San Pedro de Atacama to Cusco

We'd been mildly shitting ourselves about the next leg of our trip along the Altiplano from San Pedro de Atacama in Chile to Uyuni in Bolivia. The only way to cross the vast barren landscape is by placing trust in a guide and their 4x4. The risks are still surprisingly high with altitude sickness, weather, rogue guides, crashes, breakdowns, blah, blah. A simple read of TripAdvisor shows how often travelers have a negative experience in this wilderness. We'd met travelers along the line who'd done the tour with horror stories of their drivers being drunk or falling asleep. One couple we'd met in Argentina said that two of their group had to take over the driving because their driver couldn't stay awake.

Luckily for us we had nothing to fear, our tour operator Cordillera Traveler were exemplary and our allotted guide Juan was a dude. We did the tour in a convoy of three jeeps with five passengers in each jeep. The accommodation and food were certainly basic but a lot better than I'd expected. Juan knew a lot about the area and pointed things out for us and answered our questions (albeit with a slightly frustrating language barrier). And for those of the group unfortunate enough to be struck by altitude sickness they had a stash of some mystery pills which sorted them out.

I don't think there can be that many places left on the planet where as a tourist you can feel so vulnerable and isolated. For the three days spent crossing to Uyuni we would occasionally bump into other tours at key milestones but were otherwise basically alone in the most spectacular of settings. I'd go as far to say that this has been the highlight of the trip.

The Chile-Bolivia border and the start of the tour

To start the tour we climbed up from San Pedro de Atacama (2500m) to the Chile/Bolivian border (4000m), a pretty lonely place manned by a pair of exceptionally humourless officials. After the long long wait to have our passports stamped we boarded our jeeps and set off climbing ever upwards to a dizzying 5000m above sea level. Other than a bit of dizziness and shortness of breath we were otherwise unaffected. Unlike a girl in one of the other jeeps who we subsequently found out had passed out and stopped breathing. Scary stuff.

Fortunately up there on the altiplano it's virtually impossible to take a poor photo. As such it'll be much better to tell the story of those most spectacular three days in storyboard form:

The first of MANY lakes - this is Lagoa Verde and those little piles of rocks are made by tourists.

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere

Chilling out in a natural hot spring at 4500m

Flamingos on Lagoa Colorada late in the first day

Home for the first night in a very basic hostel at nearly 5000m

Bubbling volcanic mud pools with some geysers too

Rocks

Reflective

Bloody love this photo. Neeeee-yyy-aaaawwwmmmm.

Nice spot for a picnic lunch

Home for the second night, still basic but at least there's mains electricity

Train graveyard at Uyuni

Messing about with the crew (Pauline, Joe, Eliza, Lucy and moi) on the huge salt flat: Salar de Uyuni

It's quite something that even those people who shared near death experiences desperately trying to keep their drunk guide awake come away from the Uyuni tour blown away by it.

From Uyuni we caught the train to Oruro which departs at an unforgiving 1:45am. It's either that or take an overnight bus on unpaved roads - not much sleep to be had there. The train was pretty good fun in the end and we got to experience another mode of transport. Arriving in Oruro we went to the bus station to catch a connection to La Paz, Bolivia's capital city. As an added bonus whilst having a coffee, waiting for the bus, we got to witness and confront the most unlikely of thieves try to steal Lucy's handbag. This pair of old blokes sat on the table next to us and out of the corner of my eye I saw this bit of coat hanger inching towards our bags. The end of the wire had been cunningly bent into a hook and was being used like a fishing line. Cheeky old git. Kind of like being robbed by your dad.

Poop poop - all aboard the Wara Wara express

The arrival to La Paz is quite unique as the road descends into a steep sided valley surrounded by snow capped mountains. Every available inch of land, even up the near vertical walls of the valley, has been built upon.

The view on the drive into La Paz

We stayed in La Paz in quite a nice hotel for a few nights to recover from the long distances we'd covered. It's a good thing we did as on the last day whilst waiting for our lift to the wrestling we got to see the strangest of processions. Apparently in the build up to the main carnival at Easter time, every Sunday locals get shit faced whilst marching around. Note in the videos that everybody has a beer in hand.

Once the procession passed we were at last able to be picked up and taken to the Cholita's wrestling in the outskirts of La Paz. I'd heard about this from another traveler we'd met along the road and to say I was pretty excited about it would be an understatement. It was definitely an experience. If you've seen Louis Theroux's weird weekends where he accompanies some US amateur wrestlers then you're on the right tracks. Just lower the budget, make the local crowd more enthusiastic (screaming old ladies in bowler hats) and remove all safety precautions and you're there. The highlight match was Batman and Robin versus Evil Spiderman and Miscellaneous Green Clad Character (MGCD), particularly when MGCD threw Batman over the barrier into the front row of the audience (us). Lucy got a bat boot to the forehead. Luckily she came away with no lasting injuries.

I think this was taking place in the local school gym

Our next destination was Lake Titicaca where we stayed in Copacabana, the Isla del Sol and Puno. These were a really peaceful few days where we did a lot of relaxing and a bit of walking. We also did a hugely cheesy trip to the floating islands of Uros where in the past locals fled abuse from Incans on the mainland to build islands from reeds on the lake. Now it's pretty evident they mostly live back on the mainland and just dress up and pop out to the islands to milk the tourists.

ALL TOURISTS VISITING LAKE TITICACA WILL BURRRRRNNNNN

Lucy returning from the rather basic toilet facilities on the floating islands of Uros

From Puno we caught a touristy bus to Cusco which stopped at a load of sites en-route. A good warm up for Machu Pichu.

Early colonial church near Puno. Love its setting.

I f**king love mummies. These ones are pre-Incan sacrificial mummies.

A big Incan site called Raqchi

So we've now been through Bolivia and have entered Peru. Only two weeks to pack in A LOT before we fly out from Lima.

Bolivia: Bodacious

Love to all,

Ralph xx


Some notes:

• I'm not sure if one of the side effects of high altitude affected just me as I'm not sure how best to phrase the question to other men and I've not read about it in the guide books. Anyway, during my acclimatisation phase I found it difficult to go for a number one. Perhaps it's because my body had prioritised blood flow and therefore oxygen. But let's just say there wasn't much purchase.
• I have a theory the new Argentine pope has infiltrated the church to inflict revenge for the appalling abuse suffered by the South Americans at the hands of colonizing Europeans in the name of Catholicism. Or maybe I'm being carried away by all this Incan stuff.

More photos: https://plus.google.com/photos/101454232293966616010/albums/5861948749120377649?authkey=CNPg7O2_iMjGIw