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Tag Archives: Bolivia
By Paula
Let's get one thing out of the way right now – sometimes long-term travel is a bit hard. Because it's a privilege to be able to travel for pleasure, it can be awkward to admit that. But there, I've said it.
But whatever down sides there are to living a nomadic life on the road, for us they were massively outweighed by the good stuff. If that wasn't the case, we simply wouldn't have kept going for nearly 1,600 days.
Like just about everything else in life, if it's what you passionately want to do, you'll take the rough with the smooth. Via this blog we have been able to share so many incredible, unforgettable moments, and we thank you all again for coming along. We find it hard to absorb the sheer saturating volume of amazingness we've been lucky enough to experience, and the thought of trying to sum that up in this post is mind-boggling.
We hope you agree that we have also been truthful about the bad times, the irritations and the frustrations. We can't stand shiny, shouty, dishonest travel blogging that makes out every single moment is a profoundly life-changing 'awesome blast', or that travelling is in some way superior to other lifestyles. The awesomeness is indeed present in an infinite number of big and small ways, and giving up a secure life to undertake a trip like this is inevitably life-altering, but let's keep things in perspective please.
We get a lot of questions about why we did this, what's great and what's difficult – the thing is the answer can change depending on the day, the mood, the weather, the circumstances, the people. Sometimes a 'bad' thing leads to something fabulous. Some days you're doing something fabulous and can still manage to be in a foul mood. Some of the best things are the hardest to convey because they are fleeting, silly moments that get lost in translation.
In this post, some of the good and bad things will literally overlap. How can we blather on about loving the freedom to be on the move, then bemoan the bad things about always being transient? Because we are all a bag of contradictions.
With our return home we've tried to focus our minds on the things we most treasured and the things we won't miss so much.
They are those consistent themes that, for us, represent the truly Good, the Bad and the Ugly about our totally perfectly awesome blast of a drive to the bottom of the world.
[This is a huge blog post. If it helps, you can flick between the items you want to read from the list of clickable links below. But if you skip straight past all the 'good' stuff and go straight to the 'bad & ugly', please know that this makes you a terrible person.]
1. Freedom
2. Being outside
3. Gazing at wildlife
4. Scoffing food
5. Feeling the 'wow' factor
6. Triumphing over adversity
7. Enjoying random surprises
8. Meeting people
1. The toilet situation
2. The "f****ing wifi"
3. The vehicle maintenance
4. The lack of privacy
5. The transience
Just me, him, a flask of tea and the road ahead.
This is the only word that comes close to summing up all that is good about a long road trip with a campervan. People so often ask what's the best thing about the trip and, while we could list a gazillion cool things we've seen and done, it's this.
Within reason, we could get up in the morning and go wherever we liked, and frequently changed our minds on the way. We didn't have to get up and trudge to work. We didn't have to plan much and almost never had to make reservations for anything.
Whenever we 'arrived' our house was there with us, so whatever was happening we had that little bubble that was all ours. No matter where we ended up, we could make a drink, cook some food and go to our own bed. If we didn't like a place, we drove off. If we loved it, we stayed longer. If it rained we tried to head for the sun. If it was too sunny, we parked under a tree.
We had more time together than we could ever have hoped for in our previous life, which was one of the major things we'd craved before the trip. We found that to be strengthening, nourishing and fun.
It's a massive privilege to have freedom and time – we never stopped appreciating that. We were almost always occupied with something or other because we still enjoy being busy, but we also had the headspace to read, talk, think and sleep more.
It took a while after we left London, but we learned to sometimes just be quiet and still, even bored. I know it's stating the bleeding obvious, but that is seriously good for you.
Happy to be in Argentina! Purmamarca, Jujuy.
Long walks at Uvita, Costa Rica
Yay, it's snowing! No wait, hang on, this is salt. Bolivia.
Laguna de Los Tres, Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, Argentina.
I can't seem to stop! Sand dunes, Taroa, La Guajira, Colombia.
Click to return to list
Early morning cuppa at Playa Maderas, Nicaragua
If you live the camping life for several years then, guess what, the majority of your time is spent outside in the sunshine and fresh air. We will miss this enormously because it made us feel healthier and improved our sleep quality.
When the weather was cold or wet we really loved having the option of slamming the van door and having a cosy indoor option. But for the most part the climate was great and we did most things outside whenever possible – reading, eating meals, barbequing, washing up, having a drink, fixing stuff, looking at the views and sunsets, swimming, hiking, people-watching, spotting birds and animals and wasting countless hours chasing them around with the camera, often to no avail.
In the mountains and national parks we loved heading off with some snacks for a good long stroll or a strenuous hike. If we were heading out on a particularly tough or long trek, we'd leave the bed out in the morning so we could come home and crawl straight in there afterwards with a reviving cup of tea. Bliss.
In the high altitude areas the light is particularly crisp, bright and unsullied – it truly is nectar for the soul. If only we could store it up for the grey days.
There were several phases of the trip when we did a lot of beach camping – especially Central America, Colombia's Caribbean coast, northern Peru and southern Brazil. There's nothing quite like sleeping to the sound of waves, waking up with the early sun, pushing back the door and stepping straight out onto the sand.
Some of our most precious memories are from camping on the beaches of Baja California in Mexico, back in 2011. Stingrays, leaping dolphins and massive azure skies that had to be seen to be believed. There are few better introductions to a life lived outdoors.
De-scaling a pargo fish for dinner, Cabo de la Vela, Colombia. Bear Grylls eat your heart out.
Not a bad place to stop for lunch, Laguna Hediona, Bolivia
Cooking goat stew over hot coals, Zorritos, Peru
Dish-washing in the rain, Chiapas, Mexico
Great surroundings at the campsite in Puelo, Chilean Lakes District.
Jeremy cooks up the bagre on the barbie – Colombia.
Don't step back! Hiking back down from Hielo Azul glacier, near el Bolson, Argentina.
Beach camp, Baja California, Mexico.
We did a lot of this – Peru
What you looking at? Blue-footed booby, Ecuador
We began our married life with an African safari and have always had a thing about any kind of wildlife. Even so, I don't think we realised quite how geeky we were about it until this trip. We loved spotting the big mammals and exciting colourful birds but would also happily spend hours watching hermit crabs or leafcutter ants.
I started making a list of some of the main wildlife we saw on the trip, but it became ridiculously unwieldy.
So here are just a few of our favourite things:
– Swimming with sea lions in Baja California, Mexico, then snorkelling over a shoal of grouper fish that was so immense it gave us vertigo;
– Walking among blue-footed boobies in Ecuador. There is nothing not to like about a wide-eyed bird in bright blue flippers;
– Getting a good long look at a snoozing puma in the rainforest in Costa Rica.
– Watching Rockhopper penguins bounce around on the rocks in Patagonia. Boing!! (In fact, everything about penguins. Magellanics, Kings, Humboldts, whatever – our enthusiasm does not discriminate);
– Slowing down to allow a family of alpacas to cross the road in Peru;
– Spotting a lovely luminous yellow eyelash viper in Costa Rica, photographing it at close range, then later finding out it was a very dangerous, potentially deadly, snake.
– Looking on as herds of capybaras bathed in mud and water pools, in both Colombia and Argentina.
– Monkeys, monkeys, monkeys! So many monkeys. That is all.
– Managing to look up just in time to see, and photograph, a humpback whale leaping out of the ocean in Ecuador.
– Getting an up-close visit from a three-week old baby sea-lion in Chilean Patagonia. The little chap almost managed to upstage the King penguins we'd gone there to visit.
– Being happy to get a cricked neck from watching condors soar in the Argentinian lakes district.
– Standing on a cliff in the Bolivian Amazon, watching macaws flying beneath us in to their rocky nests. (actually, Jeremy hated the scary cliff, but he really enjoyed the parrots!)
'I spent ages getting my hair right this morning' – Rockhopper penguin, Puerto Deseado, Argentina.
The venomous Eyelash Viper – looks all cute and innocent, eh? Costa Rica.
Alpacas crossing, Peru.
Striking a pose – this baby sea lion was really turning it on for the cameras. Tierra del Fuego, Chile
We were really lucky to see a puma during the hike out of Corcovado, Costa Rica.
And for my next trick… Humpback whale breaching, off Isla de la Plata, Ecuador
Monkeys galore at Cahuita, on Costa Rica's Caribbean coast.
One of our best sitings of a condor, Parque Nacional Sierra de las Quijadas, San Luis, Argentina.
Bathing capybaras, Argentina
We got an incredible view of flying macaws, from a cliff-top above their nesting site in the Bolivian Amazon.
Buying anticuchos (cow heart skewers) in La Paz, Bolivia – served with potato and delicious spicy peanut sauce.
In most parts of the world food is an integral part of the culture that's all bound up with family, identity, history, the environment and climate, the marking of life's milestones and more. To travel without an open-minded love of food must surely be a joyless affair.
Luckily we take no persuasion to sample whatever's on offer, wherever we go. The less familiar the better – roasted guinea pig (Ecuador and Peru), beef heart skewers (Bolivia), fried fat-bottomed ants (Colombia), lamb testicles (Bolivia), llama and alpaca steaks (Peru, Bolivia, northern Argentina) being among the more memorable moments.
Getting ready to pop a crunchy fried ant into my mouth, Barichara, Colombia.
On a self-catering trip, plenty of meals are typically everyday concoctions – often the same as, or a variation of, things we'd eat at home. But as much as possible we'd seek out less familiar ingredients to cook with, or try a local twist to what we were making.
But eating out really gave us the chance to delve into the local flavours. For the most part that involved street food and cheap, substantial, set lunches which are usually the main meal of the day in Latin America. Occasionally we'd eat out in the evening, and a few times we splurged on a properly posh gourmet meal.
Everywhere we went, the local cuisine was an enormous source of pride and competitiveness between regions and nations. Food was talked about incessantly and we were happy to join in.
We were asked countless times how we were enjoying the food, what was our favourite thing, which country had the most tempting dishes. Be it on your own head if you don't compliment the place you're in at that moment.
Often the street snacks were the best. To name them all would take an entire book. We still salivate over thoughts of papas rellenas (stuffed potato) in Peru, arepas (corn cakes) with egg or cheese in Colombia, tamales (steamed, stuffed corn dough) in Central America, Mexican tacos of every variety, tajadas (crispy fried plantain chips) in Nicaragua and dreamy deep-fried coxhinas de frango (chicken fritters, sometimes with melty cheese) in Brazil. Just about everywhere has a version of an empanada (fried or baked, filled pastry pies) but Bolivia wins for its version, the salteña – biting through the crumbly pastry to find a juicy meat gravy inside requires it to be eaten standing up, leaning forward, legs apart.
For us the overall winners are Mexico and Peru for the best cuisine in terms of flavour, imagination, freshness and variety, and Argentina for being fabulous at the more limited things it specialises in, including steak, milanesas, chorizo and dulce de leche (caramel) with everything. Just don't tell our friends in Bolivia that they didn't make the cut…
Causa – a typical Peruvian terrine of mashed potato, avocado and (in this case) cured alpaca meat in a eucalyptus dressing.
Buying baked trout for lunch, Peru.
Boiled guinea pig with spring greens, Cochabamba, Bolivia
Basting the skin of a roasting cuy (guinea pig) at the Sunday market, Gualacea, Ecuador.
Tapas meal for Caroline's birthday, Barichara, Colombia.
Typical Central American breakfast. Best meal of the day.
Cooking up a seafood lunch, Pearl Cayes, Nicaragua
Quinoa risotto and roasted beetroot, with cubes of cheese (or as Jeremy called it – 'Jackson Pollock meets beets') – part of my birthday lunch in Mendoza, Argentina.
Steak night, Carmelo, Uruguay.
Picada for dinner (again) with the folks, San Martin de los Andes, Argentina.
Curanto is a pulse-raising platter of giant mussels, clams, smoked pork, chorizo, chicken, potato, and two types of 'milcao' (dense potato cake). Chiloe, Chile
Jeremy with nearly all of his favourite things – BBQ, meat, tongs, beer, and his Quilmes chair. One of many asados in Argentina.
Ellie dishes up a lomo saltado, Zorritos, Peru
Chopping a 'bagre de mar' for dinner on the beach, Colombia.
Jeremy eating a tapado in Guatemala
Our first batch of homemade empanadas.
Lobster for dinner, San Blas Islands, Panama.
Gorgeous braised beef with cheesy rice and plantains – missions region of Bolivia.
Brazilian feijão tropeiro – pork cooked several ways, beans with toasted manioc flour, couve (kale), sausage, eggs and rice
Heaven is a home-made alfajor (cookie sandwich) with dulce de leche, Argentina.
Glorious views of the Fitz Roy range on our hike to Laguna de Los Tres, near El Chalten, Argentina.
The biggest 'wow' moments in travel aren't restricted to the classic 'must-sees' and, in any case, everyone's got their own tastes about what wows them and what leaves them cold. We can get ridiculously excited about something quite obscure or prosaic, but we are equally happy to be carried along with the hype of the massive sites like Macchu Picchu or Iguazu Falls.
I gave those two examples, because they are perhaps the most touristed destinations in South America, and we still loved them. Some travellers consider it a badge of honour to snub the 'touristy' places – erroneously believing themselves to be something other than tourists and preferring to deny themselves the pleasure of seeing a cultural or natural wonder because it's 'too busy / expensive / predictable'. We don't feel that way. Yes, we always try to avoid the busiest times, we pack our own lunch, we loathe it when places have been thoroughly wrecked by tourism, and we sidestep the avoidable rip-offs. But most of those places are well known for a good reason, and sometimes you just have to embrace it.
A fair number of our wow moments fall into that busy 'touristy' category, some less so, and some we practically had to ourselves. There are others that couldn't really be photographed well, like the mind-popping stargazing we did in the Atacama desert (Chile) and Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia).
Our little brainstorming session for this section could have lasted for days, had we let the list go on and on and on. Look down for an agonisingly small selection of some of the best big breath-takers.
Laguna Verde, Bolivia
Fiery skies at Playa Maderas, Nicaragua
Mini rock climb on the way to Volcan Cotopaxi, Ecuador
Flamingos, Laguna Hediona, Bolivia
Punta Union pass, Cordillera Blanca, Peru
Walking on the salt flats, Uyuni, Bolivia.
Chichen Itza Mayan ruins, Yucatan, Mexico
Iguazu Falls (Brazil)
First glimpse of the jungle from the flight from La Paz to Rurrenabaque, Bolivia.
The spectacular Las Torres mirador, Torres del Paine national park, Chile
Lago Atitlan, Guatemala
Incredible views as we approached El Chalten and the Fitz Roy mountain range. Parque Nacional Los Glaciares, Argentina.
Apocalyptic-style sunset over the Rio de la Plata, as seen from our campsite near Colonia, Uruguay.
Rock formations, Desierto de la Tatacoa, Colombia
La Paz´s highland setting provides one of the most dramatic entrances to a city in the world.
Arriving at – and riding in to – a glistening mountain lake was the highlight of our Chilean horse trek with Lot.
Laguna Quilotoa, Ecuador
The fascinating San Juan Chamula, Chiapas, Mexico
We looked over Laguna Llancanelo from the top of Volcano Trapal.
Train passing through the Atacama Desert, Chile.
The red lake, Laguna Colorada, Bolivia
Monday morning, Caraiva, Bahia, Brazil
Sugarloaf mountain, as seen from Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro.
Laguna Chinancocha, Quebrada Llanganuco, PN Huascaran, Peru
Blood moon, Parque Provincial Ischigualasto, San Juan, Argentina.
14 Jan 2015: Arriving in Ushuaia. Only about a year 'late' – not too shabby!
I sometimes think that people who love adventurous travel are a little bit addicted to the highs and lows that inevitably come with it. If you take on a long trip, especially with a vehicle, the chances of absolutely everything going 100% A-Ok smoothly are practically nil. You have to deal with some shitty and annoying stuff or, worse, some scary and risky stuff.
It doesn't always feel like it at the time, but – as long as we are still alive and more or less un-maimed – I think we secretly kind of like it that way.
Because getting yourselves out of an adverse situation or solving a new tricky conundrum is like a drug. Those massive lows make the highs all the more exhilarating.
The great thing is, it doesn't even have to be anything particularly major or frightening. It's not necessarily 'adversity', in the context of some of the things people have to live through in today's world, but it just has to feel like a challenge for you.
It wasn't unusual to see us fist-pumping the air because a hot, sweaty, sweary, confusing, seemingly hopeless day of looking for a propane gas plant had actually ended with success – ie with a full tank of propane gas.
We'd celebrate with a drink and dinner that night as if we'd just managed to scale Everest in flip-flops.
Even taking on a trek we found difficult, pushing ourselves just a bit further than we were comfortable with, was something that would put us on a high. This was especially the case for Jeremy, who suffers from terrible vertigo and frequently had to push himself out of his comfort zone. One of the hardest walks didn't even involve any altitude – it was a blindingly hot beach trek into the Costa Rican rainforest, during which Jeremy became a bit delirious, I briefly thought about lying down and dying, and we had to wade waist-high through a river not entirely unvisited by crocodiles. Arriving was utter bliss.
Waiting for yet another customs office to help us.
Navigating our way through some of the bureaucratic mazes we found ourselves in ended in a similar self-congratulatory mood. We have particularly vivid memories of being horribly lost in Bogota, Colombia, being (unnecessarily) sent here, there and everywhere, trying to renew our visas and vehicle permit. This is not a city you want to drive in. Ever. It's the only day I can remember us actually both crying whilst driving, but we genuinely laughed about it later.
Three months later we had to do the same visa run again, but in an easier provincial city in the south. We were so chuffed we'd got it all done, but by that time we were running late to get to a rural ranch (see Good things no.7: Enjoying Random Surprises), before dark. It was a part of Colombia that was only just opening up after being a dangerous no-go area for years. All we had was a scribbled map, a name and no phone or GPS. As we rushed to find our way out of town we did an illegal u-turn and hit a motorcyclist. When the police arrived it turned out one of the officers was the uncle of the woman we'd knocked over. We really thought we'd had it that day. But we got away with it – we miraculously found the un-signed ranch in the pitch black, we ate grilled trout for dinner, drank a lot of cold beer and sank into our beds that night feeling like we'd just lived a whole week in one day.
Then of course there was the van. There were periods when we felt like we were triumphing over adversity every other day. (See Bad things no.3: The Vehicle Maintenance). We wouldn't have wished for all those things to happen, and life would have been easier if they hadn't, but solving them did lead to a great sense of satisfaction. By far the ultimate challenge was smuggling the van out of Ecuador after we'd converted the gearbox – it involved months of planning, discussion and research, a lot of sleepless nights, some dodgy behaviour and quite a lot of nerve.
After it was over and we'd made it to Peru, we drank loads of cocktails, grinned a lot and danced a little. And for the zillionth time on the trip we said: "We can't believe we just did that".
We did it! Making it to Peru was a massive relief
A little champers moment after picking up the van in Quito, Ecuador.
Shipping from Panama to Colombia: When we finally got the cars back, beer was drunk.
Big thumbs up for making it to the Punta Union pass, at 4,750m. Santa Cruz trek, Cordillera Blanca, Peru
Reaching the summit above laguna Quilotoa, Ecuador – a massive challenge for Jeremy because of his vertigo.
No, we hadn't anticipated dancing in public, dressed like this.
When a plan comes together it's lovely, but when something unexpected happens it somehow makes things all the more thrilling.
Travelling long-term gives you the freedom to follow the curve balls that come along. So many little unplanned events happened to us along the way, it's hard to remember absolutely everything. But there are a few moments that really stick in our minds.
Finding ourselves with a van full of El Salvadorean revolutionaries: As we bumped along a dirt track in the van in the El Perquin region, we looked behind from the front to see three ex-guerilla fighters sitting on our seats and floor. We gave each other that familiar look that says 'jeez, our life is strange sometimes'. We'd booked an informal guided tour of sites that were significant to the rebels during El Salvador's brutal civil war, but we hadn't really expected that we'd be the transport. Each time we moved on to the next place our guide would ask us to pull over and pick up yet another random revolutionary – each with a story of the war that was at once fascinating, horrific and inspiring.
Jeremy getting drunk with a bunch of Colombian gauchos in the relatively unexplored Los Llanos region – then me driving all of them, their wives and kids home in the van, via a stop-off for sausage and chips. We'd met a guy at a mechanic's in Bogota, who invited us to stay at his ranch for a few days and be looked after by the families who lived and worked on the farm. Horse-riding, wildlife-spotting, fire-roasted beef and a taste of the cowboy life – it was one of the most special experiences of our whole trip.
Camping in someone's living room in Colombia: It doesn't get much weirder than parking up next to a stranger's sofa, popping the pop-top and pouring yourself an evening drink. While looking for somewhere to camp in Espinal, we'd asked at a local sports club if we could stay in their grounds. They refused, but a local tennis instructor overheard the conversation and told us we were welcome to camp at his place. Obviously we assumed he had a garden, but when we arrived at his house it was in the middle of the town square! 'Erm, we actually need someone to park because we sleep inside the van' we explained. 'That's okay' he said, 'you can park inside the house….' He pulled back the gates and we drove into his bizarrely laid-out home, with a covered courtyard that had been made into a living room. We squeezed the van in next to the sofa and settled in for the night.
This entry only just beats the night we ended a horrendously stressful day by being 'rescued' by a wealthy Colombian family who allowed us to camp in their garden, amid preparations for a massive posh 50th birthday party.
Dancing in a Bolivian folk festival: Of all the things we couldn't have foreseen, this probably takes the prize. Few people in this world could persuade Jeremy to don flappy Andean trousers, a poncho and an outrageously camp hat, then dance through the streets waving pink hankies and jangling the spurs on his sandals-with-socks. But our Workaway hosts Emma and Rolando managed just that. I wasn't doing too badly either, with my woolly dress, pinny and wide-brimmed sombrero flowing with multi-coloured ribbons. During our fabulous four-month stint doing a work-exchange at Colibri Camping near La Paz – which was another unexpected turn of events in itself – we really loved being part of a small community. And part of that involvement included joining the team that competes in their annual dance festival. We're only sorry our lamentable efforts failed to secure them a victory.
Colombia: Farm manager Luis Carlos gets drunk with Jeremy.
Colombian ranch, Los Llanos: The son of farm manager, also called Luis Carlos, helps round up the cattle.
Colombian ranch, Los Llanos: Glad I didn't fall off! Post-horseride photo-call.
Camping in Walter's living room, Espinal, Colombia.
Bolivian dance festival: Deep concentration as we wait for the next step.
Bolivian dance festival: The men had to leap around for hours wearing wooden blocks on their feet.
Cowboy days n Los Llanos, Colombia.
El Salvador: interviewing ex-Guerillas for a BBC Travel story
From fleeting interactions, to random acts of kindness by strangers, to making new and enduring friendships, people bind together the fragmented life one lives as a nomad.
There are the countless people whose names we'll never know, but who made a difference to us in the moment – all the people who spotted our foreign van and waved or approached us to chat or offer help; the people in exceptionally friendly Colombia who invited us in to their homes; the folk who gave us, or helped us find, a safe place to sleep; strangers who gave us little gifts of food or souvenirs; the guys who rescued us when our (first) gearbox gave out in rural Honduras.
We meet dozens of other road-trippers and shared brief conversations, meals and wine, or several days of companionship. Some we met – by chance or design – several times over, while others we convoyed or lived with for a spell.
Our journalism jobs meant we were lucky to be able to meet some fascinating people for the stories we were writing – including ex-guerilla fighters, Bolivian cholitas, journalists under threat and social justice campaigners.
Family and friends visited, giving us a welcome glimpse of home and the chance to spend more time with them than we ever seemed to be able to afford when we lived thousands of miles closer.
Then there were the family members, friends, fellow travellers and strangers from more than 150 countries who followed the blog and often sent us encouraging and complimentary messages. We couldn't see you but we felt like you were with us.
Stand by for the biggest gallery of all:
Bolivia: Bye bye to Emma, Rolando, David and Bell. Sniff!
Colombia: Final night with Zach and Jill after several weeks together
Bolivia: Farewell meal for Doug and Alison.
Ecuador: Our housemates Marcia and Maddie
Chile: Karen and Isilda, our adopted Chilean granny!
Honduras: Tesla and the late Jacob.
Argentina: Karen and Gustavo, our Buenos Aires saviours
Bolivia: Giovanna, Marcelo, Zoe and William (Santa played by Doug)
Argentina: drunken nights with James, Lauren, Rike and Martin.
Argentina: Susan and Sue, Salto de las Rosas, San Rafael.
Argentina: Jeremy and Santi share a hilarious joke
Honduras: Elvin and his family looked after us after we broke down
Guatemala: Rob and Amy were fellow students at our Spanish school
Nicaragua: this little girl visited our van.
Nicaragua: We bumped into my ex-BBC colleague Lynda!
Guatemala: Saying goodbye to our Xela homestay hosts Guisela and Boris, Dumpy and Pany
Bolivia: Clara with her daughter Naomi and mum Carmen.
Chile: Lamb asado with Isilda and family.
Bolivia: Our housemate Naomi at the Malls dance festival
Argentina: Dave gets into some tunes after dinner.
Argentina: Malcolm and his wife Sue were a regular fixture in our social life
Argentina: Lunch at Malcolm and Sue's vineyard
Ecuador: Fellow VWers Aron and Linda
Bolivia: Derek comes to stay!
Argentina: meeting old friends Sharon, Mark, Isobel, Leo and Rory.
Peru: Meeting Andy and Dunia again, Lima, Peru.
Ecuador: Will and Rochelle come to stay!
Argentina: Asado with Diz, Luke, Bridget, Brendon, Karen, Gustavo, Santi and Lucio.
Argentina: Karen and Callum come to visit.
Argentina: drunken nights with Marek, James, Lauren, Rike and Martin.
Costa Rica: Patricia and Simone
Argentina: Another lovely meal with mum and dad
Argentina: Stevie and Tree, and a lot of wine.
Nicaragua: Anselmo, Libby, Jen and Mike invited us for a day out.
Bolivia: Farewell to Verity, Don and Rochelle
Guatemala: mum and dad come to visit.
Bolivia: Anita and her little boy
USA: Scott and Martelle helped launched our trip from LA
Colombia: The little girl at our hostel loved to visit the van
Bolivia: Anahi's dad and Rolando get the choripan going
Bolivia: Hiking with Sarah and Lauren
Bolivia: David and Bell strike a pose
Bolivia: The Up Close Bolivia crew celebrate finishing the dance festival
Costa Rica: Maria's campsite is on the Caribbean coast
Argentina: Adam, Emily, Coco and Sierra are travelling in a VW
El Salvador: Zach and Jill show photos to a family who offered us their place as a campspot
Honduras: the village turns out to help us with the van
Ecuador: We met up with Jess frequently on our various trips through Cuenca.
Argentina: Alex and Marie hitchhiked with us for more than a week
Panama: Meeting kids on the San Blas islands
Bolivia: Enjoying adventures with Derek
Colombia: Caroline comes to stay!
Bolivia: The very lovely Anahi and Anita
Guatemala: We talked to ex-guerilla Maria for a BBC story – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-17313508
Peru: Karin, Coen and Jeremy dive into the cocktails.
Bolivia: We stayed with our friend Anahi's family for a few days in Cochabamba
Bolivia: I interviewed Norma Barrancos Leyva for a BBC article on cholitas.
Ecuador: The van was broken for so long we were practically adopted by those who worked at Lothar Ranft's workshop.
Ecuador: Marcia, Andre and Olivia come for a drink
Chile: We met Brits Rebecca and Bruce, and their yellow VW van, several times.
Ecuador: George, Teresa came for the night while we were living in Doug and Marcia
Bolivia: Rolando becomes a pseudo-Brit for the World Cup
Colombia: This little boy was fascinated with the van's pop top.
Whose turn was it to clean the toilet?
Unsavoury toilet situations are possibly the ugliest part of travelling in such a way that you're almost always conducting your functions and ablutions in either a public/shared facility, behind a bush or hunched over a bottle inside the car.
We're not saying all toilets in Latin America are awful, obviously that would be ridiculous, but when you are camping you see a disproportionate number of the nasties. Only a few places have bathrooms that you'd really consider lingering in for longer than strictly necessary. We chose to drive a smaller vehicle without a toilet and that was the right decision for us, but there's a price that comes with it – a lack of privacy and having to endure other people's habits, noises, smells, excretions, skin flakes and hair.
The porta-loo we bought at the beginning of the trip was ditched after a year as it was so impractical, and there was a diarrhoea incident in Guatemala that left us both mentally scarred for life. So apart from our magic Uriwell emergency pee bottle, we totally relied on external solutions.
Having to wash or go to the toilet in the great outdoors was the least of our worries – it's often way more appealing than the indoor option.
In those moments where you're brushing your teeth over a dirt-caked sink and trying not to touch anything, stepping into a shower covered in leaves, mud, insects (dead and alive) and scum-clogged balls of other people's hair, trying to avoid inhaling as you hover over a shit-smeared toilet at a truck stop, desperately trying to avoid the pool of rancid urine under your flip-flopped feet, or trying not to look at the bin overflowing with a week's worth of soiled toilet paper, you do have a little droll thought to yourself: "Yep, living the dream baby, livin' the dream."
Those nights when we woke up needing to pee and first had to sleepily remember where the hell we were, then schlep outside to face the elements, the barking dogs, the passersby, whatever, we might have fleetingly wondered why we do this to ourselves.
We do wish we had more photos of the worst toilet examples, but it's never really a classic Kodak moment. Most are not really extreme – there's just a fairly regular pattern of poorly-maintained facilities that make the whole experience feel a bit shabby – non-functioning flushes, lack of running water, broken and missing toilet seats, broken or non-existent doors, shredded stained shower curtains that always want to stick to your skin, smashed mirrors, broken lights, and crumbling, mouldy walls.
Electrifying shower, Nicaragua.
In Central America and Brazil they have electric showers that usually have bare wires hanging from them – if you absent-mindedly raise your arms and touch the shower head, bbzzzzzzt! It certainly helps wake you up in the morning.
There were many periods of the trip when we just didn't know when or where we would next find a shower. Mostly that's fine, you get used to it and improvise as best you can. But some days you want to claw out your entire head of stinking, greasy hair.
Toilet reports are a regular topic of conversation, and plenty are great! When we found one that was clean and shiny, well lit, with running water, doors that lock, toilet seats, paper AND soap, it made our bloody day.
Sometimes it was a little bit extreme though. There was the time when I had to go to a drop toilet in the Peruvian Andes, and there was a dead cow in the next cubicle. There was the time that the only available toilet in Cabo de la Vela, Colombia, was so appalling that (sorry dear reader) we resorted to defecating in a plastic bag in the van. One day we met retired Kiwis Gary and Joan, in Patagonia. We were discussing our reasons for not having stayed at the other campsite in town. "We did actually go there and set up camp, but we left almost immediately," said Gary.
"Why was that?" we asked. "Well, Joan went in to the toilet block and someone had crapped in the shower."
Mmm, really looking forward to brushing my teeth.
Hair wash in freezing water, Cordillera Blanca, Peru
'Keep the campsite clean' – Brazil.
2. THE F***ING WIFI
See how unhappy and frustrated I look?
I know it's not classy or intelligent to swear, but "the fucking wifi!" was one of the most commonly uttered phrases of our trip and I really can't dress it up as something more polite.
If you imagine that we spent absolutely all of our days skipping through the mountains, sitting by rivers enjoying picnics, or frolicking in the sea, then you might wonder why on earth the internet was so important to us.
Well we didn't, and it was.
Not every day, thankfully – we really came to appreciate the benefits of having so many days where we had no access, or chose not to access it. It's good for your health and your relationship.
But when we needed it and it was either hard to find, didn't not work or was woefully inadequate for the task, this was usually a head-bangingly frustrating waste of time, effort and money. For various reasons we chose not to bring smartphones and buy SIM cards and internet plans for each country, so we completely relied on free wifi in cafes, petrol stations, campsites and public areas, or on using internet shops with desktop computers.
We rented a few apartments and they always had wifi. On our two work-exchange stints in Bolivia and Argentina there was wifi in our accommodation but it was abysmal because the areas were rural.
Sometimes the internet speed was excellent, but you could never really predict when that was going to be – one of our most surprisingly clear Skype calls home was from a public square on an island off the Chilean island of Chiloe.
Plenty of tasks could be, and often were, put off for days or weeks with little consequence – blogging, uploading photos, researching stuff for the trip, reading the news or downloading podcasts. Other things were more important – our freelance journalism work, Skyping the parents, keeping in touch with home, and money matters.
We tended to try to plan the days when we'd go online and get our tasks done – that usually meant packing up the van and driving somewhere to do it, or fitting it in between destination A and B.
The day you've planned it will typically be the day when you can't find a functioning wifi signal. How many damn coffees have we ordered before realising the wifi doesn't work? (rookie mistake). How many free municipal 'services' have we connected to, only to find Nothing At All will load? How many towns have we driven round, hanging the iPad out of the window to try to find an open network? How many hours have we spent watching that spinning wheel as we try to upload photos for the blog or – even worse – for our editors? And, for the love of whatthefuck, how many times have we tried to speak to our parents on Skype and had to run around a campsite, town square or café, trying to locate a signal that will facilitate, you know, an actual conversation.
Am I starting to sound bitter? Well the answer is, a lot! A lot of hours, a lot of times.
But we're so over it.
Please don't leave, come back..! The first transmission breakdown in Honduras.
For some people, tinkering with a car or tackling a really difficult mechanical conundrum is a deeply satisfying hobby, a pleasure, even a joy. For us it was the steepest learning curve of the journey, and it was often stressful.
We will probably never be mechanics. Let me rephrase that – we will never be mechanics. But we now know the names of more car parts in Spanish than we will ever know in English. We now kind of vaguely know what's going on under there. We became finely tuned to the van's little ways and noises and gradually stopped completely dreading conversations with mechanics.
If you're wondering what the level of our knowledge was when we left home in 2011, let me just say that until 6 months before our departure date Jeremy couldn't even drive, and neither of us had ever owned a car.
My dad tried to give me a cramming lesson in very basic vehicle maintenance just before we left. My blank facial expressions gave him understandable cause for alarm and his face went a bit white. I was quietly thinking 'oh wow, I didn't know there was fluid for the brakes' while he was quietly thinking 'oh god, they are definitely going to die in a desert somewhere'.
Broken down in Ecuador
If you have followed this blog long term you will know that for the first half of the trip we had an absolute nightmare with the van's automatic transmission, which failed twice and was eventually converted to a manual gearbox in Ecuador. Trying to get our heads around solving those potentially journey-ending problems was, at times, overwhelming.
That breakdown let to a horrendous cycle of bureaucratic problems that ended with us risking everything to smuggle the van out of the country. It was, by far, the most stressful, pant-wettingly scary thing we had to do on the whole journey.
Big catastrophes aside, the day-to-day maintenance of a vehicle that is also your home just adds an extra layer of pressure. There's more at stake. Problems cannot be ignored, they have to be dealt with asap and always in a place that you don't know. Once you do find a mechanic you don't know if he's going to be competent. Sometimes they break the very thing they are supposed to be fixing, or fix one thing and break something else just to keep you on your toes. Sometimes they are excellent – it is a lottery every time.
When we needed work done we couldn't just leave the van and go home. Our home was there, suspended in the air on a hydraulic lift or jacked up with its wheels off. We didn't even have a cell phone. We had to wander the streets, sit in cafes, or in the yard just waiting, waiting, waiting.
It was difficult to explain the concept to mechanics who didn't often get people driving their houses into the workshop.
They were frequent conversations like this – mechanic says: "So how long are you in town?" We'd say: "Weeeeell, as long as this takes. We can't leave until the van is fixed, because we live in it. So basically we're waiting for you to do this as quickly as possible (subtext – but not so quickly that you cock it up by rushing it)."
Mechanic says: "Okay leave it with us and we'll let you know."
We'd say: "And go where? We live in the van. Just to reiterate – we are waiting until you give us our house back because we have nowhere else to go."
It was tedious. Sometimes we waited all day then bailed out at closing time, having to get things reassembled in order to go off and camp, or abandoning the van to go to a hostel – the work uncompleted, the part untraceable or undelivered.
Another day, another mechanic
Oh yeah, car parts. That's the other little thing. We couldn't always find the ones we needed in Latin America and they had to be shipped from the US or Europe (such as a whole transmission – twice). More expense, more long waits. After a while we got wise to the things we might need, bringing things from the UK, or having other stuff shipped while we were ordering something else. We tried to stay one step ahead and largely it all worked out well in the latter two years.
Of course we knew looking after a vehicle would be pretty much the biggest occupational hazard of going on a 50,000-odd mile road trip, but we probably didn't envisage just quite how consuming it could be at times. We don't mind saying that we're proud we not only made it, but learned a hell of a lot along the way.
People quite often wanted to be photographed with the van.
This is quite a tricky one to describe, because many genuinely good things came out of the fact that we lived much of our van life effectively in the public sphere. By being out there on display, we met countless interesting, helpful, amusing, curious, friendly people.
When you are camping in a small van, unless the weather is totally freezing or you are asleep, the door is pretty much always open and everything you are doing is visible to whoever happens to be around. That varied hugely depending on where we were camping – from quiet bush camps free of anyone, to privately-owned campsites, to petrol stations, village squares, restaurant car parks, tourist sites or beaches.
The vast majority of the time it was great. We had some of the best interactions of this trip precisely because people could, and did, approach us to have a look around and a chat about the journey. We were videoed, photographed and questioned more times than we could count. Children were obsessed with the pop-top and always wanted to climb in it. Sometimes people would hang around to watch us from a distance, to see what the strange gringos would do next. We could actually hear them giving a running commentary to each other.
Occasionally we did feel self-conscious about it – more so in the countries where camping and motorhomes were much less common. If you're frying up some chicken inside your car or trying to relax with a glass of wine in a village square in rural Bolivia, people will understandably stare at you and you might not always be in the mood for it. We had a classic comedy moment quite recently when a young boy was strolling past, gazing open-mouthed at the van's pop-top. As he lifted his hand to wave at us he walked face-on into a lamppost. Oh how we all chuckled!
There are those days when you feel hot and sweaty, grumpy, or a bit stressed because you can't find somewhere decent to camp, and being on public display is just not what you want. Those days are a small minority, but they really matter in that moment. If you're hormonal, knackered, feeling a bit meh or just need to wallow with a 'duvet day' it's harder to hide unless you happen to be in the middle of nowhere, or can find a peaceful private campground in which to relax and be alone.
Talking of being alone, as a couple we were pretty much always together. This is one of those overlapping good and bad things. Given our previous life, being able to spend so much time together has been one of the top-ranking good things about this trip. But we also appreciate that it's not entirely normal to have virtually zero time away from your partner. Often our only 'me time' was when one of us went to the loo or had a shower. And even that wasn't a guaranteed solo activity.
If there were any taboos left in our marriage when we left home, their demise probably began around the time of the Guatemala diarrhoea incident (see Bad things no 1. The Toilet Situation) and continued with every use of the emergency night-time pee bottle. If you're thinking of doing a trip like this and don't fancy the idea of loudly peeing in to a plastic bottle 6ft from your partner's face, get a bigger van.
Jeremy gives a guided tour of the van, El Salvador
Kids playing in the van, Colombia.
A nice relaxing night's sleep outside a police station in rural Bolivia.
Off we go again…
There are a few down sides about being nomadic (but see also Good things no 1. – Freedom). Yet again, how much you care about this depends on the mood and the circumstances.
I'd love to know how many hours we spent packing up to leave, arriving somewhere new and moving all the stuff around again.
For us one of the hardest things about being transient was when we needed to get things done. We were continually starting from scratch because our environment changed so often we were always the newbies in town and didn't know where things were. Sometimes we'd literally be driving randomly around the streets of X town or village, hoping to stumble across a mechanic, launderette, ironmonger, internet shop, food market, water or ice seller, some obscure piece of something for the van, an actual campsite or somewhere to stop for the night. It can get tiresome because everything requires a bit more time and effort.
Packing up, moving on.
Sometimes we were lonely too. Over four and half years we met a lot of people, some of whom we now consider to be great friends. But it was all so temporary. We, and they, were always moving on. It was nice when we bumped into people more than once – we got a little taste of that familiar feeling that is so rare when you're travelling.
Despite all the great folk we met, a massive majority of our time was actually spent à deux. Here's a guilty secret – having no friends or social life to speak of is often really quite nice, in that life is just very simple. But most of us thrive on our connections with other humans, and we did feel the absence of our family and friends very strongly.
We'd crave a spontaneous night out or a long lazy brunch with people we loved and with whom we had a shared history and outlook – those people in your life that don't require introductions or explanations.
Some days there were down times – especially during the long Argentinian siesta – when we felt incredibly 'baseless'. Just hanging around waiting for things to happen before we could move on to the next place or return to our campspot for the night.
Perversely, despite the occasional frustrations our transient lifestyle didn't necessarily lead to a desire to have a permanent settled home. In fact I think our boredom threshold became progressively lower. At the very end of the trip we stayed in a lovely apartment in a great, lively part of Buenos Aires for a month. After three weeks of it Jeremy looked quite alarmed when I said one morning: "Jeez, every time I go out it's just the same streets every time…!"
As we begin the process of finding somewhere to live again, this is probably an attitude I need to address.
Where is home?
Tags: 17 by 6, Argentina, Bolivia, brazil, campervan, camping, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, el salvador, Guatemala, honduras, Jeremy and Paula Dear, mechanic, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paula and Jeremy Dear, Peru, seventeen by six, seventeenbysix, VW, VW Eurovan, Workaway
Categories Random post
The Jesuit mission churches – like this one in Concepcion – have been beautifully restored.
[by Paula]
Given how unbelievably sweaty, dusty and thirsty we were, it was hard to imagine how it must have been for the 17th-century Jesuit priests who had to trek here from Paraguay. I mean, I don't think they even had ice cream shops then.
The majority of our associations with Bolivia are of the fresh air and mountain backdrops of the altiplano, so travelling through these baking hot tropical plains felt like we'd been transported to another country. Each time we had to search for a shady spot, or drive round a zillion little shops looking for ice, we said: "This just doesn't feel like Bolivia."
The eastern lowlands of the country may be less known by tourists, but they cover a vast area, accounting for about two-thirds of Bolivia's land mass. We had headed south-west from Cochabamba with a plan to visit a series of former Jesuit missions, established in the late 1600s and early 1700s as settlements that were – of course – each centred around an elaborate church. The towns – in which numerous groups of indigenous people were converted to Christianity by the Jesuits before they were expelled by the Spanish king in 1767 – are still living, working communities. The central squares and churches have been lovingly restored and are a sight to behold that way exceeded our expectations.
The thing about the 'missions circuit' though, is that it's not just all about wandering around looking at lovely churches and plazas. There's a bit of an awkward 1,000km journey through the countryside to get round the major ones, and clearly that was something we couldn't resist.
Dusty and bumpy roads, but beautiful scenery.
We picked a clockwise route that bypassed the city of Santa Cruz and first headed north towards the oldest of the mission towns, San Xavier. We'd got hold of a pretty detailed guide to the different missions and how to get there. On day two of driving we were finally getting close! We just had to cross a little river and we'd be a few kilometres from our first destination. There was just one thing missing from the maps and info – the lack of a bridge over the river.
After a confusing search through a dusty town for the 'road' to San Xavier, we were very baffled to find a rickety wooden platform jutting out and then ending suddenly on a muddy riverbed. Where's the bridge? we pondered, squinting into the sun in search of hope.
Nope, definitely no bridge. We were expected to descend from the platform and then drive about 300m over the damp clay-ish mud and through a few streams to get to the road on the other side. Our instincts screamed 'this will end badly!'.
A bunch of slightly drunk guys were, hilariously, charging drivers 100 Bolivianos ($14) to make the crossing. As we pondered and watched other drivers successfully making it over, they kept saying "you'll be fine, you'll do it!". The thing is they, were probably right, there was a reasonably high chance we would have made it without getting trapped in the gluey mud, or without sinking into one of the streams. I just wasn't in the mood to take the chance with our heavy van, on which we'd just spent a lot of time and money doing maintenance work, knowing how much we would kick ourselves if it went wrong.
In these situations, when lots of people are yelling in our ears with 'helpful advice', we have learned to stop and think carefully and ask ourselves questions such as these: Do they know what they are talking about? What will they gain/lose if we decide to go or not go? Do they give a shit about what happens to our car? If one car a day needs to get pulled out of this riverbed, how likely is it that it will be us?!
It was agony, but in the end we went with our instincts. There was a long way round to get to a different section of the route, with a bridge, that would involve several hours of extra driving. With heavy hearts we turned around, hooted and waved to the drunks and, with that, ended their afternoon of entertainment.
Over the next few hours of rutted roads that never seemed to end, we grumbled but deep down knew we'd done the right thing. Interestingly, the detour took is through three villages named Okinawa I, II and III – a corner of Bolivia that's home to people who arrived from Okinawa as sponsored migrants in the 1950s. Tiny elderly women of Japanese descent scurried around the streets. One was so small she walked under our wing mirror without ducking. "This really doesn't feel like Bolivia!" we repeated.
The change of route meant the day ended with us pulling into a gas station in the dark, to spend the night. The fact that they sold ice-cold beer lightened the mood considerably.
In the morning we started again with renewed vigour. We arrived in San Xavier by lunchtime, and thought 'well, if this is what we're getting, we can live with a little discomfort'.
San Xavier's plaza and Jesuit church.
Founded in 1691, it was the first of the mission settlements in the Chiquitania region. It set the scene for a series of gorgeous, pristine, plazas and church complexes we were to visit on our circuit.
But damn it was hot. It seemed like a long time since we had experienced the 50-metre-dash-to-the-shade-via-the-first-ice-cream-we-can-find race. We escaped to a hotel garden to camp for the night. A weird and, as it turned out, virtually abandoned, place – where the caretaker lied about it being open to justify charging us an exorbitant camping rate – but a haven nonetheless.
Next was Concepción, one of the best restored and conventionally beautiful of the mission towns. In a recurring theme of the week, we arrived just as everything was closing for a massive siesta. While waiting for the church and museum to reopen we killed the time by enjoying our first taste of the region's food – a succulent roast beef, with a bizarre but strangely comforting cheesy 'rice pudding', yucca and plantains. More carbs anyone?
Cowboy food: Roast beef, cheesy rice, yucca and plantains.
The next section to San Ignacio was quite long, but we'd read the road had recently been paved so set off to see how far we could get. That thing we read about the road being paved? That was a work of fiction. Not far out of Concepción we hit the start of a 400km stretch of hard-packed mud and gravel roads that would last all the way to our 6th and final destination. We'd expected plenty of it, but just not this much.
It slowed things down a bit, and we and the van turned a nice orange dust colour in the process, but all was well and the route was very pretty. With no prospect of arriving at any town before dark, we pulled into a tiny village and asked if we could park up for the night – of course, they said, pointing us towards the church. Two young boys were sent over later to deliver about 25 bananas to us. 'We grow them here,' they said, before sitting down for a chat and a glass of lemonade.
It was certainly one of the quietest and darkest nights we'd ever had. Our van shone like a beacon as none of the four houses in the village, nor the church or school, had electricity.
On the way to San Ignacio the following day we encountered a rare section of road that was being worked on. A bus coming towards us slipped and slid through the churned up mud and came to a halt at a jaunty angle. As all the passengers got off to walk through the rest of the roadworks, we thought 'hmm, don't really fancy driving through that'. Luckily the workmen had the same thought and sent a tractor ahead of us to pave our way.
The bus couldn't make it through the churned up road with all its passengers on board.
We followed the tractor to make sure we didn't get stuck too.
We were glad to arrive in San Ignacio, a bigger town where we planned to base ourselves for a couple of nights. With the heat and dust we were, by this time, pretty stinky and hot and were keen on finding a shower. We had a very sweaty, fruitless search for somewhere to camp before eventually being directed to some 'cabanas' on the edge of town. We bumped along a farm track before arriving at a sumptuous hacienda with its own private lake, and thought 'jackpot!'. Problem was, it was now the private home of a rich guy who seemed a little surprised at our asking to camp. Jeremy made his best disappointed face and he agreed that we could park up in the garden but could offer zero facilities. Another night of being smelly and hot then, but a partial jackpot as the location was amazing.
Next day we got a cheap hotel room to hang out and rest for a bit – we wanted to stay around for the evening because the rodeo was in town! Brilliant. It was part of a big agricultural expo event, so we ambled along and spent the evening wandering the stalls, drinking beers and cocktails, eating chunks of barbequed meat and generally wishing we were cowboys. But cowboys don't drink cocktails, we hear you cry. Well they did at this event, which was crammed with Brazilians from over the nearby border. Every other stall was selling the Brazilian signature cocktail 'caipirinhas' and people seemed to be talking a hybrid S-Portuguese. "This doesn't feel like Bolivia," we said.
Just before the rodeo got going – three hours later than billed, you've got to love Latin America-time – the contestants lined up to pray and cross themselves. It was a great few hours of entertainment and people-watching, though what motivates people to get themselves violently tossed around then thrown off a bull or horse and slammed into the dust is beyond me. There must be a lot of work for osteopaths in these places.
Prayers before the rodeo kicks off, San Ignacio, Bolivia.
It's all a blur at the rodeo! San Ignacio, Bolivia.
We moved on to the two smaller missions of San Miguel and San Rafael. These places are becoming more popular with visitors but they are not exactly crawling with groups of tourists. At the first we had to search the town for the guy who had the key to the church. Several people told us 'Carmelo's the guy you need, he's a few blocks that way..' We wandered in the afternoon heat, asking for Carmelo. 'That door up there,' 'No, the next house…'.
Eventually Carmelo appeared at his window, stretching, having just awoken from his siesta. He pulled on a shirt and walked back to the plaza with us, chatting away enthusiastically about how he's been showing people round the place since he was a child, and is now in his 70s. After a fascinating little tour, we headed off to the next place on our circuit.
Again, in San Rafael there was nowhere obvious to camp. We asked at the tiny police station on the plaza where they thought might be best to park up. 'Right here, outside the station!' they insisted.
We wandered off to watch the Sunday night mass in the Jesuit church, and sat in the busy square cooling off before heading to bed. It's a quaint little village, but we had one of the noisiest night's sleep ever, with cars passing, donkeys braying, cockerels going at it, horse clopping by and a huge crowd of people flooding out of a late night meeting.
It's not an easy trip to do by public transport. As we left early next morning we picked up two Swiss tourists who'd been left high and dry due to a fictional bus timetable. We all bumped along on the final four hours of dirt road, to the spectacular town of San Jose de Chiquitos, with its atypical baroque-style church.
San Jose de Chiquitos has a stunning, and unique for the area, Baroque-style church.
Joy of joys, the town had a luxurious camping place, in the garden of a posh hotel. Just the prize we had hoped for after getting to the end of the circuit. We got things cleaned up a bit and recharged a little before the next stage of the journey.
Question was, what was the next stage going to be? There were other things we wanted to see in Bolivia, but we only had two days left on our vehicle permit before we'd either have to apply for an extension or get out of the country. It was a painful dilemma, but having had 6 wonderful months in Bolivia we decided to end it on a high and not go through the hassle of battling with the customs people in Santa Cruz.
Besides, we had an incredible itch to turn south and cross the border into Argentina. This trip is full of little and big milestones, but after all the drama we've had with the van, actually making it to Argentina is up there with the biggies.
We'd still have a long way to go but crossing that line would feel, to a small extent, like mission accomplished.
Days: 1,050
Things we now know to be true: If you don't have the ability to see into the future, go with your gut.
MORE PHOTOS IN THE GALLERY BELOW:
Jesuit mission, San Xavier, Bolivia.
Courtyard and bell tower, Jesuit mission, San Xavier.
The road from San Xavier to Concepcion was still paved.
The petrol situation in Bolivia is complicated – sometimes we had to fill up from cans..
Concepción was pretty much perfection.
Jesuit church interior, Concepción, Bolivia.
Lots of original artefacts have been preserved and displayed at the missions museum in Concepción.
The Jesuit church in Concepción has an elaborate carved bell tower.
Courtyard, Jesuit mission, Concepción
Paula at the Jesuit church in Concepción
Lovely views all the way round the circuit.
Even the roundabouts have crosses on them in the mission towns.
San Ignacio at dusk.
Sombreros for sale at the expo and rodeo night we went to.
Some people went for the safer option on rodeo night… San Ignacio.
Fireworks as the rodeo gets under way, San Ignacio, Bolivia.
Rodeo night, San Ignacio
Jesuit mission, San Ignacio, Bolivia.
We ended up camping at someone's house – with private lake – near San Ignacio.
There are loads of police stops and toll payments along the way…
The route was beautifully scenic.
At San Miguel we had to search for the church key-holder to get a look inside.
The churches have been beautifully restored.
The mission towns become even more sleepy than usual at afternoon siesta time.
Bell tower, Jesuit mission, San Miguel, Bolivia.
San Miguel has one of the most spectacular interiors of all the Jesuit missions in Bolivia.
San Rafael's plaza
Sunday mass in San Rafael – the restored Jesuit missions are still well attended community churches.
Nearly at the end of the bumpy road! Driving to San Jose de Chiquitos, Bolivia.
Church in San Jose de Chiquitos
The region is also home to a lot of Mennonite communities.
Late afternoon shadows, San Jose de Chiquitos, Bolivia.
Tags: 17 by 6, Bolivia, campervan, camping, Chiquitania, Concepcion, Jeremy and Paula Dear, Jesuit missions, rodeo, San Ignacio, San Javier, San Jose de Chiquitos, San Miguel, San Rafael, San Xavier, Santa Cruz, seventeen by six, seventeenbysix, VW, VW Eurovan
Categories Bolivia
Put a few travellers in a room, add a beer, rum or vino to the equation and talk always turn to it.
Could you live here?
Everyone has had the feeling at some time or another, be it whilst whiling away the days in a hammock on a golden sandy beach, atop a summit in the snow-capped mountains, sitting in a cosy bar in front of a roaring fire or enjoying a perfectly cooked steak in a vine-shaded plaza with a glass of fine – but cheap – red wine.
It's what makes people buy timeshares or run off with the waiter from the Greek taverna they have known for just a week. Colombia even has a bittersweet slogan for its tourist industry – "the only danger is not leaving" – and they are not talking about the alarmingly high incidence of kidnap or political prisoners.
We're not immune to the fantasising – sometimes seriously, other times just for fun. We, like our fellow travellers, are always asking the question – could we really live here?
In the 1000-plus days we've been on the road there have been contenders – but there's always a nagging something which makes you think again – the sudden onset of the rainy season, the bureaucracy or simply the local penchant for vallenato or cumbia music at full volume morning, noon and night, all the way through to morning again.
But amongst all the contenders the one that caught us most by surprise is La Paz in Bolivia. On and off, last year and this, we've spent almost 6 months living in and around the city. We've loved so much of what it has to offer.
And that's the other thing about travellers – put three of them in a room and you'll have four different opinions. One person's paradise is another's nightmare. So I know there will be plenty of those people who skipped La Paz entirely or briefly passed through it saying…but, what about the cold, the altitude, the occasional smell of urine on a street corner, the traffic, the slow, slow, slow internet, the, the, the….
We recognise all those things but we see so much more in La Paz. That's why we went back – again.
Buying yet more anticuchos (cow heart skewers), La Paz. Served with potato and spicy peanut sauce, yum!
It is a city fiercely proud of its indigenous roots, outwardly brash but ultimately friendly, a city on the rise, that's set in an unrivaled location. A city whose citizens are alert, active, civic-minded, never letting a politician, corporation or fraudster away with anything – a blockade is a frequent occurrence somewhere around the city. It is a city that likes to eat, dance and celebrate – there is a colourful fiesta for everything. It is a city which gets under your skin and a city in which we made some wonderful, lifelong friends – and that's rare for those always on the move.
In our six months there we tried to sample a bit of (almost) everything on offer – from the chaos of the El Alto market – set in the militant, self-organised, sprawling section of the city perched high on the altiplano overlooking central La Paz – where we picked up boots and a shirt for next to nothing – to Paula's death-defying mountain-bike jaunt down the world's most dangerous road, from a night at a local peña (folk music drinking dens) with fellow comrades Tristan and Bianca, to enjoying the crazy day-long dancing spectacle which is Gran Poder – the year's biggest celebration of Paceña culture and a growing symbol of the inexorable rise of the Aymara influence in the city.
Gran Poder, La Paz, Bolivia, June 2014
Gran Poder, La Paz, Bolivia, June 2014.
But it was the day-to-day vibe of the city that also grabbed us – socialising, going to football, hiking, shopping, filling up on tasty street food and just chatting to friends. We even rose to the challenge of getting new glasses, medical check ups and doing some paying journalism work. All very normal in a city which is anything but ordinary.
But for us, La Paz will always be associated with our time in Jupapina with Emma, Rolando and their kids David and Bell and the animals. They have been so hospitable, such good friends who offered us advice, did us endless favours and make a mean Chuflay – a Bolivian gin and tonic!
No sooner had we arrived back in La Paz than Rolando said he had a job for us. He was thinking of selling an artesanal local beer in their campsite shop and he wanted us to visit the brewery with him to taste it. Five hours later we crawled home.
Jeremy gets a gentle hug from the Mendozas´ dog, named Sir Alex Ferguson.
Jeremy, Rolando and Edwin get set for an afternoon of free beer tasting at Saya Brewery, La Paz. Oh dear.
Watching the World Cup in a (yes) Irish bar in La Paz
To help repay them a little we house-sat for them when they had a rare few days away, worked on the campsite reception and even took their three dogs for a walk. Emma's parting words when they set off were not to try and walk the three of them at once – take it in turns. Bah! How hard could it be? After a titanic struggle with three of us trying to get the lead on two of the dogs while the third one head-butted the door, angry at being left out, we caved. All three it is then. We were dragged at high speed to the river in the valley below, then hauled through the water while they frolicked in the mud. Ooops. Lesson learned.
Tilly Bud got a little muddy during our walk.
But it wasn't just the two of us that had a variety of experiences in La Paz – the van, inevitably, did too. At 4100m above sea level, as we approached the longed-for comfort of Emma and Rolando's beautiful place in the valley of the flowers – and the amazing campsite we had worked on during our last visit to La Paz – we had our first puncture in 3 years. Also during our stay the van's electrics went haywire and the battery died.
It had always been the plan to get the van checked out thoroughly at Volksmotor, a now famous VW workshop which has become a must-visit for all overlanders. Swiss-trained mechanic Ernesto Hug went over things with a fine toothcomb, presenting us with a (thankfully) minor list of routine things that needed replacing. With me heading back to the UK for a flying visit to see my parents it was the perfect opportunity to get those hard-to-find spares. I was stopped at customs twice on my return to ask what a tie rod end was for, or why I had brake caliper seal kits in my hand luggage – oh, and did I really need that much sandwich pickle, thai curry paste and tea bags? The answer, of course, was yes.
The friendships we made in La Paz have travelled with us. During some of the many, many barbeques we had at Emma and Rolando's, we met the parents of another friend of ours, Anahi. Luis and Ellie live in Cochabamba – smack bang in the heart of the country's richest agricultural region – and kindly extended an invitation to show us the gastronomic delights of the city, whose inhabitants claim they 'don't eat to live but live to eat'. They aren't wrong. No sooner had we, with some difficulty, parked our 17ft van in their 17ft-long garage than we were sat in a shady courtyard enjoying plates of boiled and fried guinea pig, dried strips of beef charque, stuffed locoto peppers, mote with cheese, roasted duckling and a couple of local beers.
Serving up just a little portion of chicharron (fried pork) in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
Cristo de la Concordia, Cochabamba´s own ´Christ the Redeemer´, with Anahi´s parents and sister.
Next day, after a couple of mid-morning snacks at the local market, we tried what we were told was the best chicharron – fried pork – in the world. It's a lofty claim but having tasted the most succulent pork ever, we really cannot argue. A walk up to Cochabamba's 'Christ the Redeemer statue' – well, actually, we drove almost all of the way – hardly made a dent in the weight we put on in just a long weekend with such generous hosts.
When we left La Paz last year we left some bags of clothes and other things behind, knowing it gave us the ideal excuse for coming back. This time we just (accidentally) left our beloved lime squeezer – I'm not sure that alone would be enough to bring us back, but everything else La Paz has to offer may well do the job one day.
Things we now know to be true: Nowhere´s perfect.
Bye bye to Emma, Rolando, David and Bell. Sniff!
Colibri Camping, Jupapina, south of La Paz. Our workplace and home for nearly six months.
Tags: 17 by 6, anticuchos, Bolivia, campervan, camping, El Alto, football, Gran Poder, Jeremy and Paula Dear, Jupapina, La Paz, mechanic, Paula and Jeremy Dear, seventeen by six, seventeenbysix, VW, VW Eurovan
Ramble in the jungle
We got an incredible view of flying macaws, from a cliff-top above their nesting site.
There are so very many bitey stingy things in the jungle, but it was the ants that really messed with my head. You just can't see those bastards coming.
And of course there's nothing a jungle guide likes more than to tell stories of agonising pain, poisoning and death to his or her freaked-out tourists. When Jeremy casually leaned on a 'devil tree' and was stung – rather painfully – by some fire ants, our guide Eber said: "Ah, the devil tree, don't touch that again! The fire ants colonise the trees and will sting whatever gets in their way to protect it. They used to tie criminals to those trees as punishment. If you get enough stings, they can kill you, but they're not allowed to do that any more…"
Right, well that's good then.
"Not as bad as the bullet ants, though," he pointed out a short while later, gesturing towards an enormous ant on a tree trunk. "They give THE most painful bite. The pain travels to the nearest set of glands and constantly hurts like hell for 24 hours. Remember that woman we had who got bitten and was screaming her head off?" he said to fellow guide/cook David.
Leafcutter ants, we like you, you're nice.
Why is it called a bullet ant? I've since Googled it, and the pain – said to be officially the most ouchy insect bite in the world – is often compared to that of being shot.
Great. So how are we all enjoying our trip to the Bolivian jungle?
Shortly after arriving back in La Paz we decided to do a little detour up to the country's Amazon region and take a trip into Madidi National Park for a bit of wildlife-spotting and jungle hiking. We didn't have time to take the van on what is a phenomenally bad, and often closed, road because Jeremy had to be back in a week to fly to England. So we did something that in his past life he would not have considered, at least not without taking a bucketload of tranquilizers first – we took a 16-seater plane that flew so low it barely skirted over the Andes, and then descended into the jungle at Rurrenabaque.
Even I was feeling uncomfortable about our proximity to the pilot, especially when he and his co-pilot started digging around for what looked like a 'user's guide to aeroplane engines' and began studying it intensely during take-off.
It was mighty strange to leave the heights of La Paz and 30 minutes later be looking down on the meandering brown rivers and forest of the Amazon basin.
A rather close-up view of the Andes from our plane from the Bolivian jungle to La Paz.
Jeremy looks very happy to have arrived safely in Rurrenabaque in a 16-seater plane.
View of La Paz from our plane back from the Bolivian jungle.
We set off the next morning on a three-night trip that involved going upriver for a few hours then spending one night in a community lodge, and two nights hiking and camping on the ground under a mosquito net.
The great thing about proper jungle is that you really have to work for your rewards. As much as we have loved places like Costa Rica – where habituated animals practically do a dance for you on the trails – it doesn't compare with running and leaping through virtually unspoiled forest to try to catch up with a herd of peccaries that our guide can smell in the distance, or spending forever looking up into the canopy tops and finally, just before one's neck can stand no more, catching sight of a toucan or the face of a spider monkey.
Some species stayed elusive, like the shy tapir. We studied their footprints, as well as those of jaguars, but never met them on the trail. Over this trip we have been very lucky to see hundreds of monkeys, of many different types, but in Bolivia we were excited that as well as spider, squirrel, howler and capuchin monkeys, we saw two species that we'd never even heard of. A whole troupe of tiny Lion monkeys careered across our path at one stage, giving us a very privileged close-up. And one night, in a tree right above our camp, we saw a nocturnal monkey who, unperturbed by the flashlight, stared right at us for several minutes.
Lion monkey, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle.
Nocturnal monkey, see during a night walk in Madidi National Park, Bolivia jungle.
When I say 'we' saw this or 'we' saw that, it's worth mentioning that without our amazing guides we would have seen big fat zilch. These guys literally live the jungle and have the most incredible sense of hearing, sight, smell and direction. We hear a distant chirp that sounds like 'a bird' and they identify it as a particular type of monkey. They can mimic the calls of most birds and mammals, and often elicited responses during our walks.
On the night we saw the nocturnal monkey, we were sitting back at camp after a night hike. Two tree frogs very nearby were making such a commotion it sounded like two men were trying to fell the tree with a two-handled saw. We remarked that if that continued all night there was no way we'd be able to sleep.
Suddenly our guide stands up, ear cocked, and says he has heard the chirrup of a nocturnal monkey. He takes the flashlight and immediately shines it upwards into exactly the right spot in the canopy. Two little eyes flashed back at us from about 30ft above. How the hell….?!
Each evening involved a hike in the pitch black. The first night – when we were based at a lodge – we were looking forward to our first foray into the night forest. "We're looking for snakes and spiders", said Eber, who started rooting around very close to our wooden cabin.
"Hang on, surely we have to go really deep into the forest, away from where we're sleeping, to find those things…." we said. "Nope" said Eber. And so it was that we not only found a huge furry tarantula hanging out on a tree a few feet from our cabin, but when we retired to bed, another one was literally hanging out on the thatch outside our bedroom. "I'll never sleep now," said Jeremy, a couple of nanoseconds before falling into a deep eight-hour slumber.
Tarantula seen during a night walk, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle.
Our other two nights of sleep were slightly less luxurious. Basically a plastic sheet on the ground with a net hung over it. Not very ant/spider/jaguar-proof….
We spent a lot of time looking at, and looking for, birds – seeing toucans, mot-mots, eagles, parrots, trogons, woodpeckers, and countless other things that we can't remember the names of. One very special moment was coming across the most beautiful owl as we returned from a night hike. It was right in our path, and watched us for several minutes as if it couldn't quite work out what the hell we were doing there.
We were intensely concentrating on a bird above us one day when I felt something tickle my hand. I looked down. Bullet ant. Heading for the gap under my sleeve. No-o-o-o-o. The velocity with which I flicked my hand was such that I was surprised to find it hadn't dislocated and flown off into the trees. I spent the next hour shivering at the thought and brushing imaginary ants off my skin.
But the incredible things we saw massively compensated for the relative discomfort and creepy crawly fears. One of the biggest highlights was climbing to a rather steep and scary cliff-top to get a birds-eye (see what I did there?) view of scores of red and green macaws swooping around the trees next to their rocky nesting sites. You could watch these parrots all day, it's like they've been created for some ridiculously over-the-top movie about a lost paradise world. The next morning we walked to the bottom of the cliff to watch them at their nests from below. Very special.
Macaws moving in unison, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle.
The jungle is no paradise for your average amateur photographer though. Zooming up into the sun-backed canopy, shooting into dark corners, and trying to capture fast-moving birds and monkeys – it's good fun trying but basically a nightmare!
We tried our best to capture some of those moments, but really you have to see it to believe it.
Things we now know to be true: It's a jungle out there.
Turtles seen during the river journey to our jungle trip, Bolivia.
Plantains, Rurrenabaque, Bolivian jungle.
All hands on deck to press the sugar cane, jungle trip, Bolivia.
Delicious drink of freshly-squeezed sugar cane juice with lemon – trip to Bolivian jungle.
Caiman lurking by the river as we travelled to our jungle trip from Rurrenabaque, Bolivia.
Howler monkey, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle.
Boat transport, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle.
Capybaras, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle.
Sunset, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle.
Pineapple growing, Bolivian jungle
Hiking, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle
Butterfly, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle
Setting up camp on night one of our Bolivian jungle trip – here's the kitchen!
On day one of our Bolivian jungle trip cook David gets to work on the lunch.
Is this to keep the bugs out or keep me in? Trying out our rustic sleeping arrangements, Bolivian jungle.
Jungle fruit, Bolivia.
Mating butterflies, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle.
Squirrel monkey, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle
Jungle view, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle
Macaws, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle
Flying Macaws, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle
Snake, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle
Owl, seen during a night walk in Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle
Macaws returning to their cliff nests, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle.
Macaws in their cliff nests, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle.
Jeremy enjoys some hammock R&R after our three-day lodge/camping jungle trip.
Heading back to Rurrenabaque from the jungle lodge.
Heading back to Rurrenabaque after our jungle camping trip.
Eek! Jungle plane, Bolivia
Morning mist, Rurrenabaque, Bolivian jungle
Amazing glittery butterfly, Madidi National Park, Bolivian jungle.
Tags: 17 by 6, ants, Bolivia, bullet ant, butterfly, caiman, campervan, camping, capybara, fire ants, Jeremy and Paula Dear, jungle, La Paz, leafcutter, lion monkey, macaws, Madidi national park, monkeys, nocturnal monkey, owl, Paula and Jeremy Dear, Rurrenabaque, seventeen by six, seventeenbysix, spiders, tarantula, turtle, VW, VW Eurovan
A great many things have happened on this trip that could not have been predicted. In fact, the majority of happenings were not foreseen, but some are more surprising than others.
So when I was standing watching Jeremy change from his jeans and t-shirt into an 11-piece Bolivian dancing outfit, including big flappy woolly Andean trousers, poncho, a belt adorned with bells, wooden platform shoes with spurs and an outrageously camp hat, I thought: "Yeah, this is definitely right up there with all the other 'things-we-didn't-see-coming'."
I wasn't doing too badly myself, with my wool dress and pinny, headband and wide-brimmed sombrero flowing with multi-coloured ribbons.
In the way that only they can – quietly unassuming, yet without options for refusal – our Bolivia hosts Emma and Rolando had persuaded us to take part in the traditional Pujllay dance at the local town festival in Mallasa. Of course we wouldn't have refused. It was a privilege and a one-off chance to experience a culture from within a small community, with friends who could show us the ropes. Obviously it was also a chance for some public humiliation, and who would pass that up?
It was a serious business – rehearsals began about two weeks before, and took place in the street. Different dance groups vied for space in Mallasa's Calle 5, while the music belted out of a PA system dragged out onto the street corner. Along with the other gringo volunteers working for Emma and Rolando's projects, we shuffled around trying to look like we knew what we were doing.
Not only was the festival a large parade for the spectator's enjoyment, it was a dancing competition and source of community pride. At the very least we had to aspire to avoid totally embarrassing Emma and Rolando in front of their friends and neighbours.
The men had to leap around for hours wearing wooden blocks on their feet.
On the night before the festival we all gathered to view our costumes and learn how to put them on – they were highly valuable and, as is tradition, the organisers (chosen each year from the community) had virtually bankrupted themselves to pay for the event and after-parties.
In the Pujllay, the men have to wear rather intimidating wooden blocks on their feet and jump around warrior-like, their heavy spurs jangling. They strapped them on and had a first 'shoe rehearsal'. The overwhelming consensus was that someone would break an ankle before the day was out.
Despite some nasty weather in the fortnight running up to the event, we all gathered on Sunday afternoon in unbroken sunshine. Bolivians have an uncanny knack for predicting the weather, and we had been assured "it never rains on fiesta day". They were right, again.
The streets were lined with spectators, food vendors and crates of beer for sale. We had a swift cold one to garner ourselves, lined up in our groups as the band got going behind us, and set off down the main street.
Mallasa is not a large town – in bigger fiestas in La Paz, dancers will parade for miles – but we were pretty hot and exhausted by the time we reached the judges' platform, yet we were only half way. We smiled like mad and tried to look proficient. It was amusing to watch people's faces as we swooshed past – there go the gringos!
Every now and again I craned my neck to see the men's group dancing behind us – occasionally seeing Jeremy's hat bobbing around at several inches higher than everyone elses.
Jeremy enjoys a relaxing beer after the dancing ends.
The atmosphere was fantastic. People handed drinks to the dancers, and when we reached the end a crate was bought and guzzled in the street. We had our first opportunity then to watch some of the other groups coming past, doing different dances in a whole array of outlandish costumes.
Then we were off again! One of the best moments was dancing back through the town to make our entrance at the after-party. I temporarily joined the men's group, stomping through the now darkened streets with increasing velocity, no doubt spurred on by the promise of more alcohol at the party. We made a loud and energetic entrance, congratulated ourselves and settled in for the free bar.
Cholita fashion show, El Alto, La Paz
Clara's mum, working at the flower market, La Paz
In the preceding weeks I had been doing some research for a BBC article about Bolivia's 'cholitas' (en español) – indigenous/mestizo women who dress in fascinating and distinctive outfits of bowler hats, layered skirts and shawls. One of their noticeable characteristics is that, although formidable in some ways, they are quite reserved people, not given to easily trusting strangers or behaving brashly in public. However, Emma had assured me that a Bolivian party would certainly involve a host of drunken cholita revellers letting their hair down. I found this very hard to imagine.
But within a couple of hours, a whole gaggle of cholitas – resplendent in their identical pink fiesta outfits – had dragged Jeremy and I onto the dancefloor. As we did a kind of conga around their crates of beer, swigging from plastic cups as we went, I thought: "Yeah, this is right up there with all the other 'things-we-didn't-see-coming'."
Don't be fooled. These elegant cholitas got stuck into the beers at the party later.
The festival was particularly special for us because we would be leaving the village in two weeks. We'd made the decision to return to Ecuador for reasons of an expiring visa and to, erm, Sort Out Our Van. For anyone who has – understandably – lost track of our mysterious campervan, it's still in Quito and has been for many many months.
There will be more on that later, but we had to get back there and either see through a final attempt to fix it, or make alternative arrangements.
Suddenly it felt like we had a lot to do before we left. We had an unusually large volume of freelance journalism work to do, and there were a lot of jobs to complete on Emma and Rolando's soon-to-be-opened campsite, including marketing and publicity materials. Jeremy designed leaflets and a logo, and we twiddled and tweaked the website. Signs were designed and made, and we started putting the word out to other websites and blogs.
We met our very capable replacements on the project, Don and Rochelle, and managed to find time for some important training, such as How To Drink A Lot of Wine.
On our last evening, Rochelle – who claims to normally be a light drinker – declared that she had "never left our house sober".
Our work in Jupapina was done. It was time to move on.
The Mendoza-Donlans gave us a fondue farewell.
A series of farewells only served to underline how many lovely friends we'd made – to mention but a few; the entertaining and ever-helpful Anita, Anahi and Raquel from Up Close Bolivia, our housemate Naomi – who broke her cooking embargo to make us a delicious Spanish meal before we left – and Verity, who arrived in January and soon sniffed out our shared love of food, wine and chat. Sadly, by this time Alison and Doug had return to the frozen north (Canada) and could only weep at the thought of our Singani cocktails on the terrace.
Clara and Geovanna, who worked in Emma and Rolando's house, cooked hearty and delicious lunches for us every day and listened patiently to our bad Spanish.
And of course Emma, Rolando, David and Bell, who took us out for a sublime palpatation-inducing fondue lunch before we left. They also hosted a big gathering of all the volunteers, plus Clara and Geovanna and their families – with chori-pan (barbequed sausages on bread rolls) and choclo (sweetcorn) and lots of lovely speeches!
Facing a 30-hour bus journey to Lima, Peru, at 8am on Sunday, we made the sensible decision to have a night out with Emma and Rolando the evening before we left. "It won't be a late one," said Emma.
As we crawled into bed just before 2am, I thought: "I definitely saw that coming."
Days: 875
Van miles: 17,551 (to Ecuador – where the van remains for now)
Non-van miles!: 9,909
Things we now know to be true: If a cholita tells you to dance, you dance.
BUMPER CROP OF PHOTOS IN TWO GALLERIES BELOW – CHOLITAS, PLUS THE FESTIVAL AND GOODBYE JUPAPINA. Many thanks to Rochelle and Verity for taking lots of photos for us on fiesta day.
CHOLITAS
Striking a pose before the cholita fashion show begins in El Alto, La Paz
Showing off the swirl of her pollera before the cholita fashion show, El Alto, La Paz.
Doing the all-important plaits before a cholita fashion show, El Alto, La Paz.
Models pose before the 'pasarela, cholita fashion show, El Alto, La Paz.
Discussing which shawls (mantas) to select, cholita fashion show, El Alto, La Paz.
Getting ready to go on stage, cholita fashion show, El Alto, La Paz.
The fashion show in El Alto showcases some of the more elaborate and expensive cholita fashions and jewellery.
The sombrero is one of the most distinctive parts of the cholita ensemble.
Jewellery is a hugely important accessory for a cholita.
A specialist cholita model agency was recently set up in La Paz.
Rosario Aguilar – cholita model agent, lawyer, and former city politician.
Norma Barrancos Leyva, an Aymara radio journalist whom I interviewed for the BBC article.
Many indigenous Bolivian women carry a cloth filled with goods on their back.
Cholita waiting for a boat, Copacabana, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia.
Cholitas are fascinating to outsiders, but are nothing more than the norm in Bolivia.
Clara's mum Carmen Mamani de Espejo, a cholita who cultivates and sells flowers in La Paz.
Clara's mum Carmen Mamani de Espejo, who has stunning gold hearts on her teeth.
FESTIVAL OF MALLASA AND GOODBYE JUPAPINA
Jeremy gets into his 11-piece Pujllay outfit.
Anahi and Anita show us how it's done.
Yes dear, you look very nice with your pink hankerchiefs.
Rocking their Pujllay hats.
All the Up Close volunteers and staff plus us, Emma, Rolando and Bell.
Locals and dancers wait for the festival to get going.
Each dance group had different outfits.
Mallasa's cholitas were out in full bling for the fiesta.
It wouldn't be a fiesta without music.
Angelic mini-Pujllay dancer.
The men's horrendous dancing shoes – they made a great noise though!
The music kept us going.
Dancing the Pujllay together.
He's behind you…!
Some of the costumes were just downright bizarre.
Rochelle becomes acquainted with some of the locals.
Cholitas were out in full force at the fiesta – both as dancers and spectators.
Are these my colours..?
One for the family photo album…
Jeremy shows off his lovely poncho thingy.
Anticuchos for sale – grilled cow hearts with potato and spicy sauce.
Making signs for the campsite toilets.
Farewell and thanks to our Alasitas 'fixer' Anita – slap up lunch of fricase and chicharron.
Saying bye bye to Jupapina, for now – Jeremy with Emma and Rolando, plus Molly, Naomi, Raquel, Verity, Saskia and Sam.
Rolando and Anahi's dad Luis get the chorizos going for our chori-pan leaving party.
Pre-drinks drink at the Pigsty with Verity, Rochelle and Don.
One last look at the view we woke up to every day in Jupapina.
Tags: 17 by 6, Bolivia, camping, camping bolivia, camping near la paz, cholita, Colibri Camping La Paz, Ecuador, fiesta de Mallasa, Jeremy and Paula Dear, Jupapina, La Paz, Mallasa, mechanic, Paula and Jeremy Dear, pujllay, Quito, seventeen by six, seventeenbysix, transmission, VW, VW Eurovan
Categories Bolivia, Ecuador
Anyone fancy a wee cerveza? (With thanks to Ana 'Anita' Cossio for the use of her fingers)
Jupapina, La Paz, Bolivia
I was a bit of a geek for miniatures when I was younger. While others had cool bedrooms crammed with music posters, Pacman games (yes, it was the 80s) and normal teenage paraphernalia, my shelves were lined with tiny little versions of just about anything I could get my hands on. I'd like to say I'd grown up since then…
… but when we heard there was a festival of miniatures in La Paz, I could hardly contain myself. We were there like a shot. We oohed and awwed at all the little things, took a zillion photos and watched aghast as half of La Paz almost stampeded a bunch of Catholic priests in the cathedral.
Not only was I in heaven but I was getting paid for it, as the BBC and MSN Travel had commissioned me to write articles on the festival. Double bonus.
So I've been busy writing quite a lot about Alasitas in the last few days. Rather than create another account of the fabulous first day of the festival, I've lazily inserted my BBC article into this post. There are also a few more photos below, some of which were included in the MSN Travel slideshow.
The point of Alasitas is that you buy mini versions of all the things you want to come true in the coming year. You may or may not be wondering if we bought anything. It probably goes without saying what was at the top of our shopping list….
A representation of our van is blessed by a shaman. Worth a shot, no?
BBC News Magazine, 30 January 2014
'Alasitas: Bolivia's festival of miniatures'
Bolivia's Alasitas festival is a bizarre buying frenzy that mixes ancient traditions and beliefs with modern-day religion and consumerism. Thousands turn out to buy everything they want in the coming year, in miniature form, in the hope that the gods will convert their dreams into life-sized reality.
Imagine you could go to the market, buy everything you wanted in the year ahead for just a few dollars and carry it all home in one plastic bag. It might be a new house, a car, a husband or wife, or even a divorce. Or perhaps a suitcase stuffed with cash, a degree from a top university, a new job, a shiny laptop or all the food you can eat?
This is exactly what happens at the Alasitas festival, which runs for a month in La Paz, Bolivia. Everyone is buying small, and dreaming big.
On day one artisans and street vendors fill the plazas and line the pavements throughout the city, loudly hawking tiny wares ranging from finely-crafted miniatures to plastic toy versions of the real thing.
Ekeko is partial to a cigarette.
Everything bought is blessed by priests before being offered to a chubby cigarette-puffing Andean god, Ekeko.
Ekeko – the god of abundance – is the key to whether these desires will become reality, many believe. True followers will keep a statue in their home, offering him their miniatures along with a lit cigarette and a few prayers
"When you really believe in it, it becomes real," says Ana Cossio, 24, an NGO worker from La Paz. "My mum bought me a little marriage certificate at Alasitas. A month later I found out I was pregnant and was married later that year."
In the city's Plaza Murillo, teeny suitcases stuffed with piles of mini dollars, bolivianos and euros are stacked on tables. Some even come complete with a full travel package – little cardboard credit cards, passport, airline tickets and visas.
Vendors shout over each other to be heard: "Dollars and euros here! Money, money!"
Shoppers swap real cash for piles of fake money, which is later exchanged with friends, family or strangers in the street, in an act of reciprocity that is ingrained in Andean culture.
They also part with small amounts of cash for mobile phones, computers, flat-screen TVs, DIY tools and every brand of car, truck and minibus imaginable – all in diminutive form. Baby vegetables, tiny sacks of flour and rice, crates of beer and stacks of matchbox-sized supermarket brands are being bought up by the thousands as the festival gets under way.
Miniature houses, office buildings and shops are carefully examined as people browse for their perfect design. Those planning to build their own can buy a mini plot of land, complete with all the building materials they need – tiny bricks, bags of cement, wheelbarrows and spades.
Elvira Quisbert, 85, sells little wedding gowns to hopeful brides.
Even all the daily newspapers are printed at a quarter of their normal size, carrying spoof stories about the government and the news of the day.
While money and material goods are hugely popular, Alasitas is also about searching for luck in life – be that in love, work or simply an abundance of food for the family. Ceramic cockerels and hens are bought and exchanged to help friends and loved ones find a partner.
And thousands of little fake certificates are printed and sold – including marriage and divorce documents, degrees, driving licences and professional qualifications.
Brother and sister Rita and Jorge Llanque Torrez are having their purchases blessed by an Andean priest on the steps of La Paz's main cathedral. Jorge wants a new job in education planning, so has bought himself a 'certificate of work', while his sister has high hopes for her teenage daughter.
"I live in Barcelona but my daughter is here in Bolivia. I have bought a visa and passport for her so she can get her papers and come to Spain too. It's the second year I have bought them for her…" says Rita.
Celebrated in La Paz every January, Alasitas has its origins in an indigenous Aymara harvest festival in which farmers prayed for bountiful crops. Opinions vary as to how and when Ekeko emerged in his modern-day form, but historians say that the concept of exchange and the offering of miniatures to a god of abundance date back to the pre-Inca Tiwanaku culture of Bolivia.
Over the centuries, economic, religious and cultural influences have seen Alasitas transform almost beyond recognition.
A vivid illustration of the blending of traditional indigenous beliefs and Spanish Catholicism happens at midday on day one – the hour when people rush to have their purchases blessed.
"There is an almighty crush. A few broken little houses lie trampled underfoot."
On the steps of the city's main cathedral, Andean priests – called amautas or yatiris – chant incantations amid a cloud of incense emanating from little coal burners at their feet.
They offer 96%-proof alcohol to pachamama – mother earth – by sprinkling it on the ground, and wave bags of shopping and handfuls of fake money over the smoke.
But for many people this is not quite enough. They might have faith in the power of Ekeko, but they believe strongly in their Christian god too.
At 11:55am there is a sudden surge towards the entrance of the cathedral. People are carried with the crowd towards the altar, and a gentle hum of voices rises to a roar as the clock approaches noon. There are so many people in the church that the Catholic priests have to bring in extra help. Several of them stand on plinths as the throng pushes towards them, holding their purchases aloft.
"Padre! Padre! Over here!" they shout, frantically waving fistfuls of miniatures and cash. In an attempt to rapidly bless as many things as possible the priests dip bunches of flowers in holy water flinging it over the crowd in great arcs.
Priests blessed people's Alasitas purchases by lobbing holy water over everything within reach.
"It's not very Catholic," says Ana Cossio. "I think the priests allow it because they can't control it."
As the first wave tries to exit the cathedral there is an almighty crush. A few broken little houses lie trampled underfoot.
The crowd is somehow expelled from the church into the packed plaza, where hundreds of people are shopping and eating. While opening day is the most chaotic and frenzied of the festival, this cycle of spending, exchanging and hoping goes on for a month.
Alasitas is at once a frivolous, serious and, at times, contradictory fixture of the Bolivian calendar. Modern day scenes of flashing wads of cash at a priest may barely resemble a traditional harvest festival, but it could be seen as a window on the shifting desires of a nation that is rapidly changing and developing, while proudly holding on to its traditional culture.
ALASITAS: A BRIEF HISTORY
Indigenous Aymara event originally called Chhalasita before Spanish colonial times – involved simple exchange of basic goods. The Spanish changed the name from its original meaning of 'exchange me' to 'buy me'.
Evolved to adopt elements of Catholicism and Western desire to accumulate material wealth.
In 1781 the date was changed to 24 January, to commemorate an indigenous uprising and to give thanks to Catholic saint Nuestra Senora de La Paz for protecting the city – some say this is when modern-day Ekeko made his appearance, with many believing he helped save the city from hunger during the siege
Alasitas purchases can also be seen as statements of intent or goal-setting for the year ahead.
Things we now know to be true: Small is beautiful.
MORE PHOTOS IN THE SLIDESHOW BELOW..
Thousands of vendors line the streets selling everything imaginable, with cars and money being some of the most popular.
Little houses – casitas – that turn into big houses are on most people's wish-list.
Teeny suitcases of money, with travel documents. Who could resist?
Fancy running a cake shop? Existing or prospective shop owners were also catered for…
Lots of stall-holders sold bricks, to represent successful building projects.
One of my favourites for cuteness – tools and building materials were really popular –
Little Cholita-run street stalls were for sale for good luck in business.
Maria Angelica bought a cockerel – representing luck in love – for each of her unmarried sons. "It's time now," she said.
Most people buy food at Alasitas, to ensure abundance in the year ahead.
Modern technology is massively popular at Alasitas.
Frogs represent good luck at Alasitas.
Stocking up on wee crates of drinks and hoping Ekeko provides abundance in the coming year.
Andean priest is engulfed in incense during a blessing in Plaza Murillo, la Paz.
Small version of the classic La Paz dish, Plato Paceña – meat, corn, cheese, haba beans and potatoes.
An Andean priest blesses miniatures bought at Alasitas.
An Andean priest waves a wad of cash over incense during an Alasitas blessing.
Catholic priests also blessed the Alasitas purchases, by frantically flinging holy water over everything and everyone.
Even the national newspapers have special Alasitas editions.
An Andean priest blesses a woman's Alasitas purchases, Plaza Murillo, La Paz.
Plaza Murillo was one of several packed locations on Alasitas opening day.
Tags: 17 by 6, Alasitas, Bolivia, camping, Camping La Paz, Colibri Camping, Ekeko, festival, Festival of abundance, Jeremy and Paula Dear, Jupapina, La Paz, miniature, Paula and Jeremy Dear, seventeen by six, seventeenbysix, transmission, VW, VW Eurovan
Potosí: The saddest place in South America?
Candelaria mine, Cerro Rico, Potosí, Bolivia. The mines – which have claimed millions of lives – are still being worked today.
Jupapina, near La Paz, Bolivia
We've just spent our third Christmas and new year away from home. As we're living in a proper house and have been temporarily adopted by Emma, Rolando and family, it was more like a 'normal' Christmas than the others. There was the build-up, with drinks parties, visits from Santa (one of which looked suspiciously like JD…) , and even some shopping for presents. There was turkey and bread sauce, there were roast potatoes, and there were Boxing Day leftovers. New year's eve involved way too many cocktails. So no change there then.
Haven't we met?..
But that's enough of the happy smiley Santa stories – it's the 5th of January and we've all had enough of that, so we'll move straight on to the gritty stuff.
Between Christmas and New Year we arranged some time off and made a plan to visit the cities of Potosí (the highest in the world) and the official capital of Bolivia, Sucre. When we told Emma of our plans she said: "Oh, Potosí. You should go, but I really think it's the saddest place in South America."
A story of colonial brutality, staggering injustice, oppression, terrible working conditions and death on an unimaginable scale? All the more reason to go and find out what it's all about, we said.
There's a conical mountain that dominates Potosí, looming over it from almost every angle. For nearly 500 years Cerro Rico – or Rich Mountain – has been mined for silver, since the Spanish decided they'd like a piece of it in 1545.
Back then, and for hundreds of years hence, the mountain yielded unfathomable riches. At its height Potosí was bigger and more important than London or Paris. Did Bolivia benefit? If you've ever read a word of colonial history, you'll know the answer is a big fat, shiny, no.
Not only that, but some 8 million miners lost their lives in the 300 years that the Spanish enslaved indigenous Bolivians and imported Africans to toil underground.
Cerro Rico has been mined for nearly 500 years.
It is known as the 'mountain that eats men'. During colonial times people were, hardly surprisingly, petrified to go down there. They knew that only three in 10 of them would survive – if they didn't perish in an accident, they would be poisoned by mercury, or die from dust-clogged lungs.
On the other hand, Potosí's mineral wealth help fund Europe's industrial revolution so, you know, every cloud…
Bolivians say that enough silver was extracted from Cerro Rico to build a bridge of silver between South America and Spain. The problem is, the flow of money across that 'bridge' was pretty much one way.
In that respect Potosí is a microcosm of everything that was shameful about the colonial period itself, and how it paved the way for continuing exploitation. In this case it was the Spanish, but the same pattern applies in other continents thanks to the British, French, Dutch, Belgians, Italians, Portuguese and others.
The Spanish came with their language, their religion, their diseases and their ideas of superiority. They saw glittery stuff and they wanted it. They brought misery and death to indigenous people on a staggering scale. They crushed ancient civilisations, siphoned off all the family silver and built their futures off the back of it, while ensuring that development in the colonies was stifled and dependency secured.
"If it were not a futile exercise, Bolivia — now one of the world's most poverty-stricken countries — could boast of having nourished the wealth of the wealthiest.
"In our time Potosí is a poor city in a poor Bolivia: 'The city which has given most to the world and has the least,' as an old Potosían lady told me. Condemned to nostalgia, tortured by poverty and cold, Potosí remains an open wound of the colonial system in America: a still audible 'J'accuse'."
Eduardo Galeano, The Open Veins of Latin America
And their mission to convert the indigenous people to Catholicism was helped along by the building of numerous lavish churches in the city, using the proceeds of slave labour in the mines. It's said that although God ruled in Potosi's 34 churches, the Devil laughed in his 6,000 mines.
The ripples of those deliberate colonial-period policies are still very much felt throughout the world. Today, the department of Potosí is one of the most poverty-stricken in Bolivia, and Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in South America.
The Bolivian coins that were once made in Potosí are now manufactured in Chile, Canada and Spain.
The previous day, at the spectacular Casa Real de la Moneda (the 'royal mint' house) museum, we had heard of a sunken Spanish galleon, which went down in 1622 full of Potosí silver coins. It was searched for and recovered off the coast of Florida by a US citizen, in 1985, containing an estimated $3billion worth of silver. Now, fair play to him for his efforts and all that. But when Potosí launched a claim to have their heritage returned to them, they received a donation of one coin. Yes, one. You can go and look at it in the museum or, if you like, buy one of the coins on eBay for hundreds of dollars.
As for Cerro Rico, miners are still grafting in the mountain, which is now slowly collapsing after nearly half a millennium of extraction. For thousands of men from this region, and beyond, there is nothing else to do but mine.
These days they are scratching a living from smaller and smaller veins of silver – plus lower value metals like tin and lead – in alarmingly primitive conditions.
The quality and value of the silver is lower now than in colonial times
Modern equipment, safety gear and regulations appear to be luxuries no one can afford. Although progressive in many other ways, the Bolivian government has taken a hands-off approach to Cerro Rico's mines, which they officially own but lease to a network of powerful co-operatives that apparently resist too much intervention.
Most Cerro Rico miners will fall victim to the fatal lung disease silicosis after an average of 15 years of work, while collapses and other accidents also claim many lives.
About 800-1,000 mine workers are children, whose families need the money. Miners of all ages often work horrendously long shifts, their cheeks distended with the coca leaves they chew to stave off hunger and exhaustion.
It is possible to do a tour of the working mines and, after a bit of consideration, I decided to go down there. Jeremy declined, because he didn't think he'd be able to tolerate the claustrophobic and cramped conditions. Signing the waiver before the tour was a stark reminder that the mines are genuinely dangerous and that there's not much that can be done for you if there's a collapse.
It's not an enjoyable experience, but that's not the reason for going. I am not claustrophobic as such, but let's say I'd put going caving very near to the bottom of my 'to do' list. I'd far rather jump out of a plane than squeeze into a dusty hole underground.
It was Sunday 29 December, so there were not many miners working on the day we visited. This was, in some ways, a pity but in other ways it was far safer. Fewer explosions, and no rock-laden trolleys hurtling into our path.
We headed into the darkness, splashing through cold muddy water and crouching to avoid jagged rocks, and low-slung pipes carrying compressed air. I smacked my head countless times. The level of the 'roof' changed constantly and the atmosphere, helmet, headlamps and darkness were phenomenally disorientating.
After about 15 minutes, four people out of our group of seven had turned back. This is apparently quite common. The further in you go, the hotter and dustier it becomes. I started coughing as soon as we hit the dust, and yet most miners don't wear masks.
Before long we came across a lone miner, Basilio, who had been working in the mine for 28 years. I was astonished that he was allowed to work alone. Our guide Daniel said no one even keeps a list of who is working on any given day. Basilio was working only for himself – he needed the money so had come in while most people were taking a new year break. Most tourists bring 'gifts' of dynamite, coca leaves, cigarettes or drinks for the miners – we gave everything we'd bought to him.
A lot of crouching is required..
He had let off some dynamite below and was waiting for the dust to clear. 'Do you want to see where he is working?', said Daniel. We did. It would require squeezing through a hole into the dusty abyss on the level below. We slipped and skidded, grabbed onto rocks that crumbled in our hands, and finally made it to the cave below.
This was not your standard tour – it was horribly unsafe and because we had to go one-by-one we couldn't help each other to get down.
When we got to Basilio's 'space' it was pretty horrifying – dark and cramped, with air so thick you could have sliced it. He was manually chiselling rocks to make holes for further dynamite explosions. He had apparently spent weeks carrying rocks to the level above, to make space to work. With every action he grunted and breathed in more dust, the sweat lashing off his brow.
I was particularly fascinated by how the miners go to the toilet when they are down there for up to 24 hours. Apparently they just "pee anywhere" ("no2s outside") but, astonishingly, there is no smell. Anyone who's travelled in Latin America will remember the ubiquitous smell of urine, drying on sun-baked street corners. So how is it possible that millions of men have been peeing in an enclosed space for 500 years, without any discernable odour? Answers on a postcard please.
Before heading out we crawled through a tiny tunnel to pay an obligatory visit to 'Tio'. Every mine on Cerro Rico has its own Tio – an ugly cigarette-smoking statue with horns, an unmissable erection and very bad teeth, who represents the devil. Miners say they believe in God in the outside world, but when they enter the mountain they are in Satan's territory. Tio is lavished with gifts like coca leaves and alcohol, so he'll protect the miners and prevent accidents.
'Tio' is never short of cigarettes and coca leaves.
There's a well-known docu-film called the Devil's Miner, which features two young brothers who worked in the mines. Among the most poignant scenes are those of the older brother (also called Basilio) trying to help the younger, Bernardino, become accustomed to this terrifying Tio statue, which they often visit alone in the darkness.
Some people rightly ask why child labour is tolerated in the mines. It's a complicated question but the Devil's Miner provides a decent insight into how that can happen. Basilio and Bernardino were working on Cerro Rico to support their fatherless family. Their mother earned US$25 a month. Clothing her three children for school – with mandatory uniforms – cost nearly two months' wages, so they needed more coming in if the kids were to get their education, and eat.
So the boys crammed in their school lessons and a job in the mine into each day.
"Going to school is like a vacation, even for half a day," said Basilio, who was 14 when the film was made in 2005. This is despite the sad fact that other kids gave them abuse if they found out they were working in the mountain – calling them names like 'rock thief' and 'dust sucker'.
He hoped the job was only temporary. The reality is that the majority of child miners never leave Cerro Rico.
"But I don't want to die in the mines, I want to live until I am big," says Basilio.
Luckily for them, a German NGO helped the family leave Cerro Rico and set up a small shop, selling kitchen utensils, in the town. Not everyone is so fortunate.
Walking around Potosí, it is hard to imagine that death on a bigger scale than the Holocaust has visited these streets, and continues to stalk so many of the workers in the city. From a distance, Cerro Rico could be any one of the thousands of stunning mountains that dot the skylines of the Americas.
But on closer examination, sadness seeps from its every pore.
For an excellent analysis of the colonisation of the Americas and the exploitation that continued post-independence, we highly recommend The Open Veins of Latin America: Five centuries of the pillage of a continent, by Eduardo Galeano.
Things we now know to be true: We will never know how it feels to work so you can live, while knowing it will kill you.
MORE PHOTOS IN THE SLIDESHOW BELOW:-
Scales of justice? Casa Real de la Moneda, Potosi, Bolivia.
Casa Real de la Moneda, or 'Royal Mint' Potosi – all the silver passed through here in colonial times and most was taken to Spain.
Cerro Rico can be seen from almost any angle in Potosi.
Cathedral, Plaza 10 de Noviembre, Potosi
Walking in Potosi, Bolivia.
Cerro Rico's silver goes through a basic process before being sold abroad for smelting.
All set for the tour into the mine, Potosi.
The miners use basic shelters, near the entrance to the mine, to change into their work gear.
Our guide Daniel – his cheek bloated with coca leaves – gives a final explanation before we enter the mine.
Basilio, and our guide Daniel, talk about his working conditions.
Tio is a representation of a devil. The miners worship him while they are at work, believing he will protect them.
Cerro Rico by night, Potosi
Plaza 25 de Mayo, in beautiful Sucre.
Sucre street
Smooch, La Recoleta, Sucre
La Recoleta, Sucre
Iced coffees with a view, La Recoleta, Sucre.
Getting the party going, New Year's Eve, Sucre.
Lining up the mojitos, New Year's Eve, Sucre.
New Year's Eve cocktails, Sucre.
Champers at midnight, 1 Jan 2014, Sucre, Bolivia.
Tags: 17 by 6, Bolivia, camping, Cerro Rico, Christmas, Devil's Miner, Jeremy and Paula Dear, miners, mining, Paula and Jeremy Dear, Potosi, seventeen by six, seventeenbysix, silver mine, Sucre, VW, VW Eurovan
Wrestling with nature
Shop in La Paz, Bolivia
I'm not going to get all earth mothery on you, but our recent voluntary work in Bolivia is teaching us a hell of a lot about what it takes to manage a piece of land in a place where the weather can be brutal and the terrain unpredictable.
Every day, it seems, we are more or less engaged in a friendly tussle with nature. This is life for so many people in the world, but our post-stamp-sized garden in London wasn't much of a training ground.
If we're not trying to repair the ravages of the rains, we're struggling to rehydrate the sun-parched earth, sweeping up wind-blown debris, helping to knit the slopes together with new trees or trying to keep termites at bay.
And what a place to do it. We're perched above a dramatic, jagged-rocked, valley south of La Paz. Every day we are both living and working with the most incredible views into the Valley of Flowers, and down the Valley of the Moon towards the city, which twinkles in the distance at night.
At last! Jeremy is put in charge of a spade.
What are we doing here, and why? Let's recap – a few months ago we decided to hold off the southward journey until 2014, and to find a place to stop and do a work-exchange project, whereby we'd get some free accommodation in return for some hard graft. We specifically wanted hard graft – after a few sedentary months, Jeremy was particularly keen that his job description included 'digging'. Deep down, he's a simple fellow with simple needs.
He got what he wanted. We've been here a month, the blisters are hardening, the biceps are starting to form nicely, and we're loving it.
Through the Workaway website, we found this fabulous place in a semi-rural Aymara village called Jupapina, where we're now living for a few months. It's the base for a range of community projects, collectively called Up Close Bolivia, which was established by British-Bolivian couple Emma and Rolando Mendoza. Up Close employs locals to run and staff the projects – for example a large children's daycare centre – and provides international volunteers to help out.
On the land is the Mendoza family home, three volunteers' houses, and – coming soon! – Emma and Rolando's first commercial venture, a brilliant campsite that will open next year. This is where we come in.
Hammocks with a view on the campsite
Although we live among the Up Close 'family', we were recruited separately by Emma and Rolando to help with loads of odd jobs around the gardens, campsite and buildings. And there's plenty of it.
This terraced land is porous and precipitous. After rains we are filling in water-created holes, which have reached up to 10ft deep, to make sure everything stays stable. When we are not filling in holes with piles of dirt, we are digging holes to plant trees, to help everything stay stable. We have painted acres of wood with anti-termite chemicals. We have cleared, tidied and swept. Rainy season should be upon us, but so far we have had weeks of glorious weather. The lack of rain means spending hours watering hundreds of trees. When it does rain we have to re-dig channels around them, to stop the water from pouring straight down into the valley and taking the earth with it.
We're also here to help finish and market the campsite, and have so far set up an initial blogsite to start promoting it to interested parties.
Working on such steep land, at this altitude, is doing wonders for our fitness levels, and is also utterly exhausting.
After our morning's work, we have lunch with Rolando and their housekeeper, and then spend the afternoons on chores or attempting to organise some freelance work. Sometimes we just fall asleep though…
We're living in a converted pigsty, along with volunteer co-ordinator Naomi, but I suspect we have a way better deal than the porky residents had.
No pigsty: Our cosy home.
It's been lovely to have a nice home, a routine, and some semblance of a social life again. We made great friends with Alison and Doug, a Canadian couple who came to volunteer with Up Close and were here for our first month, but have sadly now left. It was lovely to share some beers and laughs, and to get some baking tips from Alison, who's a professional chef. I am no longer afraid to bake bread or scones!
Emma and Rolando, and their kids David and Bell, have been insanely welcoming, inviting us to their BBQs and other events, introducing us to their friends and colleagues, helping us with contacts and just generally being extremely tolerant of piles of volunteers wandering about the place and traipsing into their house to use the washing machine.
It's a way of life for them and I'm not sure they remember it being any other way.
They're both fascinating people, with backgrounds in development and public service. We spend most of our days with Rolando – former mayor of the local town and director of social services for La Paz city – and chatting to him about all sorts of political and social issues is great practice for our Spanish!
Talking of Spanish, within a few days of our arrival Rolando suggested we'd make good interviewees on one of the big La Paz radio stations, Radio Compañera. We laughed it off, saying our Spanish would not hold up to a live radio interview. A week later Emma came to us one evening saying: 'You've been invited onto Gringo González's show tomorrow morning.' As is quite common, he's nicknamed 'gringo' because his hair is slightly lighter than black. It was be a half hour interview about us, media issues in the UK and Latin America and whatever else cropped up. We gulped, hyper-ventilated, tried to avoid saying yes… then said yes. Shit!
View of La Paz from Pedregal, on our hike to the Devil's Molar.
Next morning, we couldn't believe we were sitting there. The clock counted down til 11am and we were on air. Unbelievably, we survived it without any hideous dead air, hilarious misunderstandings or (we think) major bloopers. Our mistakes were diplomatically ignored! We lost several pounds in sweat. The subject matter bounced all over the place from threats to journalists in Colombia, to our own travels, to BBC funding, to what we thought of Margaret Thatcher. Luckily we knew the word for "witch" in Spanish. Phew.
Our weekends are our own and we've been getting out and about – with some city jaunts, to Bolivia's main archaeological site of Tiwanaku, hiking to the 'Devil's Molar' (a craggy rock formation that we can see, across the valley, from our window), to a big La Paz football derby – el clásico between Bolívar (yay!) and The Strongest (boo!) – and a weekend in a lush valley at Coroico.
Some 2,000m lower than La Paz, it was like another world, with its tropical flowers, dense forests, amazing birdlife and clouds of mosquitoes. Ah, mosquitoes, how we haven't missed you.
We are preparing for a trip to Lake Titicaca this weekend, which will – not entirely accidentally – coincide with Jeremy's birthday.
I've promised he can have a whole weekend of decadence – hotel room, lovely food, a few cold beers, and not a spade in sight.
Things we now know to be true: Slagging off Margaret Thatcher in Spanish feels just as good.
PICS PICS PICS! Photo gallery below from the last few weeks.
View from the bus at Sajama National Park, Chile-Bolivian border.
Indigenous groups parade the streets of central La Paz, Bolivia.
View of the Valley of the Flowers from the campsite, Jupapina.
View from the back door of our house, the 'pigsty'.
Emma and Rolando mix dough for bread, a traditional part of the Day of the Dead celebrations.
Bread figures shaped to represent lost loved ones, Day of the Dead 2013.
Ice cream sales at a football match, Estadio Hernando Siles (world's highest national football stadium), La Paz, Bolivia.
The valley below our house turns pinky-orange at sunset.
Appearing on Radio Companera was a surreal, adrenaline-fuelled, morning.
Dried llama foetuses for sale at the witch's market, La Paz, Bolivia. Many people bury them under the foundations of their homes as an offering to Pachamama (mother earth).
Tent area of of the soon-to-be-opened campsite. Check out that view!
The 'glamping' area of the campsite (with cabin and teepees) with outdoor kitchen. Our house is the pink one above, on the left.
Buzzy wasp, Coroico, Bolivia.
Waiting, with glee, for a home-made ice-cream – Coroico, Bolivia.
Gorgeous campsite at Sol y Luna, Coroico, Bolivia.
Lush Coroico
Our Coroico campsite even had a pool.
View from the footpath at our campsite in Coroico, Bolivia.
Beautiful flowers abound in Coroico, Bolivia.
Jeremy is accosted by two of Emma and Rolando's dogs – Tilly Bud and Sir Alex Ferguson
Hiking to the Devil's Molar (La Muela del Diablo), La Paz
The Devil's Molar (La Muela del Diablo), La Paz, Bolivia
Lizzie the cat pops into the campsite kitchen for a drink.
Me and J, with Bell, David , Emma, and Alison and Doug.
View of Volcan Illimani from the bus.
Just never get bored on llamas, pre-Incan site of Tiwanaku, Bolivia.
La Paz locals have a precipitous picnic, overlooking their city.
Tags: 17 by 6, Bolivia, camping, Colibri Camping, Coroico, Devil's Molar, Jeremy and Paula Dear, Jupapina, La Paz, Muela del Diablo, Paula and Jeremy Dear, seventeen by six, seventeenbysix, Tiwanaku, Up Close Bolivia, Valle de la Luna, Valley of the Moon, VW, VW Eurovan, Workaway
Rock 'n roll nights
Multi-coloured Valparaiso.
Jupapina, nr Mallasa, Bolivia
We spent a day trying to decide where to go for the last portion of my brother's visit. We could still make it to Peru for some trekking? Maybe pop over to Argentina?
After Derek left, Jeremy I were either going to be scooting back up north to Ecuador to collect our van (remember the van?), or heading directly to Bolivia to begin a voluntary work placement we'd set up, which meant the most illogical thing to do would be to head south again.
So that's exactly what we did.
Let's hire another car, we said, and drive south to Santiago – it's only 1,670 kilometres (1,012 miles) each way!
We were getting to know this Atacama Desert road pretty well. A bit under-prepared on the provisions, we pulled into a little roadside posada for dinner before pushing on for our second visit to Pan de Azucar national park. We pitched our tents as the sun set behind the island, then settled in for a night of, well, not very much. So disorganised had we been that we only had one can of beer and a handful of sweets for entertainment. But it's amazing what you can do with nothing. We trawled the site for wood, lit a fire and shared the can. Rock 'n roll!
Setting up at sunset, Pan de Azucar national park, Chile.
Then Derek did his best Bear Grylls impersonation and showed us you can boil water in a paper (yes, paper) cup on the fire. Most exciting cup of coffee I've ever had! If we can make a cuppa from nothing, we can survive anything.
We left early the next morning and pulled into Chañaral for one of Chile's best any-time-of-the-day snacks, a hulking great steak and avocado sandwich. Happy 14th wedding anniversary to us!
Another long day of driving, and several gas station coffees later, we made it well south of La Serena and into new territory for Jeremy and me. We had high hopes for a campsite called Termas de Socos, which reportedly had natural hot thermal waters. We pulled into an empty, very locked, campsite. Bugger. We took our unwashed, rather unpleasant looking, selves into the very posh hotel next door to ask if they could help. They phoned the campsite owner who came down and opened it for us – an entire, massive campsite to ourselves! The 'thermal pool' was empty but the bonus was that the owner also ran a restaurant just up the road.
Anniversary campfire! Termas de Socos, Chile.
We pitched the tents and headed straight up there for a totally delicious – and cheap – dinner of roasted goat and ribs with the most orgasmic mashed potato in history.
Back at the tents, Derek went into full pyromaniac mode with the campfire, and we willingly colluded. The music was cranked up, and the more we drank the more outrageous the fire got. Luckily no one was around to hear the singing.
On our wedding day I'm not sure what we thought we'd be doing 14 years hence, but it probably wasn't that.
Next morning we found the perfect antidote to a hangover and a few days without a shower. The very posh hotel next door rented out natural hot baths – bingo! We each got an individual room with a huge bath and unlimited hot water. Ahhhhhhh.
Three squeaky clean, slightly wrinkled, bodies climbed back into the car and headed for Valparaiso. We were amazed we easily found our B&B in the city's crooked, windy, unbelievably steep streets. From our room we had a fantastic view over the bay.
We spent three nights in this kooky, artsy city which is part grimy and edgy, part pretty and funky. One of the most remarkable things about it is that seemingly the entire city has been, willingly, given over to graffiti art, murals and brightly painted buildings, which makes for some great aimless street-wandering.
Derek and I took the ascensor (while Jeremy took his vertigo for a steep walk) up to the Cerros Concepcion and Alegre district, where we shopped, then ate the thickest seafood chowder known to man.
We visited the late, uber-famous, Chilean poet/activist/politician Pablo Neruda's fabulous home and mooched round the city's ornate cemetery.
Having not quite adjusted to Chile's late night culture (band starts at midnight, what?!) we heroically managed to prop our eyelids open to watch some sublime live music – the mesmerising, accordion-wielding, gypsy-jazz-salsa singer Pascuala Ilabaca and her band Fauna.
Fish galore at the Mercado Central, Santiago.
Derek's final stop in Santiago was brief, but not too brief to visit the famous Mercado Central, a vast and chaotic emporium of fish sellers and fish restaurants. We sampled a few dishes – king fish, eel and merluza – while watching several of Santiago's upper echelons order king crabs at well over US$100 a go. The waiters delivered them with a flourish, as everyone watched and took photos, which was presumably the reaction they were hoping for! We left enough of a gap before scoffing ceviche and one of the best tres leches cakes ever encountered, at bar The Clinic – the official bar of Chile's political magazine of the same name.
The following day was a repeat of That Horrible Goodbye, as Derek took off back to Scotland and his wife Fiona and kids Skye and Finn – who had kindly loaned him to us for a while. Hasta luego hermano!
We'd been hoping we could dash back to Ecuador, collect the van, and make it (almost) on time to Bolivia, for the work project we'd organised. But while the mechanic had managed to source and install a manual gearbox in the van, there was still an issue with the computer understanding what the heck was going on, and a part had been ordered from Germany to try to resolve it.
We didn't see the point in going back to Ecuador to wait around, when we had something great lined up in Bolivia, so we decided to head straight there and worry about the van once it was fully repaired.
First we had to return the hire car in Calama. We bombed it back up north in a long two days. The journey included an epic search for somewhere to camp or lodge near Antofagasta, on the coast. All campsites turned out to be closed or too rough-looking to contemplate. We searched nearby coastal 'resorts' which turned out to be more of those creepy half-abandoned encampments we'd seen before. When we enquired about camping or staying in cabins were told everything was 'closed for maintenance'.
All lodgings in the town of Mejillones were booked out with miners – we almost got desperate enough to ask in a dire-looking dosshouse. But one look at the way the plastic 'garden' furniture was chained to the fence outside gave us pause to reconsider.
Sometimes there's nothing else for it but to give up and wind back the driver's seat.
We found a posh hotel a few miles away, parked on the edge of their property and slept in the car. Oh what crusties we have become.
Things got creepier the next day when we took a different route up the coast and, in the early morning fog, came across a baby cemetery right on the beach. A huge area was filled with Victorian-style wooden cribs, most of which had cuddly toys tied to them. Some of the graves were 100+ years old, but most of the toys were quite new. There are some great things about Chile's northern coast, but some of it is just damn weird.
We headed on to Calama, and delivered the car before setting up camp for a couple of nights to sort ourselves out and prepare for our big project in Bolivia, where we hoped to stay for up to six months.
After that we'd resume the trip south towards Argentina, but for now, the next chapter awaited.
Things we now know to be true: You can boil water over a fire using a paper cup. Honestly.
PHOTO GALLERY BELOW!
Giant hand sculpture, Atacama Desert, Chile.
Searching for firewood, Pan de Azucar national park.
Making a cuppa on the fire.
Setting up camp, Camping Termas de Socos, Chile.
DJ Jeremy plugs the Apple into the, erm, tree and gets the party started.
What else can we throw on there! Campfire, Termas de Socos, Chile.
Coffee time, Valparaiso
Very little goes unpainted in Valparaiso, Chile.
Mural, Valparaiso, Chile.
Dog watch, Valparaiso, Chile.
Even the stairs are painted in Valparaiso, Chile.
Traditional bar, Valparaiso, Chile.
Lunch with Derek, Valparaiso, Chile
Hearty seafood chowder, Valparaiso, Chile.
A graffiti artist suggests an alternative use for the US dollar, Valparaiso, Chile.
Mural, Valparaiso
Use this bike! Valparaiso, Chile.
View of Valparaiso from our bedroom window.
Characters from Chile's history, Valparaiso.
Street scene, Valparaiso, Chile.
Something's growing in the toilet, Valparaiso, Chile.
Going up. Valparaiso's streets are so steep, sometimes a little help is required.
Octopus for sale, Mercado Central, Santiago.
Mercado Central, Santiago.
Toys and sweets adorn Victorian-style cribs at this beach baby cemetery on the coast.
Scallops for sale, Mercado Central, Santiago.
Tags: 17 by 6, Bolivia, Calama, camping, Chile, Jeremy and Paula Dear, mechanic, Pablo Neruda, Pan de Azucar, Paula and Jeremy Dear, Santiago, seventeen by six, seventeenbysix, Termas de Socos, transmission, Valparaiso, VW, VW Eurovan
Categories Bolivia, Chile
UnBoliviable
Yay, it's snowing! No wait, hang on, this is salt.
Not for the first time, I was sorely tempted to get down on all fours and lick the ground.
Could it really be a 12,000sq km blindingly-white desert of salt we saw before us? It was reminiscent of one of those movies where they try to depict 'heaven' by making everything all white and floaty and unreal.
Along with my brother Derek – who was visiting for a few weeks – we were taking a three-day 4×4 tour of Bolivia's south west corner. For countless reasons, it's one of the most popular trips to do in the country. It's typically described as a tour of the salt flats, with one of the main draws being the largest salt 'lake' in the world, Salar de Uyuni. But it is so much more than that.
This region of Bolivia is a smorgasbord of ever-changing landscapes, of unfeasibly luminescent colours, that it looks for all the world as if someone's created the whole thing in Photoshop.
Each time we claimed we'd 'never seen anything so incredible', we'd drive for a little while, then happen upon a scene more mind-blowing than the last.
There was the suspended reality of the salt flats, which are so uniform and vast that tourists love to play with the lack of perspective and take comedy photos that portray them as huge or tiny. It's a rite of passage that would have been churlish to deny ourselves.
Honey, I've shrunk Jeremy and Derek. Silly perspective-bending moments, Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia.
Then, just as we thought the salar would never end, we arrived at Isla Incahuasi, a whopping great pre-historic island in the middle of the encrusted lake, which is blanketed in giant cacti. From the top we had an amazing view of the flats, much of which has crusted into surreal hexagonal tiles.
After an incredible sunset on the flats, and dinner at our hostal – which was entirely made of salt, what else? (the hostal, not the dinner) – we wrapped up against the cold and went out to gaze at the stars, and our own moon-shadows.
The next day was a feast of rock forests, altiplano lakes, pink flamingos and a procession of incredible snow-capped mountains to top off the scene. We couldn't believe our eyes when we arrived at Laguna Colorada, which is turned red by natural algae.
In the pink. Flamingo, salt lagoon, Bolivia.
We were agreed that the trip so far was one of the best things we'd done on all of our travels. It's not necessarily a cakewalk though. It can be very cold at times, the accommodation on most tours is communal and fairly basic, and both nights are spent sleeping at very high altitudes, of up to 4,300m – which often means, at best, sleeplessness and headaches and sometimes worse symptoms of altitude sickness.
On the second night, Derek was suffering pretty badly and – to top it off – had had zero sleep before our wake-up call for a 5am start. He was feeling fairly shitty, and needed to get to a lower elevation.
Problem was, we had 12 hours of driving at altitude ahead of us, followed immediately by a 12-hour overnight bus journey to La Paz, one of the highest cities in the world. A couple of nights before we'd made this crazy last-minute plan to try to make it to Peru within Derek's short trip – more trekking at altitude! Not good.
Basic but comfy accommodation at a hostel made of salt – all furniture included!
We quickly decided it wasn't worth putting his holiday in jeopardy by overdoing it, and cancelled the plan to go to Peru. That morning the tour skirted the Chilean border and, luckily, Derek had the chance to skip the last few hours (mostly just involving the drive back to Uyuni) and head quickly back over the border to San Pedro de Atacama, at a mere 2,500m.
Before he departed we saw sunrise at the one of the highest geyser fields in the world – Sol de Mañana, at a gasping 5,000m. We then warmed our chilled early-morning bones at the sublime natural hot springs at Laguna Polques. The reaction of every single person who sank into that hot steaming pool was identical – aaaahhhhhhhhhhoooooohuhhhyes!
The (almost) final stop was the strikingly green Laguna Verde. Saving the best for last!? It's hard to choose a 'best' from this trip, but that was one hell of a green, shiny, not-completely-real-looking lake. When you look at photos of this famous laguna, you just assume they've been enhanced. They haven't.
The impossibly-luminous Laguna Verde. Panoramic pic courtesy of Derek Jolly.
It was lovely having so much time with Derek, whom we rarely see for more than a few days at a time. Now suddenly he was gone! Jeremy and I had no option but to continue back to Uyuni, as we'd left half of our gear there. After a final, gorgeous, stop-off at a hidden oasis, and a brief pause to let some wild ostriches cross our path, we dug in for the long drive back.
After a long, remarkably unpleasant, bus journey from Uyuni to San Pedro the next day we were reunited.
With Peru off the table, all we had to do now was make a new plan for Derek's final week. North, south, east or west?
Things we now know to be true: Sometimes table salt really is a table made of salt.
NOTE: We were delighted with the company we chose for the tour. There are many disreputable firms in Uyuni, so choose carefully if you go. To date there are nearly 1,000 reviews on Trip Advisor.
We would happily recommend family-run Quechua Connection, based in the centre of Uyuni. Email Jose at quechuaconnection4wd@hotmail.com – he can speak English if you need that.
Great guys, safe drivers, food very good and nutritional – Jose is also a nifty photographer for those tricky salt flats pics.
PHOTOS! PHOTOS! PHOTOS! Click on the gallery below for a taster of south-west Bolivia.
Jeremy and Derek, crossing the Chile-Bolivia border, Ollagüe
Something about being on the salt flats makes you want to do silly poses.
Jeremy, Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia.
Derek gets tired and takes a seat, Salar de Uyuni
Loads of people deposit flags at the edge of the salt flats, near Uyuni.
Silly photos, Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia.
Derek partakes in a little banana surfing, Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia.
'Cemetery' of 19th century British trains, near Uyuni, Bolivia
Giant cacti on the ancient Isla Incahuasi, Salar de Uyuni.
Flowering cactus, Isla Incahuasi, Salar de Uyuni. Pic courtesy of Derek Jolly.
Two cyclists head off into the salt flats, as seen from Isla Incahuasi, Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia.
Water rises and crusts over into surreal hexagonal-type shapes, Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
Giant cave, Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia.
Derek goes for the perfect angle, sunset on the salt flats, Bolivia.
Sunset, Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
Amazing rainbow colours topped off a fabulous day on the salt flats, Bolivia.