Having said that Chile gave me back my travel spirit, Bolivia doubled it! Un País tan diferente! As my photos have already been online for a while, some impressions are already comunicated. But even they cannot reflect the actual beauty and the feeling that you get traveling this country. From the High Andes, the largest salt flat in the world, the highest city, the most dangerous road, the highest capital, the largest indigenous population and the highest mayor lake to the Amazon - Bolivia has it all. It has all but beaches. But honestly, nobody will miss them, given the mentioned abundance of sights.
Of course all this beauty has its price and that comes as follows:
Every day dozens of tourists take the famous Camino de la Muerte - a road that has only been closed for traffic a mere 3 years ago. Until then 150 people died there every year in bus, car or truck accidents. The road winds itself along a steep mountain range with cliffs of up to 800m deep. Of course it is not paved, in some sections only 3m wide, has no guardrails, and allows traffic in both directions.
Por sopuesto, I had to take that adventure. We started with our mountainbikes at an altitude of 4766m and rode downhill for 67km. 3 hours later and 3600m closer to sea level I thought I survived the most thrilling. We stopped about every 5 to 20mins to watch car and bus wrecks in the abbys while being told when and how many people there died. 3 years ago 102 people here, 5 tourist here 2 years ago, one Israeli here just last year and one Spaniard fell down this cliff just a couple of months ago. And so on and so on...
Anyways, as I said I thought downhill was already enough, we were asked if we wanted to take the new road or the death road on the way back. I don`t know for what reason the 3 Australians immediately yelled Death Road, but it seemed to be my destiny. Another hour of adrenaline followed, while I was sitting at the window of the cliff side not being able to see the road anymore and thinking if the rain could have any serious impact to the road conditions or our minivan.
However, I survived that as well as I did the thrilling mine tour a week earlier in Potosí. Those mines are just another chapter for themselves. People working under the worst imaginable conditions, blasting themselves with self-bought dynamite through the mountain, without anybody mapping the routes they are taking (collapses only predictable). Life expectancy is still a mere 45 years and the average miner doesn`t survive his 10th year working there because of some sort of lung desease. To visit those mines you just find a former miner, buy some dynamite and coca leaves in the streets as a present and then you start crawling through the mountain. You`ll loose orientation in an instant and if you turn off your light there will be nothing but darkness. You`ll visit some devil shrines and get yourself really dirty while crawling, climbing and walking through the mines. If you are man enough you try a sip of the 96% alcohol that your guide brought and which is usually partly sacrificed to the devil and mostly drunk by the miners.
Sin embargo, now I am in Peru, got a 90 day visa although my passport is only valid another 68 days and already saw some more really impressing things but I will tell in a later post...
Liebe!
Of course all this beauty has its price and that comes as follows:
- Single room (including breakfast): $4
- Set lunch (soup, main, desert): $1,40
- Taxi (2h inter city): $3,90
- DVD: $0,90
- Cinema: $1,10
- Internet (per hour): $0,28
- Shoe cleaning: $0,28
Every day dozens of tourists take the famous Camino de la Muerte - a road that has only been closed for traffic a mere 3 years ago. Until then 150 people died there every year in bus, car or truck accidents. The road winds itself along a steep mountain range with cliffs of up to 800m deep. Of course it is not paved, in some sections only 3m wide, has no guardrails, and allows traffic in both directions.
Por sopuesto, I had to take that adventure. We started with our mountainbikes at an altitude of 4766m and rode downhill for 67km. 3 hours later and 3600m closer to sea level I thought I survived the most thrilling. We stopped about every 5 to 20mins to watch car and bus wrecks in the abbys while being told when and how many people there died. 3 years ago 102 people here, 5 tourist here 2 years ago, one Israeli here just last year and one Spaniard fell down this cliff just a couple of months ago. And so on and so on...
Anyways, as I said I thought downhill was already enough, we were asked if we wanted to take the new road or the death road on the way back. I don`t know for what reason the 3 Australians immediately yelled Death Road, but it seemed to be my destiny. Another hour of adrenaline followed, while I was sitting at the window of the cliff side not being able to see the road anymore and thinking if the rain could have any serious impact to the road conditions or our minivan.
However, I survived that as well as I did the thrilling mine tour a week earlier in Potosí. Those mines are just another chapter for themselves. People working under the worst imaginable conditions, blasting themselves with self-bought dynamite through the mountain, without anybody mapping the routes they are taking (collapses only predictable). Life expectancy is still a mere 45 years and the average miner doesn`t survive his 10th year working there because of some sort of lung desease. To visit those mines you just find a former miner, buy some dynamite and coca leaves in the streets as a present and then you start crawling through the mountain. You`ll loose orientation in an instant and if you turn off your light there will be nothing but darkness. You`ll visit some devil shrines and get yourself really dirty while crawling, climbing and walking through the mines. If you are man enough you try a sip of the 96% alcohol that your guide brought and which is usually partly sacrificed to the devil and mostly drunk by the miners.
Sin embargo, now I am in Peru, got a 90 day visa although my passport is only valid another 68 days and already saw some more really impressing things but I will tell in a later post...
Liebe!
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