white all around you see, Bolovia

<![CDATA[ALUSOARE - Bolivia]]>Sun, 22 Dec 2024 00:53:33 +0100Weebly<![CDATA[Lake Titicaca...little piece of heaven]]>Wed, 13 Jan 2016 13:22:09 GMThttps://www.alusoare.com/bolivia/lake-titicacalittle-piece-of-heaven

Coming down from Cuzco, Peru we decided to cross the border to Bolivia and enjoy the lake on the Bolivian side. The most popular destination is Isla del Sol and there is where we also went.

Trip down from Cuzco:
Took the 10 PM night bus to Puno, Peru. One of the best companies is Cruz del Sur. We paid 70 soles per person for VIP seats. It is a 6:30h trip, so we arrived in Puno at about 4:30 AM.

Puno-Copacabana

Once in Puno, we checked for buses going to Copacabana, in the end we went with Titicaca bus operator with 15 soles per person. The bus was leaving at 5:30AM and it was a 4-5h trip including the stop at the border where you need to get the exit stamp from Peru and the entrance stamp into Bolivia

Keep in mind that:

Bolivia is one hour ahead of Peru
important to buy toilet paper and have it with you
keep an eye on your stuff at all times, we did not have any problems but a bit of extra attention would not harm
during the trip ... always but always take care of your little emigration paper. At the border between Peru & Bolivia you can get it back for 20 soles if you loose it (not sure how it works at the airport though)
there will NEVER (at least in the near future) be Wi-Fi in a bus in Bolivia even when they have the logo and they swear that they have it :P

Copacabana - Isla del Sol
Boats leave towards the island 2 times a day once at 8 in the morning and once at 1:30 PM. On the way to the island it is quite easy to negotiate as there are several " companies" offering the service.

The Island has to parts so you should decide where to go, if in the Northern (more things to see) or in the Southern (cheaper). You can walk from one side to the other as well. We decided to go to the Northern part and paid in the end 15 Bolivianos per person.

Now the trip takes depending on the driver & it's boat. Besides the regular stop in the Southern part our driver also made a small detour to see his family :) in the middle part of the island so the trip was of about 4h. Once you get at your destination you will be welcomed by a lot of kids offering accommodation.

As we did not have anything booked in advance we looked around. After so many hours from bus to bus the only thing we wanted was a room with private bathroom and hot shower :) ... which we found at a very very nice lady called Ana. Go on the 'Main' street, the house will be on the left hand side right before the "camping beach" Clean and cheap. She left the 3 of us sleep in a 2 persons room. We paid 80 bolivianos for it.

It was already after 4PM so we left our staff and went around to get to the temple.You need to pay 10 bolivianos to enter the "site area" but the ticket is valid for a unspecified number of days :P It's a 1-1:30 h walk to the temple.

The beauty of the landscape is hard to describe in words so I'll just add some pictures that would give you an idea.

Once it started to get dark we went back to grab something to eat. We found a "restaurant"close to where the boat left us where we had some soup and trout. As it started raining we went to sleep at around 10 PM :) ... it rained all night till 8 AM so we had a great sleep very early, finally managing to refill our batteries. In the morning we bought our ticket back to Copacabana, here there is NO negotiation possible there is only an "office" where they sell the tickets. You have 3 options to leave the island at 8:30, 10:30 PM, 1:30 PM and it cost 25 bolivianos.

Keep in mind that:

be there 30 min in advance to avoid getting stuck on the island, as sometimes they don't have enough boats to bring all people that bought the ticket to Copacabana.

As we had some time till 1PM when we wanted to be at the boat we went towards the Southern part of the Island, once you reach the top you would need to pay 15 Bolivianos to cross to the other side, as we did not have so much time we decided to go back and not pay the ticket. We took the boat back to Copacabana where we arrived at 4PM.

#ILoveToTravel

]]><![CDATA[Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia]]>Mon, 30 Nov 2015 17:34:48 GMThttps://www.alusoare.com/bolivia/salar-de-uyuni-bolivia

....do you know the feeling when you are up in the mountains and all you see around you is the white snow and the blue sky? .. well this is exactly the same feeling when you are in the middle of 12.000 square meters of salt.

The Uyuni Salar is the biggest salt flat in the world and is located at about 3,656 m above sea level in Potosi province, Bolivia.

What do you need to do to visit the salar? It is simple.

Jump into a plane from La Paz for example or get into a bus direction Uyuni*. There are several bus companies. Mainly used by locals so just make sure you have all your important stuff in your day pack and you keep an eye on it at all times. We came from Potosi and had a good journey; the road is brand new so had no issues. An airline is Amaszonas, we had a lot of problems until we managed to book the flight (left by plane towards Peru) as our VISA cards were not accepted, we managed in the end after Jose Luis approved one of our cards.

All the tours start somewhere between 10:00 - 11:00 maybe best to aim to arrive in the city late as there is not much to do. We stayed at Jumari Hotel in a 3 bed room (1 double bed + 1 single bed) with breakfast included for 220 Bolivianos per night per room.

Book the tour there as you have the chance to negotiate. The tour options are for one, two or three days. The more days the closer you get to the border with Chile.
We got there on Friday evening and we had Monday very early our flight to Arequipa, Peru. Sunday there were elections in Bolivia which meant no transportation, nobody was allowed to drive in order to make sure that people won't vote twice.

We wanted to go on a 2 day tour so that would have been Saturday & Sunday. With the travel interdiction we managed to get a special tour for 1200 Bolivianos per person.

including: private jeep + driver, lunch for the 2 days, dinner, accommodation at the Salt Hotel, breakfast
excluding: shower at the hostel (10 bolivianos) the entrance on the Inkawasi Island (30 bolivianos) and the entrance in the national park of La Laguan Colorada (150 bolivianos).

The first stop is exactly the same for any tour operator.

We left Uyuni at 10:30 stopped for pictures at Cementerio de Trenes then at Colchani Village (salt processing village) where you can buy a lot of salt made souvenirs and from there we drove till the entrance in the Salar.
The first stop into the Salar was at the Montones de Sal. This little salt mountains are man made during the first drying period, they are then transported to Cochani for processing.

From that point on there is only white everywhere you look around. We stopped at some point to take a couple of "fotos locas". As everything is (almost) flat and white there is no way to estimate distances so you can get the most awesome effects on pictures.

We did not manage to see the mirror effect as it did not rain the last couple of days before our visit.

In the middle of all this white dessert there is an Island called Incahuasi Island where you can find a lot of cactus treas. The view from the top is amazing. We stayed here for about 2h. We had enough time to eat, walk around and take pictures.

We continued our trip through the salt dessert till our hostel. The hotel is made of salt, the rooms had private bathroom, but shared showers. The food was included. Get a sleeping bag with you as it can be cold.

We arrived at the hostel at about 5:30 PM after a shower we had some drinks (TIP: buy drinks in Uyuni it's cheaper) then we had dinner and most of the people that were doing the tours went to sleep as next morning we had to leave 6ish.

On the way we met a lot of lamas, vicunas and saw a lot of Quinoa fields.

The second day, we went into the dessert where we stopped to see different Lagunas which were the temporary house for pink flamingos. Our aim was to reach Laguna Colorada, the color mix is due to the borax (white part) while the reddish parts are due to some red sediments and the pigmentation of some algae.

With so many awesome views we were ready to go back to Uyuni where we arrived back at around 8PM.

If in Chile you have a 4 day tour trip from Tupiza, but I won't cover it as I don't know much about it.

#ILoveToTravel

]]><![CDATA[Potosi...visiting the mine at Cerro Rico, Bolivia]]>Mon, 30 Nov 2015 16:48:01 GMThttps://www.alusoare.com/bolivia/potosivisiting-the-mine-at-cerro-rico-bolivia

Route: Copacabana - La Paz - Potosi

Copacabana - La Paz
We left Copacabana at 5PM towards la Paz. From there we only knew that we would not like to spend the night and had as options Sucre, Potosi and Uyuni depending on when the bus would reach La Paz we would just book a bus on the spot.

TIP: ...take good care where they drop you in La Paz as by night the outskirts look absolutely horrible.

We paid 23 bolivianos, but you could get it for 17 if you negotiate with the driver directly and not via an "agency". At some point you need to cross the river, so you have to get off the bus and move on a small boat. The bus crosses as in the picture. You need to pay 2 bolivianos for the boat ticket.

TIP: trust no one, especially from the locals, the nicest grandpa might already have a plan on how to get your money, we had some travellers we met on the way who were robbed

La Paz - Potosi
The bus dropped us 2 streets away from the bus terminal, surroundings looked more or less safe, so we walked (5 min)
At the Bus station we could catch the bus to Potosi, we got the ticket for 50 bolivianos for a semicama seat. Of course no Wi-Fi and the safety in the bus was not very convincing.

TIP: take your sleeping bag in the buses as it can be cold.

We left around 9PM and we were supposed to arrive in Potosi 10h later. One hour away from the city we had a flat tire ... not a surprise in Bolivia though as they usually try to epand the life of a tire as much as possible by replacing the damaged one with the inside ones. They did arrange a second bus that picked us up and brought us to the bus station in the city.

Potosi with it's 4090m is one of the highest cities in the world. The city was one of the most important ones in the past because of the very high resources of silver. The story and the mine are IMPRESSIVE it is quite hard to see the working conditions of the people in the mines. Below a video I managed to find on the internet just to give an idea...

We were extremely lucky that we found Helen, a lovely, full of energy guide working for the travel agency Amigos de Bolivia. Calle Ayacucho Nr. 20, Potosi, Bolivia. She brought us to the mine and explained us the whole story of the place. She advised us to buy some small gifts for the miners, so we got them some bottles of juice but you can get them anything you want.

It is hard seeing these people also on TV but seeing them face to face is even harder and kind of marks you in a way. If in Bolivia, make the time to pass by, you need half day and you are left with so many new feelings.

â€‹You can read more about Potosi in the book Las venas abiertas de America Latina by the Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano

#ILoveToTravel

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