La Paz

Some people love it, some really don't, one thing is sure, its name is misleading. La Paz means "The Peace", but there is nothing peaceful about it. Most parts of the city resemble a third world market. Everywhere you go there are Cholas (traditional looking women) selling something. Most of the streets are informal markets, but in addition to that there is one big official market that sprawls over few dozens of blocks. It reminded us the market of Istanbul. There is a street for every purpose. A street for knits, a street for underwear, a street for plumbing... you just need to find the one you need. Since we love markets we also loved La Paz.
In the center of the city there is a witch market. In those few streets you can buy all kinds of witchcraft, potions, gifts for Pachamama and dried alpaca's babies or even embryos. We didn't bother to ask what is it good for, it was too creepy. In this area you can find most of the cheep hostels. The prices begin with about 3 dollars for a person, but those places are really bad. After spending few nights in various places we found the perfect place for us. It was an old and red colonial house with internal patio full with climbing plants, and more important with real hot water all day long.
Surprisingly enough, in La Paz we had few very good culinary experiences. But Bolivian cuisine can not take credit for that. We were so frightened by other travelers and didn't have any free time to get sick in, that we decided to skip the local street food (which made Lilya very sad) and eat only in touristic places. And there are few really good ones, as you can see in the tips. The prices in those places are much higher than street food (about 5 dollars for the main course), but that way you can be sure all the food was washed with purified water, and the meat met a refrigerator at least once in its life.

General tip: You should be aware to the fact that La Paz can also be dangerous. Try to stay in the center, in places with a lot of people. Beware of fake policemen, fake tourists, fake money and fake taxi drivers.
Tip 1: Marrakech (Jimenes 774, near Santa Cruz st.)- A great, but very small, Moroccan restaurant. Their Couscous del la casa with lamb is wonderful.
Tip 2: In plaza San Fransisco there is an old colonial building right on the corner. On its left side (when facing the building) there is an elevator that can take you to the 7th flour, which is also a roof. On that roof there is a very cheep but very good cafe and a great view on the main square. The name is Campaniero... or something like that.
Tip 3: Thai Palace (Linares 947) is a really good Thai/Indian/Japanese restaurant.
Tip 4: Sol y Luna (at the corner of Murillo and Cochabamba). The place belongs to a Dutch guy. They serve very good authentic food from all over the world (except from Bolivia).
Tip 5: There are a lot of good places to eat in Sagarnaga street. Two of them are really recommended: the "100% Natural" has great breakfasts. The Cuban restaurant "Sabor de Cuba" is a restaurant that you just can´t miss! They make great Cuban food. Try the dish that is called "Ropa Viejo" (old clothes)
Tip 6: The best hostel we've been in Bolivia. Blanquita on Santa Cruz st., 20 meters below Jimenes st.
Tip 7: On the corner of Sagarnaga and Illampu there is a really good tailor that makes repairs for everything: shoos, clothes, backpacks, backpack covers, whatever you need...

Pictures

Pictures from La-Paz and from the flight back to Lima are now online:

Rurranabaque - the jungles and the Pampas - part 2

For the first part of the post about the jungles, click here.

Since the Pampas tour was much more popular than the jungles, we had to join a group. We went to a company that looked more or less professional and was quite recommended by others. Apparently this company worked a lot with Israeli travelers and their representative was very happy to inform us that he had a group of 6 very nice Israeli girls we could join. He was very surprised to hear that we preferred a more mixed group rather than all Israeli group. We had to wait for that mixed group for one more day, which most of it we spent in Oscar's pool, another Israeli colonial postal. It was located on a hill above Rurrenabaque and had a great view over the town and the river and also an Israeli music and Hebrew speaking owner. The regular way to get there, or anywhere in town, is by motortaxies, which can be quite extreme on the unpaved roads. There are almost no cars there. Only later we discovered that this wasn't the only pool in town, but that was the most popular among Israelis.

The next morning, after another sleepless night (see Tip 6 in the first part of this post), we met our new group. There was one Colombian\American girl, Becky, with whom we shared our cabin later on, a German couple Julia and Nicolay and 4 Czech guys, Lenka, Margarita, Michael and Michaela (I hope I got it right) that we got to know only on the last day. Big groups tend to be more closed to people from outside. It took us three hours drive in a jeep on a very bumpy road to get, all covered with a thick dust layer, to the river where we waited for our boat and more important for our guide. Negro, that was his nickname, was much older and more experienced than the other guides. He was a guide there for the last 20 years. The fact that on his first years only Israelis came to the Pampas caused him to learn Hebrew and, at least that what he said, to grow a lot of grey hair. After he found out that we are Israelis, he started shouting in Hebrew instead of talking, since he was sure that this was the only way we communicate. Taking into account most of the Israelis we met in South America, you can't really blame him for that.

Our boat was a 20 meter canoe with pairs of chairs along it, when Negro is driving it from the back. That way everyone gets to see an angle wide enough.

In the Pampas all you do is seat inside the boat and take pictures of all the animals seating on the riverbank, and there is so much to see! There are hundreds of alligators lying by the river, some with their mouth open, as if they are waiting for the prey to enter it. There are many turtles seating on brunches inside the water, leaning one on the back of the other, as if they are dancing. There are lots of different types of water birds seating on trees close to the river. Cormorants seating with their wings spread in order to dry them after another dive session. Curious and very cute Capibaras (the largest rodent in the world) watching us as we pass. The whole experience looks a bit like a "drive-through". There are few boats just like ours going up/down the river, one after the other, stopping next to another animal, waiting that all the tourists picture it from every possible angle.

Our campground was very different from the one we had in the jungles. Maybe it's because it was meant for 10 times more people. The food wasn't great either. But there were monkeys... Behind the cabins there was an area were the cooks threw away the leftovers. Naturally, all the monkeys from the area came to eat there 3 times a day... Not very eco-friendly, but that gave Oren a great opportunity to take lots of pictures from really close, and it allowed the monkeys to get to know SEMPA.

On the second morning we went searching for Anacondas. Usually they hide inside swamps. The deeper the swamp, the bigger the Anaconda. We went to a very shallow swamp. In order to walk inside the swamp, we had to wear rubber boots. The swamp was so dense that my boot got stuck inside, while my foot continued on, what made my sock change from white to black. After about 40 exhausting minutes in the swamp, and after almost stepping on a medium size alligator, Negro found a small Anaconda, just 3 meters long. He grabbed it by its tail and brought it to a place where everyone could see. Then the poor snake wasn't left alone until every tourist took a picture of himself holding its tail. At some point I was sorry we found it in the first place. The only thing that was asked by the guides was to touch the snake only after "washing" the hands in the swamp, so our smell wouldn't stick to their skin.

Since we found the Anaconda so quickly, we had some spare time so we went swimming in the river, not far from the alligators, that showed no interest in us. The water was quite brownish, so we came out dirtier than we came in.

After lunch we went fishing for piranhas, in order to do that we sailed on a smaller river. On the way there we stopped few times to watch the strange pink dolphins that swum next to us. Not like regular dolphins these showed very little interest in us.

During all our stay there, our heads were high in the trees, looking for sloths, but our eyes didn't stand a chance when compared to Negro's hawk-eyes. In the middle of the sailing he stopped the boat and shouted "Atslan!" (A sloth in Hebrew). The sloth was on the top of the 40 meter tree that was far from the riverbank. It was so small that we had to take a full zoom picture in order to see if it was actually a sloth. I wasn't that excited since Chelsea took the championship. After few minutes Oren spotted another sloth on the same tree. According to Negro, it is really rear to see two sloths on the same tree, it must have been the mating season. Few hundreds meters after that we saw another sloth, much closer this time. Three different sloths in less than half an hour! From that point on everything looked pinker to me. The grey skies became sunny, the alligators smiled at us from the riverbanks and the Capibaras waved with their ears and tails. When we finally got to the fishing part I was already walking on clouds. Actually it should be called Piranhas feeding and not fishing. We used fresh meat as a bait/food for the fish. Since the fish saw that we are inexperienced gringos (foreigners), they ate most of the meat without getting caught. I managed to catch two very small fish, so small I had to release them back. All together, the weight of the meat that was spent as a bait was greater than the weight of the fish that was caught. In the evening we had the fish for dinner, good thing we had other dishes as well.

The next morning we woke up early to see the sunrise and after breakfast went to take pictures of the same animals over and over again. In addition to all the "regular" animals, we also saw a monkey hunting and then trying to eat a big snake. Unfortunately, because of all the audience, the monkey accidentally dropped the snake back to the water, and was left without lunch. Then we said goodbye to Negro and had another "joyful" ride back to Rurrenabaque, where we spent another sleepless night, and then flew back to La Paz.

At the beginning of the first part of the post, I mentioned that I wanted to see wild Aras flying free over the jungle. I didn't write about that, but don't worry, we saw plenty of them. Aras, or Macaus as they called in South America, mate for life, that is why they always fly in pairs. We never saw a Macau flying alone. That makes seeing them alone in captivity even sadder. At some point I even saw 10 couples of Macaus flying over the Tuichi River. So as you can see I have accomplished all I planned just on time.

Pictures

New pictures of the Bolivian jungle from Madidi National Park and from Rurrenabaque are now online:

Pictures

Pictures from the Pampas in Bolivia are now on line. This is probably the best album until now.

Planet Boliva (part 2)

(for the first post on Planet Bolivia click here)
Luck is an essential ingredient in everyday life, and even more important when traveling abroad. Its absence can be extremely difficult, though, in a third world country. We had great deals of luck for about 4.5 months in a row, no big problems arose, Pachamama was especially good to us. But when we got to Bolivia we run out of it...
After Isla del Sol, next on our plans was Salar de Uyuni - the great salt flatlands in the south of Bolivia and the largest in the world. While looking for an agency to book our tour with, we heard that there is no electricity in Uyuni, the town where all the tours starts at. We also checked the buses in the bus station and heard that the road was blocked because of demonstrations. Since knowledge is power, we felt strong when we entered the agency of Adolfo Andino and asked him if the lack of electricity and the road block are real problems for tourists going to the Salar. "Not at all!", said Adolfo, "The electricity is no problem and the bus only need to do a 10 minute detour to pass the road block. Only today I had a group going to the Salar for three days!".
Confident that we checked everything, we booked our three days tour with him. But in Planet Bolivia, honesty is not always the best policy. When we got to the bus that night, we discovered that the block is real and the bus has to take a different, much longer, route. Soon after starting driving (with a fashionable hour delay), the bus stopped and an official (a policeman? we don't know) got on the bus and asked if anyone has a bus driving license, because our driver didn't have one. Half an hour later things were miraculously solved and the bus started moving. Whether the license appeared from the thin air, or another driver came to the rescue, or maybe the policeman got a nice tip for his services, we just don't know. What we do know is that it might have been better if the bus had to return. The rest of the drive was a mystery: All through the ride we couldn't decide whether it is more cold or more bumpy. We do know that all night long we had ice on the window, from the inside!
The "maximum 10 minutes detour" turned to be a 5 hours delay and we got to Uyuni 2 hours after the tour should have started. We weren't late, though, because how can you be late to a tour that isn't starting at all?
Uyuni didn't have electricity for 4 days before we got there, and no one knew when and if it is coming back. Since fuel pumps doesn't work without electricity, there was no fuel and therefore no tours. When we asked when was the last tour the answer was "4 days ago". When we wanted to talk to Adolfo, the guy from La Paz that told us that there are tours, we were sent to call from the call center across the street.
After Adolfo promised to talk with Sandra, we didn't hear from him for the rest of day. By that time, Lilya was so pissed off that she wanted to shout at Adolfo as loud as she could, but he didn't answer our calls for the rest of the day.
We had to spend a full day in Uyuni. If there is a god forsaken place, it must be Uyuni. There is nothing to do there, but freeze in the empty streets. At night we saw that some of the lights are on and went back to Sandra, that promised us that the tour will start on the next day.
We spent the night at the coldest room you can imagine. We had to sleep inside our sleeping bags with all our worm clothes. We couldn't even read because it was just too cold to keep the hands outside the sleeping bags.
No tour started the next morning, of course, because the electricity was gone by the morning. We looked for another travel agency and found one that had fuel and hundreds recomandations in hebrew on the walls. After Lilya finally got to shout at Adolfo, he promised to give us back our money in La Paz, so went to book with that company (Ripley).
But there was another problem. ATMs need electricity in order to work, and since we paid all our money to Adolfo in advance (in La Paz), we didn't have enough money to pay for the tour. Oren had to run all over the town in order to find the bank which was open. The town center is not that big, but you try running at 3800 meters above sea level! After standing in line, running again to bring the passport, standing in line again, moving to another line and going back in line because the teller didn't have enough money in the drawer, Oren was able to get some money to pay for the tour.
The 3 days option was booked so we took the two days option and were sent to sit in a jeep full with people that did only one day in the Salar. Only later we understood that there is almost no difference between the two days and the one day tour (except for the minor fact that two days cost double the price of a one day). We visited the old train cemetery next to Uyuni, where we took pictures with trains having Einstein's equation (for Oren) and Newton's equation (For Lilya) on them. After few useless stops we crossed the Salar with the jeep until we got to the place where we ate lunch.
When we were about to leave the lunch place, we were told that the two of us are not leaving. Instead we were left at the cheep hostel without any explanations. Another couple that took our place in the jeep explained to us that tomorrow we can climb to the volcano next to the hostel. No guide or jeep stayed with us.
Other groups came after that but their guides stayed with them, even though they paid the same. During dinner we felt like abandoned children sitting alone, apart from the other groups.
On the next day we saw that the other groups had also jeeps that took them half way up. The climb itself was completely pointless since the view from 100 meters above the hostel was the same as the view we saw after 3 hours of climbing.
The only point of interest on the climb was a cave with 6 real mummies, 1500 years old. The family that died there preserved well because of the dry weather and the whole scene was very creepy. The cave was locked, of course, and we had to wait for a group with a guide to open it for us.
We got picked up after the lunch by the jeep that brought two new, German girls that were as surprised as us when they understood what was happening. We took their place and joined the other people in the jeep, all Israelis, to the Island of fish (Isla del Pescada) - a small hill in the middle of the salt plane covered with giant cactuses, some taller than 10 meters. The sun was good to us (Pachamama is a friend of us since Chile) and the place really looked amazing. The problems started again when we left. Our driver didn't really knew the way and the jeep got stacked inside the mud. We tried to help pushing it out but only got stinky mud all over our clothes. The bus back to La Paz was about to leave at 8 but it looked like we are not going to make it. Some of our new friends for trouble were religious, so they appealed to God in the sky and asked for a little consideration. After all, they are eating only Kosher food, in the one continent you just don't want any limitations on your food.
It probably helped, because we were rescued by another of the company's jeep just at 10 minutes to 8. On the way back to Uyuni the company's manager, which was with us in the jeep, talked to all our bus companies, making them wait for us to arrive.
One of our bus company`s buses did stay and wait but, of course, not the right one. We looked for our places on the bus, but found only other that were available and sat there. It suddenly became very important for the company that we'll move to the other bus. We still don't understand why, since they had no problem picking up random passengers that waited on the way and just sat in any place they had on the bus (on the stairs, floor and one on the other). Since it was that important, The bus stopped in the middle of nowhere and one of the company's guys came on board and yelled at us to move to the other bus "in one minute". They didn't even wanted to transfer our bags to the other bus and we had to yell back in order to get our bags. Our sits where taken in the new bus as well, so we had to sit separately. Lilya was the unlucky one, because she had to sit next to a huge French guy that was really unhappy by the fact he had to share the two sits with another person. All night long he pushed Lilya, if he was not too busy with complaining. When he wanted to get up, he found a good use for Lilya, as a shelf, and put his blanket on her.
In addition, the window kept opening up every two minutes, letting the freezing air go inside. That could have really destroyed the possibility to sleep, had there been one. But sleeping was not an option since the road was so bumpy that you had the same chances to fall asleep on a firing machine-gun.
We were so happy when we arrived to La-Paz. Even the fact that we had to fight for our bags didn't ruin that. We paid double that night and took a room in a hotel. Luckily enough, double the price of a hostel is not that expansive in La-Paz.

Tip 1: Never plan tight schedule in Bolivia. Keep enough spare days for any problem that might come out. You should also always expect those problems, because at some time it will happen.
Tip 2: Always take your sleeping bag with you to the drive to the Salar. It can be a very cold night.
Tip 3: We were very disappointed by the lack of professionalism of the following 3 tourist agencies: Adolfo Andino in Sagarnaga st. in La Paz, Sandra in Uyuni and Ripley in Uyuni as well.

Planet Bolivia

Planet Bolivia. If Peru was third world, than Bolivia must be the forth world. Almost from the moment we entered we got the Bolivian special experience. We crossed the border with the bus from Puno in the Peruvian side of the lake Titikaka to Copacabana in the Bolivian side. We looked for a ferry that will take us to Isla del Sol - an island next to the shores of Copacabana. Only after we bought the tickets, we discovered that there are no ferries to the island because of the stormy weather. We managed to get on board of another ferry, a local one, which of course took us to the wrong part of the Island. While most of the tourists arrive in a village in the central part, we got to the north. The village we got to looked like a very cold, laid back fisherman village and we did find a place to sleep, but what about eating? We searched until we found something that looked like a restaurant, but not from the usual type where you can order food but from the type where they tell you "come back later!" all the time. They didn't look as if they where really keen to sell something that day, so we had to spend the time till then freezing outside.

While waiting for this "later" to come, we went touring the small village, passing on the way small group of sheep and enjoying the tender sound of techno music. TECHNO MUSIC??? Shouldn't this be a quiet Bolivian island? Well, in our planet Bolivia, there is a coexistence between sheep and party people. Two minutes from the village, on the beach there was a party. The electronic music sound joined with the sound of the sheep and gave the day the necessary bizarre ending.
We were still hungry so we went back to the restaurant to see if "later" has arrived. At 7 in the evening, at last, our interest (hunger) and their interest (money) finally met and we got our (quite delicious) dinner. We went to sleep early that day in our special bed covered with Dora sheets in a mud hut that was our home for the day.
On the next morning we went hiking in the northern part of Isla del Sol, getting a really nice view on Lake Titikaka. When we got back and wanted to take the boat to Copacabana the problems started. In a small village, which is totally depended on its boats, you might have thought that getting real information about departure times will be easy. But in planet Bolivia nothing is really easy. Everyone has it's own opinion (never facts in Bolivia, only opinions...) about the times and whether there is boat at all. At the end we took a boat to another village, and from there the service van to Copacabana, just to find out that there are no buses to La Paz, because of the wind. What does the wind has to do with a bus drive? Well, in order to get from Copacabana to La Paz you have to cross a small strip of Lake Titikaka. There is no bridge, although the government wanted to build one. The locals objected, and why shouldn't they? Each of them has its own boat that can take some paying costumers across the lake, or a bathtub-like platform that can carry buses and cars. The view of the swinging from side to side on the unstable platform is really something else. That is why the whole passage is blocked when there is wind. We waited in Copacabana few hours until the crossing was opened and took a minivan to La Paz.

On the main road near La Paz we saw another Bolivian genius idea. They were just marking the marks on the road and didn't want the drivers to step on them, so they put medium size rocks in the middle of the road. The drivers, of course, accidentally hit those stones, spreading them all over the road and turning the highway into a dangerous obstacle for the other drivers. We got to La Paz at night. At the next morning, La Paz looked pleasant and we began to think we hallucinated everything because of the Malaria peels we were taking. But the real nightmare was still to come...

Pictures

We added two picture albums:

Isla del Sol:

Salar de Uyuni:

The posts about our adventures in those places will be published soon.