Oh, the Places We'll Go

We had one day in Tupiza, Bolivia before we headed out on the much talked-about salt flat tour, so we decided to do a little horseback riding with our new South African friends, Jeff and Romy.

We had a picture perfect day and as we rode off into the mid-afternoon heat, Ted and I could not get over how much Tupiza reminded us of Sedona, Arizona (where we got married). We were surrounded by beautiful red rock formations and we rode past gigantic cacti. Oh, and it was dry and hot.

None of us were expert riders, but Ted was certainly the most comfortable as he showed off what he’d learned from our friend Alexia who he has had the opportunity to ride with a few times back in Colorado.

Tupiza is a sleepy little town but is surrounded by some of the most fantastic scenery we had seen in the country. The majority of travelers start their salt flat tours from the town of Uyuni which, now having seen, is a complete dump. Tupiza is not on the radar of many, but we certainly think it should be.

This is our buddy, Jeff. He’s much more intelligent than he looks in this photo, where he has lit a piece of dynamite on fire and is pretending to smoke it. In reality, there is no danger of this dynamite blowing up, as it requires a few other ignition components to explode. So, our guide told anybody who wanted to smoke some dynamite to go ahead and do so. Jeff was our guinea pig.

Jeff, his girlfriend Romy, and I are on Potosi’s most popular activity – a tour of the mines that have made the city famous. For over 500 years, the big mountain looming over the city has housed some of South America’s most valuable minerals, including the largest deposit of silver on the continent. The silver is now long gone, but mining continues to be a mainstay of the local economy, and former miners are now running tours into the working mines.

I have to admit, I was a little reluctant to check it out (so was Sarah – she chose not to go). The mine tours are a bit controversial – portrayed by some as a voyeuristic opportunity to see how bad people have it. And, it’s not the safest tour ever – it’s a working mine and accidents do happen (in fact, millions of people have died in these mines over the past 500 years, but largely due to the slave labor and inhumane conditions of years past). But in the end, I heard enough positive endorsements to give it a try.

After getting outfitted in all the appropriate gear (boots, jackets, pants, hard hats, lamps), we first stopped at the miners market. The only place on the continent where you can buy dynamite and coca leaves with no questions asked, the miners market is where miners go to get supplies, and tourists go to smoke dynamite.

Entering the mine feels like a passageway into middle earth. Twenty yards in, it’s already dark, damp, dirty, and hot. The deeper you go, the hotter it gets. There is no ventilation within (hence the very early death of nearly everyone who puts in more than a few years working here), but air pipes do hang from the ceiling to power the drills far below. We did our best to avoid touching the walls, as asbestos dripped from the ceiling in colorful but toxic stalactites. After basically rock climbing up to the 2^nd level, we met some miners who showed us the process of preparing dynamite for a blast, and the minerals that they recovered to pay their wages. We also got to meet the Tio, the devil statue that exists within each mine who receives prayers and offerings from miners in search of safety from day to day.

In the end, I was happy to see it, but I didn’t feel good about it. While miners do reap well-deserved benefits from tourist visits, the voyeuristic nature of the tour was unsettling. But the miners are very proud of their work and their profession, and there is no shame in the work or the conditions they endure. In fact, they are proud to show it off, and happy to make an extra buck as well.

Tupiza – the hidden gem of Bolivia.  Feels like Sedona, AZ.

Potosi is all about superlatives. It was once the largest and wealthiest town in Latin America and to this day is the world’s highest city at 13,041 feet. Its largest and wealthiest status is due to the fact that it is surrounded by mountains that once contained so much silver, Potosi alone funded the Spanish colonization of the continent for over 200 years. Though nearly all of the silver is now gone, mining for minerals still occurs in conditions that have shockingly changed very little throughout the centuries. Miners regularly die within 10-15 years of their first day in the mine due to poor air quality that eventually pollutes their lungs and kills them. Throughout the history of the mines, literally millions of miners have died (a disproportionate amount of indigenous people and slaves brought over from Africa to work the mines) because of the danger and demands of the job.

This being said, one of the most popular things for tourists to do is visit the mines. This isn’t a formal organized tour about the history with some museum displays of old mining relics, this is a down-and-dirty tour of an active, working mine. I chose not to go because I wasn’t interested in being hot, dirty and uncomfortable, but Ted went and had quite an experience that he’ll write about in a future post.

One of the best outcomes of the mine tour, in my opinion, is that Ted met a great couple from South Africa that was heading in the same direction as us. As we both wanted to do the same tour of Bolivia’s popular salt flats, we traveled together onto our next stop.

This is an alpaca fetus. They are sold along the streets of La Paz in the Mercado de Brujas, or the witches market. Supposedly, you bury one of these under the porch when you buy a house and it brings you good luck.  Personally, I prefer a 4-leaf clover…

High-altitude flamingos (~13,000 ft) in Bolivia’s southwest circuit

A lot of people, as well as the guidebooks, call Sucre Bolivia’s most beautiful city. As it was on our way south through the country, we thought it certainly deserved a stop. The city itself is quite lovely with beautiful architecture, including the supreme court of Bolivia (Sucre is the judicial capital). There are some narrow, cobblestone, hilly streets reminiscent of small European towns and there is a mirador (a view point) at the top of a hill where you can look out over the red-roofed buildings and the surrounding rolling hills. It is also noticeably cleaner than some of the other places we had visited in Bolivia, as in the trash was actually put in the trash cans as opposed to anywhere along the side of the road. Everyone from taxi drivers to bar tenders remarked with pride about the cleanliness of their city.

Sucre has a very similar vibe to Cuenca, Ecuador and Arequipa, Peru being that they are all good-sized, attractive, well-kept cities with beautiful buildings, walkable streets and lots of great places to eat and drink (not to mention each is our favorite city in their respective countries).

Though there are a lot of day and multi-day trips that you can do around the area from hiking to horseback riding, we stuck to the city center because we have lots of trekking and outdoorsy time in our future as we heads toward Argentina and Chile.

What a fun word to say. Cochabamba was our next stop after La Paz, reached by a 13+ hour overnight bus. This was one of those trips that you are glad your parents don’t know you are doing because they would certainly worry. The roads in Bolivia, for the most part, are unpaved and as the area is mountainous and the buses are old, it makes for a long, bumpy, loud, cliff-hugging ride. We made it in one piece.

Cochabamba is a university town with a great buzz and lots of young people around. The town is also known for the HUGE Jesus statue that watches over residents from a nearby hill.  We enjoyed wandering around the campus and also the main prado with lots of different restaurants and shops.  And of course, we visited the statue.

As I’ve been browsing and acquiring small gifts for myself and others throughout our travels, Ted had remained purchase-less, until Cochabamba. Before we even left the US he had considered the possibility of acquiring a charango while traveling in the northern Andean countries. A charango is small, stringed instrument similar to a ukelele that is featured in a lot of traditional music in this region. A good friend of ours, Dave Griffith, actually studied abroad in Cochabamba, Bolivia in his undergrad days and came home with a charango that Ted has admired for a long time. With Dave’s help via email, Ted was able to return to the same shop where Dave had bought his charango over 10 years earlier and get one from the same guy. Craziness!

So now Ted is quite entertained as he teaches himself how to play with his new toy. And as it turns out, it has become quite a conversation starter among local folks who are intrigued by the gringo who is interested in learning to play, and they have happily taught him a few things. Perfecto!

On one of our first bus rides in Bolivia, we encountered a river with no bridge. The Bolivian solution – float the buses across! Cars, trucks, motorcycles too.

La Paz is intense – in a good way. You can’t help but be blown away before even getting off the bus because you enter the city from above and wind your way down into the massive valley where the heart of the city is located, underneath the shadow of the 21,122 ft. Illimani Volcano.

Before you arrive, the guidebooks and a few travelers scare you with stories of complex scams (fake tourist police demanding to see/steal your passport), nasty distractions (someone spilling ketchup or spitting on you and then relieving you of your wallet as you clean yourself up), and corrupt taxi drivers (picking up additional passengers and then “kidnapping” you to an ATM and demanding you remove money). Needless to say, we were a little cautious when we arrived into the craziness that is La Paz.

I’m convinced that no one from La Paz would be overwhelmed by downtown Manhattan because the semi-organized chaos of La Paz’s streets and sidewalks would have them more than prepared. You constantly have to watch where you are going so as not to run down an old woman or get hit by a car or step in a hole in the sidewalk. But at the same time you want to look anywhere and everywhere all at once. There are people on the side of the streets selling anything from spices, to children’s bath toys, to toilet seats (which are pathetically underused in this country). There are markets that take up blocks and blocks that include practical items such a clothes as well as a witch’s market where you can buy an alpaca fetus, among other items to bring you luck or others harm.

Not only is the city a buzzing and fascinating place, it is surprisingly walkable. We spent several days exploring on foot and could have easily wandered more. We were also looking forward to doing some day trips and trekking in the nearby mountains, but our plans were foiled! One of the most popular day trips to do out of La Paz is to mountain bike the “world’s most dangerous road”. However, when we inquired about the trip in a travel office on our first day in the city, we learn that the access road to both the bike trip and other popular trekking was currently blocked by protesting coca farmers. The government had made an unpopular decision and the result was a road block for an interminable amount of time. Well then!

As it turns out, we had several contacts and friends of friends to look up in La Paz. Estefania is our friend who lives in Denver and as she is Bolivian, she has lots of friends and family that live here. She put us in touch with her cousin Ale who was an amazing and generous host. Ted and I got to explore parts of the city that folks don’t always venture off to see and we were even invited to brunch with Ale (and Estefania’s) extended family and friends to celebrate her younger sister’s first communion.

Ale and Estafania’s mom (via helpful emails!) also recommended we go see a pena in the city. Penas feature traditional dances and music from local Andean culture. The performance was vibrant and interactive, with the dancers pulling us up on stage, and musicians playing songs from the home country of each visitor (we got an Elvis tune sung for us). Though there were definitely other tourists there, I was surprised that nearly half was room was people from La Paz who had come to see the show.

A huge thanks to Estefania for the introduction, to Ale for taking the time to show us around La Paz and to her family for making us feel welcome!