Today in Santa Cruz de la Sierra it is 23 degrees and sunny. A decent wind blows and the local punters stroll about the Plaza 24 de Septiembre eating ice cream and looking fabulous. BMWs and Porsches roll along the streets and there is boutique shopping to be had all over the place. We are both finding it hard to believe that we are still in Bolivia. There are no llamas in the streets, no beggars, actual trees grow forth from the ground and the air is sweet and humid. We left La Paz from its El Alto airport at 4,010m yesterday wrapped in our fleeces, thermals and beanies which is basically the way we dressed every day while in Bolivia.
Leaving Peru was not as simple as it should have been. We were aware that strikes were taking place in the general triangular area between Cusco, Arequipa and Puno. We asked around and researched as far as we could and were assured that if we took one particular bus, they would take a slightly different route to avoid the strikes and arrive in Puno for a connection which would take us to the border at Desaguadero and on to La Paz. We thought we'd made a good decision as there were a lot of locals on the bus with us - surely a sign that this time we would not be purposefully lied to by another Peruvian. The bus left at 10:00pm and stopped in sub-zero darkness at around 4:00am. Nobody knew where we were and the locals who had paid for their service to Puno were a tad irate (welcome to our world). We drove a little further until the sun came up, then after the driver and his helper fucked around and failed to make a decision of any kind for an hour, we grabbed our bags and walked for two hours in the freezing post-dawn light across the physical roadblocks, somewhere a long way from Puno.
The remainder of the trip went like this: 11-seat Combi with 23 passengers from that place to Juliaca, 11-seat Combi with between 11 and 20 passengers from Juliaca to Puno, taxi with a girl from the mid-west United States (Greenbay Packers fan) from Puno to Desaguadero, passport control and so forth, taxi with US girl to La Paz. Total expected travel time - 12 hours. Total actual travel time - 18 hours. Thank god we were out of Peru!
We dropped our passports with the requisite paperwork into the Brazillian Embassy as soon as we hit La Paz so that we could plan our route out of the Andes and onto the East Coast of South America. We got them in on a Friday and had to wait for the weekend to pass and pick them up on the following Tuesday. This meant that we couldn't go to either Lake Titicaca or Rurrenabaque as we would need the passport on both of those journeys. So we took Chris and Hamish's advice and booked a day's mountain biking on the 'World's Most Dangerous Road' with B-Side Adventures. These folks were a darn fine outfit: dual suspension bikes, good food and a top guide who made the ride go from feeling like it could be rather dangerous into a thoroughly enjoyable and safe day.
Back to the Embassy and we picked up our visas with no hassles. We're going to Brazil!
Our next stop was to follow Mike's suggestion and go to Rurrenabaque for a visit to the Pampas. We also took his suggestion to avoid the minimum 20-hour bus journey there and to fly instead. Far more expensive, far more enjoyable. We wanted to check out the jungle too, as it would be our only trip to the Amazon.
The pampas was absolutely top shelf. Loads of animals and birds including alligators, caimans, pink dolphins, red pirhana, macaws, monkeys, anaconda, kingfishers and many many more. Cruising up and down the narrow muddy river on a long boat with the alligator-, caiman- and pirhana-infested waters every day was a real treat. We decided not to swim with the dolphins because as with a lot of Australians, we have read accounts of the stupid tourists going for a dip in the cool clear waters in the Daintree and only to be swallowed by a big nasty croc. When there are 'gators and caimans on the banks and flesh eating pirhana in the water, you just don't go swimming. Three days of pampas down, two day of jungle to go.
We jumped back in a larger boat after a night in town at Rurre and went in the opposite direction to the pampas and into the jungle. Our arrival at the lodge in the trees some hours later was not quite as exciting as I had hoped, because the jungle looked very, very similar to the rainforest on Fraser Island. Sure it's pretty, but not the impenetrable stuff that makes the use of a large and sharp machete 100% necessary and that which I had been hoping for. We saw one monkey and one bird in our two days, and both of those were from a large distance away. Our guide was crap too, but it was still nice to get out amongst some trees.
No sooner had we made it back to La Paz for the night than we were on another bus out to Lake Titicaca. It's high up there, 3,810m to be precise. Nadine had said that the views from the Isla del Sol reminded her of the Cyclades in Greece, a place I had visited twice in the past. And fair play to her, but there were echoes of Greece to be found there. Actually the landscape views may have been more impressive with the gigantic range of the Cordillera Real lined up from left to right, though here was no resemblance to be found in the architecture. After two nights on the Isla and with only a few days left before our departure to Brazil, it was time to move on. So this we did and were lucky enough to run into and dine with our Danish pals from the Canon de Colca trek out of Arequipa a few weeks ago.
We have a plane booked to fly us from here in Santa Cruz to Sao Paulo, Brazil tomorrow morning. Any city with a population larger than Australia's should be a genuine blowout. We will try not to get mugged.
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