Bolivia Recap 9/6/12 - 10/1/12

Recap of Bolivia:

Time in country:  25 days
Money spent: approximately $970 USD each (includes cost of Visa)
Currency:  Boliviano
Conversion Rate: approximately 7 Bolivianos per USD

Food:
Again, a typical local plate can consist of a soup, plate with rice, salad, choice of meat, and juice.  Most of which was very bland.

We did find some nice places serving high-end medallion filets on the cheap!

Places Visited (in order):  Copacabana, La Paz, Uyuni, Southwest Circuit, Sucre, Santa Cruz

Random Thoughts:  
Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in South America.  Because of this fact a common phrase amongst travelers used to explain some of the less than ideal situations (such as Border offices being closed all day without notice, bathrooms, busses, roads, service, quality of food, etc.) was "well, this IS Bolivia".  

Most of the roads in Bolivia are unpaved, so the bus trips are not very fun, but hey, "this IS Bolivia".

Due to strikes and road blocks being pretty common (specifically miners' strikes while we were there), we spent quite a few days waiting around in towns.  Luckily for us it is an inexpensive country!

Since Bolivia is so cheap we were able to live it up a little bit.  This included nice steak dinners, wine, and nicer hostels all for pretty cheap. So, although it may seem like we spent a lot of money in a country that's supposed to be cheap, we lived well :-).

La Paz, technically the capital of Bolivia, is the highest capital city in the world at 11,975 ft.  This city and parts of the Salt Flat were quite chilly!

In most parts of Bolivia, the women still wear very traditional clothing consisting of long, colorful skirts, blouses with aprons a lot of times, and undersized bowler hats.

Thanks to reciprocity, the Bolivian Visa cost Americans $135 (crisp and clean bills only).

Santa Cruz to the Border 9/28/12 - 10/1/12

The vast majority, okay 95%, of Bolivia's roads are unpaved, and the long winding road through the mountains to Santa Cruz was definitely unpaved.  Picture this.... a 17 hour journey on a dusty, rocky road and no a/c on the bus so the windows were open, no bathroom on board so the bus stopped every 5 or so hours (including at 4 am) for a bathroom break; however, for two of those breaks that meant getting off the bus in the pitch black and popping a squat (ladies, men, elderly, children, everyone!) with the rest of the bus.  Safe to say, it was one of our less favored bus trips. 

We originally planned to do some type of Amazon wetlands tour from Santa Cruz rather than go all the way back north to La Paz to do it; however, as it turned out there wasn't a plethora of tours leaving from here and with the price and type of tours, we weren't overly hyped about it.  So, no Amazon tour for us.  Thus, this city was a mere 3 day/2 night stop over to get to Brazil.  More relaxation :-).

The town was decent and had a very nice plaza with plenty of shops, restaurants, and ice cream shops around it.  We definitely had our share of ice cream while there (the Oreo was awesome!), as well as treated ourselves to a great steak dinner while it was cheap.

We stayed at Residencial Bolivar where a private room with shared bath was about $12 a piece and included a fruit, bread, and juice breakfast.  

It also had a Toucan mascot who we called Sam (thanks major corporation marketing of sugary Froot Loops cereal while we were children!).  He was very friendly and liked to hang out with the humans.

We also planned our trip to get the Brazil border via train so we headed to the bus terminal/train station to get our tickets on one of the better, faster trains, Ferrobus.  We went to the station on Saturday, but the ticket booth was closed.  We asked a lady at the info. center if she knew if there were any seats on the train left because we had heard the seats on the nice train can sell out days in advance.  She said there were still some first class seats left (oh darn ;-) ).  The ticket booth didn't open again until 3 PM the next day (the day we wanted to take the train), so Kristin made sure we were there by 1:45 so that we'd be the first in line.  As it turned out, 3:00 turned into 3:40 ish, but after 2 hours of waiting in line (with only 1 other person) we were able to get our tickets on the train we wanted with no problem!

The train was nicer than the majority of the buses we have ridden (there was a/c and the seats were very comfy) and the meal was even great!  We left about 6:30 in the evening and arrived at the border a little over 13 hours later.  We actually felt quite good about exiting Bolivia and were ready for a change of scenery.

Sucre 9/19/12 - 9/27/12

Sucre is a gorgeous small city and has a great climate.  It actually used to be the Capital city of Bolivia; however, today only the Judicial branch sits here, but the town still has a clean feel and historic charm.  When we arrived to Sucre we felt like we were in a town in California more so than in Bolivia.

To be perfectly honest, we didn't do much of anything while here.  It doesn't mean that one couldn't venture into a tourist agency and find a plethora of activities such as:  mountain biking, hiking, city tours, dinosaur footprints, markets, etc.  We just didn't feel like doing these things and instead used our time to relax.

It helped that we stayed in the best place we have been yet, a Belgian owned place called Casa Verde B&B (thanks to the recommendation from Sam and Katy).

We actually had our own room with a tv, mini fridge, closets, couches, private bathroom with hot water, comfortable mattress, and even had a second story loft with an extra bed.  Also, the kitchen was immaculate and we felt very comfortable cooking a few meals (other hostels seem to have messy kitchens and it feels gross to cook in them).  The place also had great internet, a very nice owner, a lovely courtyard, and a pool!

After our discount for staying at least 5 days, it worked out to $12.50 each.  However, this also included a top-notch breakfast of fresh squeezed OJ, tea/coffee, breads, jam, butter, fresh fruit, yogurt, granola, fresh cooked eggs, and two strips of bacon.  To get a breakfast like that anywhere else in town was at least $4 or $5, so we felt great about our value for the money.

Although cooking was a fine choice, there were also plenty of nice restaurants with very affordable meals.  For example, each of us could get a beer or glass of wine with a plate that contained 2 beef medallions wrapped in bacon and in a scrumptious sauce, with a side, for about $11 each.  Needless to say, we are enjoying living cheaply while it is possible before we head onto the expensive parts of South America.

Other highlights of our stay were watching Netflix, watching movies at a restaurant theatre, listening to the Abilene High football game via the internet, streaming a little bit of college football as well as a Monday Night Football game. (Can you tell we're missing football? ;-) )

Although we wanted to leave about 3 days earlier than we did, it wasn't quite possible.  The first morning we were going to try and leave, Kristin woke up feeling ill, so we decided it was best for Matt to play nurse and let her rest in bed all day.  The next day, we learned that the miners had once again blocked much of the roads throughout Bolivia's major cities so again we were stuck, but luckily this time we were stuck in a place we definitely didn't mind.  The next day the miners had ceased the blockades and we were ready to head out, but the only seats on the bus we needed were the last row in the very back.  We've done the back of the bus and it is not fun, so we opted to wait and leave the next day.  Thankfully, we finally made it out and moving on to Santa Cruz.

Uyuni 9/14/12 - 9/18/12

To get to Uyuni from La Paz we could have chosen an extra bumpy night bus, or the cheaper, more exciting 7 hour train by day.  Matt had never been on a train for more than an hour, so it was an easy choice for us.  Not to mention it was about a quarter of the price of the bus!

We decided to do Bolivia a little out of order and head to Uyuni before the rest of Bolivia because while in La Paz we made plans via facebook with an English couple that we met while in Colombia, Sam and Katy, to try and do the Salt Flat tour together.  Our first day in Uyuni was basically a sit around and wait day, because there was not much else to, and Sam and Katy were not due in town until that afternoon.  Luckily, they got there as planned, we met them in the square, and we squared away our tour for the next day.

Picture of Uyuni, courtesy of Sam and Katy

The main attraction that causes tourists to flood to Uyuni is the multi-day tours of the salt flat, Salar de Uyuni, and an area known as the Southwest Circuit.  The salt flat itself is a vast, barren landscape that extends over 12,000 sq. km of pure white salt, looks more like snow. 

We visited during the dry season, but we heard the salt flat during the wet season is even more incredible, because the water on the salt creates a mirror effect (picture courtesy of the internet :-)).

The salt flat was formed centuries ago when this area of Bolivia was actually covered by ocean until the Andes Mountains rose up and then the water evaporated from the area and created an enormous area of pure salt.  We chose to do a 3 day/2 night tour with a company called Quechua Connection and we loved it!

It seems that everyone refers to the vehicles used for the tour transport as "jeeps", but Matt didn't agree because each vehicle was either a Toyota Land Cruiser or its rich cousin version, Lexus. 

Our first day started off with a quick visit to a train cemetery before heading on to the salt flat.

We spent the day exploring the salt flat while enjoying the following activities: mountain biking,

lunch in a hotel made of all salt,

picture taking session on the salt flats (it's popular to take pictures playing around with perspectives because there's no other objects in sight to serve as reference points),

"Cactus Island" (The majority of flora on the island is the huge cacti that grow there at about 1 cm a year.  The largest and oldest cactus, that had fallen, was almost 12 meters tall and estimated at 1200 years old),

Pia Pia cave,

and watching the sunset on the salt flat.

Perhaps one of the best experiences of the day was after dinner when our guide, Jose, took us back out on the flats for star gazing.  We have both seen some great Texas night skies growing up, but this was absolutely SPECTACULAR.  Neither of us have ever seen anything like it, and the two city kids from London definitely hadn't; therefore, everyone agreed it was an amazing experience!  We were able to see the Milk Way perfectly clear, lots of constellations, and a handful of shooting stars.  There are no pictures that can even come close to representing what we were able to see.

Honestly, our next few days were pretty simple as the guide drove us around on dirt roads similar to those Texas ranch roads back home and we stopped every now and then to view a tourist attraction:  red lagoons, green lagoons, lots of flamingos, volcanoes, big rocks, and important stops for when we needed a "wee".

That being said, our last morning we were up at 4:30 AM in order to view the geysers (not the old people, but the springs that shoot out hot water/ steam) at full activity.  At the first place we stopped, we were standing around looking at the geyser and taking our pictures, still a little dreary from being up so early.  Then all of a sudden, Jose, our guide, took off running and jumped right through the huge spout of steam.  It was quite surprising, but of course, we all had to do it too and it made for quite an exciting time with a lot of laughter (despite the sulphur in the lungs making us cough afterwards and the freezing cold temperature).  

The geyser field was impressive and we ran around and checked it out fairly quickly so that our fingers and toes didn't get frostbite ;-).  The views of the sunrise were also very pretty.

After the geysers we headed to a hot spring pool and our breakfast spot.  It was pretty nippy outside, was probably in the 30s, at 4,800 m but our group didn't pass on stripping down to our swimsuits and jumping in the hot spring pool.  The water was nice and hot and felt great!  The worst part was having to get out of the hot water and back into the cold air.  It was actually so cold that once we got out, changed, and hung our swim suits out to dry, they were frozen stiff in a matter of minutes!

Hot spring pool later in the day.

After our last breakfast together we headed to the Chilean border to drop off Sam and Katy.  It was FREEZING, windy, overcast, and in the middle of nowhere.  Once we had them situated, said our farewells,  shed a few tears (jk), we headed back on the 7 hour journey to Uyuni with Jose and a caravan of other Land Cruisers.

While in Uyuni, we stayed at Hotel Avenida across from the Train Station for a small amount of $4.50 each. It was very basic but got the job done, was clean, and had hot showers.  No picture :-(.