Bolivian Adventure

by Jita Shah

I expected our 2005 trip to Bolivia to be well-organised, an interesting itinerary with comfortable accommodation, and a nice small group. That was before the Bolivians decided to make themselves heard...

Witches' Market, La Paz

The flight to Santa Cruz via Sao Paolo was uneventful, and the warmth of Santa Cruz in the south hit us as we landed. Our plan was to start at low altitude and build up to La Paz. The following day we set off early for the northeast part of Bolivia - home to the Jesuit Missions and not a part of the country visited by most tourists. We hit a roadblock just after 11am, the first sign that trouble was stirring in this country. Half an hour later, on the dirt road we were diverted to, we hit another one - this was a bit uglier with farmers wielding sticks against our tour bus. Retreating rapidly, we only had one more option left - a very long dirt road that would, in the end, lead to a diversion of over 400km. So we took it and managed to get some lunch at 4pm at a roadside 'restaurant' in a hamlet (there had been nothing en route at all) where they cooked us chicken and rice. Bizarrely, the bottles of red wine they produced were not bad at all (or was that just exhaustion telling after 2 days of travelling?)

We checked in at 3am that night, in a hotel and village we hadn't planned on stopping at, totally exhausted from the bus trip. And we were still a few hours from Concepcion where we were meant to check in.

The following day, Monday, we left for Sucre, the beautiful colonial administrative capital of Bolivia, now a Unesco World Heritage Site. 'Sucre', because all its buildings in the centre are whitewashed every year. On our flight over, our tour leader pointed out a man to us in the minuscule business class - he was one of the 'Presidents-in-waiting', Eduardo Rodriguez. The demonstrations in the country had escalated (over the earlier privatisation and foreign ownership of the national utilities) and the current interim president Carlos Mesa was proving to be too soft and ambiguous in his handling of the situation.

The day after we arrived, Carlos Mesa resigned; by this time more roads were being blockaded, and thousands of Indians had poured into La Paz to protest. Sucre was declared the place for an emergency Congress meeting to be held on Thursday, and it was looking increasingly as if we would not be able to leave as we'd planned. On Wednesday, we visited the Casa de la Libertad, the place where the declaration of Independence was signed. Even there, we were shooed out as the television crew moved into the very room we were in, to film it prior to the meeting. And yes, some of us appeared in that clip that night on Bolivian TV as we were being hustled out.

We had to spend Thursday barricaded in our hotel, as the town centre was packed with demonstrators, although we did manage to sneak to the end of the road to mingle! Eduardo Rodriguez was voted in that night, but only as an impartial and popular 'interim' until a full election took place later that year.

We were eventually able to leave mid-afternoon on Friday, having lost a full two days from our itinerary. A German tour party who were in the same hotel had their trip curtailed, and they were to be flown back at the next available opportunity. Thankfully, our tour leader decided it was worth carrying on, but from now on, it would be a race to complete the itinerary.

Our next stop was Potosi, the highest city in the world. At one time it was the biggest city in the Americas, on a par with London, Paris, Seville, on account of its rich silver mines. I found it to be a beautiful, yet desolate place, despite the stunning colonial architecture.

By now the altitude and the cold had hit us, with temperatures at freezing point. We stayed in the beautiful Hacienda Cayara outside the city, with very spartan facilities, freezing temperatures and practically no heating in the bedroom. The cold was to become our companion for the next few nights.

The following day we whizzed around the town before leaving for Uyuni, which was our stay for the night en route to the spectacular Salar de Uyuni, the world famous salt flats at a height of 3,650m. The next day and night were going to be our most memorable of the trip - the beauty of these incredible salt flats through to the long, cold trek to La Paz, as we scrambled to make up time.

We set off across this incredible white expanse, not dissimilar to a snowy scene but the dazzling blue sky and glare of the sun reminded us of how high and south we were from any snow. We really needed shades to protect us from the ferocious glare. The Salar is covered in pentagonal and hexagonal shapes which look as if they were man-made, but aren't. Small piles of salt lay around as this is collected, iodised and then sold. We made the obligatory tourist stop at the Salt Hotel, where everything is made entirely of salt except the roof. We finally got to our destination - the eerie 'island' - Isla Incahausi, where we wandered amongst the huge cacti on the island, up to 10m tall (and some over 100 years old). There is a longer trip that people make over 3-4 days covering other strange phenomena such as the coloured lakes and the flamingo colony, which I would love to do another time.

After a picnic lunch, we got back and set off on the long, long journey via Oruro to La Paz. One thing I forgot to mention - the buses are not heated and neither do they carry additional blankets. Temperatures dropped to freezing, and by this stage of the trip, tempers were beginning to fray, as cold and hunger, and discomfort hit us. We entered La Paz at 3am, after a late dinner at 11pm.

After a quick look in town the following day, and a visit to the unusual Vale de Luna with its spectacular rock formations, we finally had a normal night's sleep before the final stage of our journey. This was to Lake Titicaca, via Tiahuanaco, the site of the longest running Andean civilisation (supporting 125,000) and a significant pre-cursor to the Inca Empire. This was a pretty impressive site - monumental in scale, and setting. Unfortunately, the treasures of this site were scattered all over the world after the Spanish arrived who, incidentally, looted all the gold (no surprises there).

We had a delightful lunch with views of the Andes on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Little did we know, but we had one more adventure left, and perhaps one adventure too far! The plan was to go across the lake to stay the night in the town of Copacabana, and have a day on the lake before a last night in La Paz and the flight back. The boats to the lake were on strike.

The tour leader had a conflab with a couple of us to see if we wanted another night in La Paz, or we could go to the Yungas, an almost tropical paradise. We were assured that although we would have to go through La Paz there was a new road to Coroico and we would not be having another late night.

As luck would have it, the tunnel on this new road had caved in, so without being informed, we proceeded down what is officially known as the "world's most dangerous road". This road is little more than a rocky ledge carved into the rock face and sometimes with 1000m drops on the side. It was nightfall, and there is a rule that says if there is oncoming traffic, on the way down, we had to reverse.

There is no way I can describe what it felt like, sitting over the back wheel, watching our bus reverse, several times, in the dark. Sufficient to say that there were no smiles, and a few green faces when we finally got to our hotel at 10pm. Maybe it only really hit us the next day coming back, when we saw the drops in daylight that we hadn't been able to see at night and crosses to mark the (mostly) mountain bikers that hadn't quite made it.

This was an eventful and unforgettable trip. Despite the demonstrations and blockades, I still felt safe and everywhere we met such friendly and helpful Bolivians. I can only feel privileged that we were there to experience a tiny bit of history and managed to survive that last hair-raising trip.

First published in VISA 80A (Aug 2008)