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La Paz y Lago Titicaca
Entry 49 of 52 | show all | print this entry |
Getting to La Paz ended up being more of a mission than we could believe. After all flights from Sucre being cancelled we booked an overnight bus which was cancelled due to road blockades. So were in Sucre for another night (not a bad place to be stuck in Bolivia). The next morning we managed to get a flight out of Sucre but had to leg it out of town as the centre was being blockaded by bus drivers. Our taxi journey to the airport was eventful, taking unpaved back roads and the possibility that we would have to get out and walk.
On to La Paz, the world´s highest capital city at 3600m. Nothing too exciting to say, it´s a big city formed in a basin with the Andes as the backdrop. Harry and Hamish decided to cycle along the Worlds Most Dangerous Road which they complained they could have gone much faster. Fran and I wondered around the markets and nipped into several cafes as we were both suffering from Bolivia bum!
From La Paz we headed to the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca (worlds highest at 3,820m) staying on a small island called Isla Del sol (Inca birthplace of the sun) which was full of terraced land and pre-Inca ruins. It felt like Rivendell from LOTR with steep inca steps and waterfalls cascading down (although the scenery seemed less impressive when we had to lug our backpacks uphill for 25 mins gaining altitude-a killer!)
Although this island is seeing more tourists each year we still felt we had found a much less developed place. It was nice to be somewhere we felt comfortable chatting to the locals in our broken Spanish.
On our way back to the mainland, after 6.5 months of travelling Harry lost it with another traveller who was holding up our boat. The lack of sleep, cold showers and cold nights (combined with 2 very annoying South African girls we had met the night before who shouted at us lots!) had taken their toll!
Bolivia has probably been one of our favourite countries so far and has much more to offer than we have had time to see. But the threat of robbery, and sometimes even worse scams (two Austrian travellers were found dead while we were in La Paz) has meant we have been more cautious than we would normally have to be which can be tiring at times.
Our final stop on Lake Titicaca was on the Peruvian side reached by possibly the worst bus journey we have experienced throughout our travels, constantly being thrown out of our seats! We visited the world famous floating reed islands which are full of tourists but still good to see. We visited two islands, the first we doubt anyone actually lived on, the second was full of welcoming faces, who all wanted money for a photo! But it was a good experience.
So two weeks left to discover the delights of Peru! Time has flown by!
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| 49. | La Paz y Lago Titicaca - Puno, Peru Apr 08, 2006 |
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