WEATHER: Cold and rainy 17C
HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting into a new country-BOLIVIA
BUMMER OF THE DAY: The weather is a bit chilly
BUYS OF THE DAY: Mt new sim card for 3AUD
WORD OF THE DAY: “It’s the altitude”
Today is a travel day and we leave Peru after 3 weeks and into a new country, Bolivia. We had to shuttle back to Rosita, as she was still too big to fit in the city streets of Puno. I am still carrying a few bags, Kate has started to call me the bag lady, not the first time and I am sure it won’t be the last!
We started early third morning with a 5.45am wake up, breakfast at 6.30am and we were boarding the shuttle at 7am. Mark wanted to get us into La Paz at a reasonable hour, hence the early start. We also had a border to cross, and they can be so random on how long they take, so we wanted to have some time up our sleeve for that as well.
We hit the border at 9.20am and it connects to 2 towns on either side. It wasn’t one of those borders that are in the middle of nowhere. So people had time to go to the toilets, we also changed our left over Peruvian soles to Bolivian bolivianos. So new currency means a new rate and we were getting 6.88 to the dollar. So it is time to use my seven times tables. Those and my eight times tables are the worst to deal with. The money exchanger would only take notes, which is the norm, but there were ladies set up outside that would take your coins from you and exchange them happily if you wanted to get rid of all your currency. That’s the first time I’ve seen that you could do your coins as well.
Clearing the Peruvian border control was easy and didn’t take long with us joining a line, showing out passport and the departure card that was stamped when we entered the country. If you don’t have the card there is a fine that you have to pay of 5USD. WOAH, now that is a fine that will hit the back pocket! Once we had all been processed it was time for us to walk across the bridge, which was about 50m long and totally busy with people, bikes, cars and tuk tuks going back and forth. It was a hive of activity. The border controls didn’t seem to care about photos here, so I was able to get a ‘welcome to Bolivia Bernstar jump’ and thanks for visiting Peru Bernstar jump. They turned out pretty cool with the locals also in the picture.
The Bolivian was a little more involved but didn’t take that long either. We had to line up to show our passport, to be able to be given an entry form, and once that was filled in we had to line up in a different line to get the stamp and processed into Bolivia. There were a lot of people in both queues, but we really didn’t have to wait long and before we knew it we were all on the truck ready to go at 10.40am. We had to wait a little longer for the truck to be cleared but we were back on the road just before 11am.
WELCOME TO BOLIVIA.
We had to move our watches forward an hour and we travelled for another 2 hours before stopping for lunch only 20 minutes out of La Paz. But we were at a look out that had a magnificent view over the valley where the city is located and it was just an amazing view. Just housing as far as the eye could see, with no gaps at all to be had, except a football pitch we could see. It was wall to wall buildings. I guess being the highest capital city in the world, you would expect some form of greatness and this certainly had a wow factor as we ate our lunch over the city.
Nuestra Señora de La Paz aka Our Lady of Peace is the administrative capital of Bolivia and the second largest city in the country (in population) after Santa Cruz de la Sierra. It is located at an elevation of roughly 3,650 m, with the city built on steep hills, above sea level, making it the world's highest "de facto" capital city, or administrative capital. The city sits in a "bowl" surrounded by the high mountains of the altiplano.
As it grows, the city of La Paz climbs the hills, resulting in varying elevations from 3,000 meters to 4,100 meters. Overlooking the city is towering triple-peaked Illimani, which is always snow-covered and can be seen from several spots of the city, including from the neighbor city of El Alto. As of the 2001 census, the city had a population of 877,363. La Paz Metropolitan area, formed by the cities of La Paz, El Alto and Viacha, make the most populous urban area of Bolivia, with a population of 2.3 million inhabitants and surpassing the metropolitan area of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
The geography of La Paz (in particular the altitude) reflects society: the lower areas of the city are the more affluent areas. While many middle-class residents live in high-rise condos near the center, the houses of the truly affluent are located in the lower neighborhoods southwest of the Prado. And looking up from the center, the surrounding hills are plastered with makeshift brick houses of those less economically fortunate. La Paz is located in the valleys of the Andes, and is closer to the Eastern split of the Altiplano region. Therefore, it is closer to the famous mountains such as the Illimani (guardian of La Paz), Huayna Potosi, Mururata, and Illampu. On the Western side of the Altiplano divide, about an hour to the West of the La Paz, is the site of the tallest mountain in Bolivia and 9th tallest mountain in the Andes, the Sajama Volcano. In July 1994, an earthquake rated at 8.2 struck just 200 miles north of La Paz, the largest earthquake since the Sumbawa earthquake of 1977.
Once again Rosita is too big for La Paz streets, so after packing up lunch and driving for 20 minutes we met our shuttle to take us the rest of the way into the city and to our hotel. First impression of La Paz. It is BUSY. There is traffic, cars, people, ladies carrying their wares on their backs. It was busy. The hotel was in a great location and we arrived there just after 1.30pm. We were room 503, and yes that’s right we were on the 5th floor, and yes you guessed again there were no lifts in the hotel. Omar was my knight in shining armor and he carried my day bag up the stairs for me, but Kate had to lug her 50kg bag all the way and in the process did something to her hip. She is still precious after her macho Pichhu epic climb, so another massage was on the cards for her. It also doesn’t help being at 3650m above sea level to be climbing 5 flights of steps. We struggled each and every time we had to go up those suckers and really, we had to suck in big air for about 5-10 minutes after getting to our room, and that included stops at level 2 and 4. It has nothing to do with fitness; this can legitimately be blamed on the altitude! But to put some perspective on it there is always people worse off and it happened to be Mick and Seamus who had a room on the 6th floor.
After a few minutes to freshen up in the rooms we met Mark and the gang back downstairs for out orientation tour around town. It was here that I found out that I left my adapter at the hotel in Puno. I am spewing. I have had that thing for nearly 10 months and I finally left it somewhere. Damn it. Kate and I have the same notebooks, so I can use her charger and I can charge my phone and IPod via that, the only thing that I can’t do is my batteries for my camera. I will ask Mick or Omar if I can share theirs and if I can buy one of theirs when they leave the tour. It is a bugger that is for sure. So out and about in La Paz and there are a lot of travel agencies around, so hopefully I will hear back from Beth today or tomorrow if she can issue my ticket, otherwise I will make a stop into one and see how I go trying to explain what I am after. The streets are busy with people and cars and busses honking horns. There are locals on the streets selling their wares from fruit, to stationary, to hygiene products to dyes, watches you name it there was a seller selling it. It made for a lot of zig zagging along the footpaths that aren’t the widest to start with, so you sometimes find yourself having to dodge people stepping onto the road and back up again.
Our first stop was the agency that we were booking out Death Road bike trip with for tomorrow. MADNESS was the company and they are one of the few that have bikes that have suspension. We got a brief and shown a slide show of pictures of what to expect, signed our life away on a disclaimer, gave our height for the bikes, our shirt sizes for the free t-shirt we get, paid our 550BOL (80USD) and we were on our way again. The damn city is built on a hill, so at the moment we are walking down hill, but you know what that means! Eventually we are going to have to go back up again.
The tour finished at the San Francisco Church and from here we had free time. There are 5 of us who don’t have Paraguay visa’s, so we decided to make a run to the consulate and try and get them done here. So we caught 2 taxis in the crazy traffic to get us to the consulate 10 minutes after 4pm, and you guessed it, it closed at 4pm!!! Mark got to speak to the visa’ lady and she explained that she only had 3 visa stickers left anyway, so we could all come back tomorrow, but she would only be able to issue 3 visa’s. As we were doing Death Road tomorrow, we couldn’t come back till the day after, we figured we will just wait and try and get them in Santiago. If all fails there, we have one more crack at the cherry in Buenos Aires.
From here Mark, Kate and I made a run for the mobile phone company Tigo, so that I could get a new sim card for Bolivia. South America is similar to Africa, where each countries cards cannot be used across the board, which is super annoying and I think I am up to sim card number 20 or so. I lost my Australian sim card about 6 months ago, but I do have a UK sim card that has been my constant number should all else fail in most countries. It hasn’t worked in Ecuador and also Peru, but otherwise it has been a handy sim to have. I am lucky I have had friends topping it up for me while I am away when needed and I put 150GBP on it when I was last at Heathrow in November. The process was quite easy and I had the sim in my hand after only a few minutes BUT the phone that I bought in Peru, is locked to Movistar and cannot be used with another company. WHAT! We even asked the guy when we bought it if it would be locked and he said no. Yeah I guess he would to get the sale. BUT apparently my Blackberry will work here no problems (couldn’t use it in Ecuador or Peru) so it wasn’t all to waste, as I could put the sim into that instead.
By this time it is just after 5pm, the other had gone to Oliver’s Travel for drinks, but it had been a long day, so Kate and I decided to head back to the hotel UP HILL and just stop for an early dinner somewhere along the way. We found this Italian restaurant not far from the hotel, so we stopped in there and after 2 attempts we found something on the menu that they had in stock and ate an okay Carbonara for dinner. They did do a good garlic bread and the cat they had walking around was semi cute, so all up it was a good meal.
The hotel has free Wi-Fi, but we couldn’t get it in our room. So I wrote up some emails in word and then headed down to reception to get connection and send them. On my way back up, Kate was on the third floor with reception, so for future reference we didn’t have to go all the way to the ground floor to get internet. Good to know after I had trudged all the way down. Well it could have been worse and we have not had found out till later. I also tried my new sim in my Blackberry to which an error came up with an error, but after re-inserting it, it all looked in order and sent out a few messages. Welcome back Blackberry, how I have missed thee. I still share the love with my Samsung ‘analogue’ phone.
I was all wrapped up and in bed by 9pm. Totally grandma but we are so tired at the moment and we have a MASSIVE day tomorrow with Death Road on the cards all day. We are blaming the altitude.
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