Bolivia – A Summary

Well that’s our stint in Bolivia done! We’ve made it into Chile and the third country on our trip. It feels like we’ve been gone for ages, so it keeps being a reality check to realise we’re still only 7 weeks in, and Peru seems so long ago! All the more reason to look back at Bolivia, wrap it up, and cover anything we’ve missed. The chacana is still a major symbol here (although Max would be disappointed in my imbalanced rule of 3 instead of the Aymaran preference for an even number) so we’re sticking with it for now…

Bolivia Rule of 3 Summary

Highlights (Alex) – Toro Toro National Park (in particular the waterfall, lumpy landscape, and giant rock formations above Cuidad de Itas). Getting an upgrade on our room in Copacabana after 2 nights on buses in a row. The cholet tour and finding out about Aymaran culture

Highlights (James) – Toro Toro National Park (in particular the cavern), Uyuni salt flat itself, amazing Copacabana trout

Lowlights (Alex) – getting some gnarly gastro for 5 days just in time for the sauna-bus, thinking I couldn’t find the cholet tour and not having Internet to contact anyone, getting ripped off for laundry (digging deep for a 3rd!)

Lowlights (James) – severe 24h gastro, trying to go for a run in Sucre, finding out we’d booked the hostel for the wrong date and lost our booking

Takeaways (Alex) – don’t trust the blogs (apart from ours!)… this country is improving things rapidly so what was “hellish” is now standard; the trials and tribulations of lifting a country out of poverty; the shift in acknowledgement, pride and importance of its indigenous heritage is nothing short of inspiring and wonderful

Takeaways (James) – the constant mixture of noises which locals seem completely able to function with (overly loud TVs, shouting wares, dogs, bikes, buses, music…), still a developing country that you can see evolve before your eyes, exceeds expectations

How to Describe Bolivia (Alex) – vast, evolving, unpretentious

How to Describe Bolivia (James) – diverse (culturally and geographically), superstitious, uncut gem

Favourite Views

• The endless lake (that I kept calling the sea)
• The bumpy spines of the land pulled apart in Toro Toro National Park
• The lizard-like skin of the red rocks above the Cuidad de Itas
• Watching lightning storms roll over the city of Sucre from our flat
• The vast expanse of the salar de uyuni
• The many, many lakes and lagoons of varying colours, but still each stunning in their own way
• The view from lunch over the lagoon of the flamingoes, having their own
• The bluest of skies, against the glowing white moon, against the brown volcanoes, against the multicoloured lakes

Entertainment

Podcasts: Talk of The Devils, The Upshot, Short History Of…

TV & Film: Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Lupin, premier league football, Rugby World Cup, music channels playing hits from the 00s and 90s (and us being disturbed how sexualised all the young, female artists were), Henry Sugar, Spirited Away, Grand Tour (Colombia Special)

Books: The Freeze, Second Watch, Sing Backwards and Weep (a stunning and dark read revealing the life of a rock star isn’t as glamorous as it may seem)

The Bits in Between

• Aymaran culture is important in Bolivia (as per La Paz post), but actually everyone we met outside of La Paz had their roots in Quechuan culture.
• In Uyuni, one side of the salar is Quechuan, the other Aymaran.
• Quechua and Aymara are taught as second languages, like English. They have to learn an indigenous language and a foreign language. Everything else is in Spanish.
• There are different dialects of Quechua, so what Odi taught us in Cusco doesn’t translate entirely to Albi in Torotoro, and same for Albi and Walter in Uyuni!
• The cholitas in La Paz wear bowler hats. The cholitas in Cochabamba wear straw sunhats.
• There’s still strong racism here against the campesinos, with people from Santa Cruz still thinking they are better than your average Bolivian (this was the case when I was here before).
• I forgot that you cross the border and two staples of my diet change name… avocado goes from ‘palta’ to ‘aguacate’, and strawberry goes from ‘fresa’ to ‘frutilla’.
• Lake Titicaca is shrinking. Rodolfo (from Torotoro) tells us this is largely because of industrial agriculture and mining ciphoning the water sources to their means and cutting off the supply.
• We’ve seen a huge amount of signs and notices about caring for the environment here, whether it’s about waste or the trees, there are constant reminders to care for your surroundings and pachamama. It’s nice.
• I think the Western world looks at Latin-America and thinks we’re more stable and got it sorted. Sure, politically it is, we swing nowhere near as far right or left (for now!), but the risk is poor governance here, not the risk of any war or invasion. The Western world, on the other-hand, looks so much more unstable from over here, with invasions, genocide and threats of another world war on the cards. Some political turmoil doesn’t seem so bad by comparison, I think we shouldn’t be throwing stones in our incredibly fragile glass house.
• Walter tells us that when he was growing up he had to do homework by candlelight, how infrastructure and access to basic utilities have vastly improved with Evo’s investments. However, the next generation take this all for granted, it’s what they’ve always had, and so he tells us they don’t really care for Evo.
• All that being said, Walter tells us there really isn’t much alternative (sounds familiar).
• Drug cartels are going to exist, they are going to produce drugs and make money, one way or another. The potential difference with Bolivia, is that ex-president (allegedly) Evo Morales made a deal with the cartels to make a lot of money, which he then used to improve the lives of Bolivia’s people (and took his cut of course). Is this not better than the cartels just taking the money for themselves and the country being ruined by them with nothing to show for it?
• Evo Morales is vying to be president again. One story is that the reason is because he still owes the cartels money. But you compare this to the presidents of other Latin-American countries (ahem, Peru), who have ciphoned off money from wherever they could (although not so blatantly or if at all from drugs) and just ran off with it… He’s a divisive character for a lot of reasons, but at least Evo gave something back?
• Triple carbs in acceptable
• The chaotic traffic is no longer terrifying
• The catholics tried to convince the locals that their beliefs weren’t dissimilar, that inti was Jesus for example, but the people saw through it and rejected it
• What did convert them was the fear of losing their souls and the catholics, realising this, they manipulated this to their advantage
• French people seem wholly capable of travelling with not just one child but multiple, and with the same amount of backpacks!
• The joy of home-cooked meals and vegetables
• A smiley face to lost and confused gringos will guarantee a sale
• Power gym playlists are the same across continents
• Lifting weights at altitude is way harder than we ever imagined (or we’ve lost all muscle mass)
• The beautiful gym bunny coming up to me and making conversation leading to her, out of nowhere, pointing out how curvy the women are (humble brag?)
• Whilst waiting 20mins on the road for James in La Paz, a cholita was selling her plastic bags of drink for 1B, she sold none in the time I was there, and even if she did, how is that an income?
• Rehydration salt sachets in Bolivia are for babies, and you have to dissolve them in a litre of water. Adults however are to seemingly drink a 5x2x12cm hard, plastic bubble of golden liquid, that looked like it would burst as soon as you cut the corner off it. I chose the baby option
• We’re both endlessly grateful to be in a time in history and a country that has accessible medicine that makes gastro a horrible inconvenience, but not life-threatening.

Photos from the Cutting Room Floor:

Beautiful flowers that are the colours of the Bolivian flag, that were painted all over the hostel in Copacabana:

Leaving The Freeze to travel onwards with someone else:

One of many signs reminding people to respect Pachamama and care for their surroundings:

Only in La Paz:

Enjoying a bit of ‘normal’ amongst the chaos of La Paz:

Is this what killed James…?

Teaching James how to eat salteñas:

Weird looking ‘fly’ in Toro Toro?

Tapping into memories of school to watch the partial solar eclipse:

Pretty, deadly, bush:

Just pretty:

Gyming in Sucre:

Food market in Sucre:

Killing time:

The rather friendly but playful kitten in our complex in Sucre:

How you move cargo from your 1st floor office down to bus-level for loading… essentially a rope with a hook on the end and you just lower it over the side, woe betide any passenger walking beneath. Includes anything from bikes to bed frames (not our bus or cargo I might add):

And the many many more photos we have from the Uyuni tour: