Jul 2007

La Paz
La Paz did not do it for me . I am not sure what I was looking for but whatever it was I did not find it in La Paz . I suppose both me and Nikki are becoming a bit bored with cities and we prefer smaller places and nature parks . A couple more months of travelling and we will have turned into treehuggers .
This will probably not interest anyone but I will write about it anyway because it was the most important thing I had to do in La Paz . I went shoeshopping in Bolivia´s capital . That sounds easy enough but let me tell you that when you have size 45 this can prove to be quite difficult . Most of the shop attendants just laughed at me when they saw those two monsters I call feet . One even winked at Nikki and called her a lucky girl . She did not have any shoes in my size though . In the end I was forced to go to a shop which specializes in clowns shoes . So here I was . About to go into the jungle with a pair of oversized clownsshoes which happened to be the only pair I could find that kind of fitted me .
In La Paz we met Rosa Maria . This spirited lady has many interesting stories to tell . When she was young slavery still existed in certain parts of Bolivia . Maybe this knowledge fuelled Rosas need to fight injustice .
I suppose Rosa is a typical child of the sixties . Full of idealism and an urge to make the world a better place . She has been involved in the emancipation of ingeneous people who were not officialy recognised untill the nineteen nineties . But her main concern is the conservation of the rainforest . She helped set up Madidi Park and her new baby is Serrere . This will be our next destination .

Serrere
This may not be the most beautiful place we have been so far but it is the most tranquil and our favourite . The lodge we stay in is build next to a lake . There are a couple of more lakes further away in the forest . The lodge is about three hours by boat from Rurrenabaque , the nearest village .
We spend our days here hiking through the forest watching the birds and monkeys , canoeing on the lakes and fishing for Piranha´s . There are many Caimen in the lakes . At night when you are canoeing through the lakes you can see the millions of stars sparkling in the sky and fire flies sparkling in the foliage on the shore . Sometimes you see red lights in the water . These are the eyes of the Caimen .
Our guide is amazing with recreating the animal sounds . He teaches me some of the sounds . After two days I am an expert on the female mating call of the caiman . When I call out every male caiman in a two mile radius gets a hard on . And that I think is what nature conservation should be all about . Giving the animals a great time .
Back in Rurrenabaque we buy some bananabread from the bananabreadman . The bananabreadmans bicycle has a sign which says ´delicious bananabread´and underneath it ´the DaVinci code is ridiculous´. When you buy something he will tell you a conspiracy story . He has a different one for every day of the year .
On our last night in Rurrenabaque we get totally drunk and I end up almost buying the bar . You heard it right . Yours truly was almost the proud owner of a bar called Pachamama in the jungle in Bolivia . Luckily I have a smart girlfriend who inquired if the bar actualy made money . It did not which looking back does not surprise me as our friend Kitt never paid his tab .

Potosi
Red coloured mountains loom over worlds highest city , Potosi . Almost five hundred years ago silver was discovered in these mountains and that discovery let to Potosi´s glory and tragedy . At the height of its growth Potosi counted two hundred thousand citizens which was more then Paris or New York . It was also more wealthy then the two cities combined . Rumour has it that with all the silver found around Potosi a bridge could have been built from South America to Spain . Whatever the truth is the excavation took its toll . Over eight million miners died uncovering the richness . There is something intriguing about Potosi . Because it towers 4090 meters above sealevel you are constantly gasping for air . Once is must have been a beautiful city but now the beauty is fading . What is left for you to see are some interesting churches and a museum which used to be the Royal Mint . And of course the famous mines which nowadays mainly produce zinc and lead and where the working conditions hardly have improved in the last five hundred years .

Uyuni
The trip from Potosi to Uyuni is noteworthy for two things . The breathtaking mountain scenery and the numerous ghost towns you travel through . When we were still quite a distance removed from Uyuni the city already announced itself by its litter . That is the way you know in Bolivia that you are approaching a town . The garbage gives it away . For example Uyunin is set in the middle of a sand and plastic bottle desert .

Southwest Bolivia
All the great painters combined could not have come up with such fantastic colour combinations . Everytime you think the scenery will not get better the 4 wheeldrive turns a corner and you see a mountain which is even more fiery red or a lake which has such strange colours you think the cook has slipped some LSd in the lunch you just ate .
Our guide tells us that NASA sends scientist to this area because it resembles the surface of Mars . From now on Mars is my favourite planet .
After a drive through the worlds biggest salt flat which by the way resembles a polar landscape and a visit to Isla Inca Huasi with its cactusses which seem to be taken from a western movie we travel to a small blue lake where flamingoes are feeding on algae in the freezing cold . From there we make our way through a mountaines landscape to Volcanoe Ollague and Laguna Colorade , a big red lake . We stay the night at the lake . During the night the temperature drops to minus 15 degrees . The next day we go to Laguna Verde near the Chilean border . On the way we pass the Rocas de Dali named after the famous mad painter . We bath in the the Termas de Polques which are pleasantly warm while the outside temperature is around freezing point . Back in Uyuni the five year old son of the hotel owner has to show us how to heat up the water for the shower so we can defrost our butts .

Oruro
Lama fetuses in all kind of sizes and carnival masks . That is what we saw in Oruro