds exactly like Dave Houghton, she does not, and to our right we have a girl from Moscow chattering inanely to a chap from Boulder, Colorado. I smile a wry smile and get back to, what I suspect will be, the only time I will ever take this bus journey through somewhere I have known of my whole life, and never dreamed I would see.
This is the final two hour drag to La Paz, Bolivia's capital city, smothering the valley which protects it. It's the highest point of our trip, over 4000m up at its highest point (although the bottom of the valley is a few hundred metres below that). The Altiplano here is otherworldly, ghostlike, a yellow-green plain sprinkled with houses that seem to be collapsing, snow-capped peaks appear to be at head-height in the distance. There aren't many words to say to each other here, and Sarah and I dream through the windows of the bus as everyone else seems to be asleep (except the English couple, who snap occasion photos with the paparazzi camera). This road could not go on long enough.
The city of El Alto, the one which runs across the top of La Paz's valley, creeps up. A few unfinished peripheral buildings. A garage or two. Someone selling bricks that are drying in the late sun. Then suddenly you have a beautiful, albeit garish, block of neon green, blue or orange, and the gaps between the buildings begin to shrink, and more people are at the sides of the roads selling fruit or chicha or sandwiches. The gates on some of the houses feature ornate ironwork and airbrushed, Rothko-esque finishes. You can see nothing on either side but brickwork. The traffic jam begins.
We suddenly take a sharp left up a dirt track (given that we have driven on a dirt track through most of El Alto, this is a serious statement) and onto a back road. Suddenly we are somewhere that blindingly reminds us both of North Belfast. Or maybe West Belfast. Probably Northwest Belfast. Some builders sit on top of a house they are probably supposed to be working on and glare at us, impassively, as we drive by. Another sharp left and we're back on the main road. It's rush hour. A big sign on the pedestrian bridge across the main road announces "If you are driving, don't consume alcoholic drinks", sponsored by all the local mobile phone companies.
We had seen a few pieces of grafitti in support of controversial president Evo Morales on our way through the countryside. Here there is blanket coversage. "EVO = HONESTIDAD" one scrawl makes clear. The President's face smiles down from huge signs announcing public works, and most notably from the adverts for one of the TV stations which, I assume, is taking advantage of the satellite the President fired up recently to broadcast his ideas on how to take the Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia forward in the 21st century.
Then we all see it. La Paz. A blanket spread out to our right as we round the corner of the highway. Everyone is awake and pointing their cameras at the vision. Perhaps some of those who are only here for tonight before making their way south to Uyuni are slightly regretting it now. Maybe they don't have enough soul for regret.
The vision barely lasts a couple of minutes, then we have descended too far down a road that feels eerily like the top of the Antrim Road (around the zoo), and we cruise down the valley and into La Paz Terminal de Buses. This is not the backwards shack you might expect. This is a big, glorious, iron structure in the style of fine British railways stations, full of companies and eateries, and notably lacking the edginess of border hubs like Tacna or Ciudad Del Este. We have a quick scout around for companies heading straight to Buenos Aires, find a few options, grab a taxi to our hostel, a mere kilometre away, and leap out happily at Hospedaje Latino, BOB$15 poorer but not resentful for it.
Our accomodation options in La Paz were sorely restricted. Unless you want to stay in what Sarah has dubbed 'a party hostel' then you've got to look at hotels, and they are priced far in excess of our now dwindling budget. Hospedaje Latino seemed to be the only middle ground open to us. Once again our judgement (and the reviews on the various booking websites we use) had not let us down. Friendly staff, comfortable private room, cable tv, HOT WATER SHOWER, all for US$14 a night each. Plus we get a sparse breakfast until 9.30am! Wonderful!
One big bonus for me is that, taking that single step through the archway earlier, we went forward an hour. The sun no longer rises at 6am and no longer sets at 6pm. I expect my sleep patterns to improve. We have also heard from everyone on this trip that Bolivia is the cheapest country by far in South America. We both longed to see how true this was.
The short answer to this: yes and no. But more on that later.
It was about 5pm by the time we had dumped our bags down in the hostel and stretched our legs. 7am departure from Puno, 4pm arrival in La Paz. For PNS$30? An utter bargain.
Our pruck is now covering every surface of this room. We have a fast PC downstairs that I can use to upload all the photos I have gathered together over our time in the Sacred Valley where communal PCs and fast internet were sadly lacking. The little shop across the road sells me big bottles of water, American candy (Lifesavers! Yes!) and tins of Pacena beer at BOB$11 a go (Pacena! Tastes like being 15 years old! Sit up straight or get horrific heartburn!) and the little woman who works there knows me on sight now. We have a few ATMs a block away, and the beautiful Plaza Murillo is three blocks downhill from us. The view on that street of the opposing side of the valley is spectacular. Pizza is just as big here as in Peru, and on that first night I went a-walking round our neighbourhood, up several blocks towards the station, and picked up a huge pepperoni pizza (so big they split it between two boxes) and some beers for about GBP9, including some sugary supplies for Sarah. That first night, our first of many movie nights here in La Paz, we devoured the pizza and beer and gave our time to the Warner TV channel, English sound, Spanish subtitles, and it feels a little like you're learning something along the way.
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