bonnie & clyde

The jungle was a blast, but the pampas are a treat! we have been touring the backwaters of river Yacuma for the past 3 days looking for animals, and as in the jungle, or even more so, animals abound! We were spotting alligators, who seemingly are very tranquil, and to a lesser extent caymans, who are substantially more aggressive. we have spotted capibaras, jabirus (very imposing slender white birds with a red and black beak), an occasional ringsnake that fell down the trees, a condor, fisheagles, howlermonkeys, chichilo monkeys and capucin monkeys. The guide we had was absolutely amazing. his name is Sabino and works for Fluvial Tours - to our humble meaning probably one of the best in town. Sabino has been at the job for 14 years now and he still goes about it with an innocent childlike enthousiasm when he goes looking for animals. The guy´s so determined in getting you to the best spots he is prepared to cut his boat through the lushest bushes. He took us to a nice spot to go piranha fishing, and as he proposed a contest, we later learned that there is a contest between all the guides to catch the most fish. We took some pretty big ones and ate them afterwards, but quite honestly, even as they taste very fresh, there´s not all that much to eat on a piranha, and the taste isn´t very rich either, but it´s ok. Sabino took us on an anacondahunt as well, as all tours do (every agency does exactly the same, it´s just a question of price difference - the camp you sleep at, if the boat has seats or just wooden benches, how much and how good you get to eat). The anacondahunt was a bit of a let-down, as ever it could be any. That´s to say, it´s extremely hard - especially in higher waterseason - to get to spot an anaconda. The snakes are very phobic of humans and stay well away of them whenever they can. But since Sabino is such a reknown snakehunter that shouldn´t be a problem you´d think. Unfortunately even he was unlucky. That was about 2 hours of heavily sweating in the swamps of the pampas, but we cooled off nicely in the river when we went swimming with the dolphins. They are pink dolphins and they enjoy playing with you just by touching your feet and nibbling them.
After all that we headed to the sunset-bar (it is a regular bar in the middle of the pampas - yip, it´s a tourist experience) to enjoy the sunset. And they serve cool beer there as it says on their billboard, only the beer isn´t that cool. When night falls mosquitos reign! we had the (mis)fortune to actually be in a mosquitostorm. We were attacked by - and we kid you not! - litterally millions of mosquitos (or whatever kind of insects the little buggers were). We had to run as fast as we could to the boat and get the hell out of there, but even the floor of the boat was swarming with them. It´s part of the experience, i guess.
The last meal was one of great excitement... Sabino gave us a 3-hour explanation of the pampas, it´s creatures and inhabitants and even had us hooked to his mouth with a true cannibal tribe story further up the pampas. The guy is fantastic and we all love him!
The last day we got back with a shabby jeep that took a horrible bumpy 3 hours to Rurrenabaque, and went out with the group later on. The next morning we took our Amaszonas flight in a small Cessna plane fit for 19 passengers back to La Paz, the stinkhole of Bolivia. We immediately planned for a bus to go to Copacabana on lake Titicaca. The place´s very relaxed but again very touristy. It´s filled with cosy gringobars that promise live music. Tomorrow we plan a one day tour to Isla Del Sol and then we´re off to Peru... I feel Macchu Picchu!

It turned out that we did not take the world's most dangerous road with the bus; a new road has been constructed, but nevertheless it is a quite scary ride! When there was another bus coming in the opposite direction, our bus driver was so gentle to drive backwards on the edge of the road, with a cliff just next to us...
Coroico was paradise after La Paz! We found a hostal in the middle of the jungle, with great views over the valley, so the first day we just relaxed by the pool, only the mosquitoes could stress us out!
The next day we did a walk to some waterfalls, the walk was really beautiful, but the waterfall did not impress us that much (after Iguazu in Argentina that's quite difficult
The next day we decided to do another walk, but we crossed a giant snake on our path, so decided not to take the risk and relax some more by the pool. Afterwards we heard the snake we saw was poisonous and that you normally have to kill them... we preferred to run
The next day we took a torturing bus to Rurrenabaque, the base for exploring jungle and pampas. We waited 2,5 hours for the bus at the side of the road, when it finally came, smoke was rising up from the drivers' cabin, but they decided to take the risk anyway... so we went on a 19 hours busride through hell, but finally arrived at Rurrenabaque, where the temperature was about 40 degrees, hot! There we booked a jungle trek for 2 days, which was amazing! We went with another 2 guys in a little motor boat to the refuge in the middle of the jungle, which were basically a couple of wooden cabins with some beds covered with, luckilly, mosquito nets. We went for a four hour trekking and saw lots of different animals: monkeys, parrots, frogs, lots of pigs, snakes, and lots of scary insects. The guide explained us a lot about the forest, the trees, which plants to eat and which not, which tree served as a medicine for what, really interesting! After the walk we got a good meal at the camp and went for another walk, a night walk! Quite scary, with flashlights, we saw a tarantula and a bambi, and again, lots of insects The next day, again, hiking, we drank water out of the branch of a tree (actually out of the parasite that had killed the trees, uña de gato or cat nails is the name. On the boat trip back to Rurrenabaque we saw a strange big animal (capibara?) and a caiman!
But tomorrow we are going on a 3 days trip to the pampas, where we will see lots of other big animals and swim with dolphins!
To be continued...

Sucre turned out to be a really nice city: big but not too big, with nice colonial buildings and a very lively and cultural nightlife. We found a really nice bar where we saw a life concert the first evening, and the next evening we saw a documentary there about the mines, which was very interesting and shocking as we just visited the mines of Potosi a couple of days before. We stayed in a nice relax hostel with roof terrace, so it was a relaxing three days. On Sunday we went to a little town nearby where they had a huge market, the bus ride was beautiful, but the market was not that different from all the other markets we saw already in Bolivia... which are really nice btw: they are like a town in itself with hundreds of people selling, buying and eating. They also have a huge tent where all the Bolivians come together at noon to have almuerzo (lunch) They all sit together a big tables, even if they don't know each other. And the fruit salads and shakes are definitely worth trying!
Cochabamba turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, it's a nice town, but again, not much difference from he other towns we saw before... (we are getting spoiled
La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, is a huge city, but quite ugly and stinky! On the other hand, the scenery is very impressive: built on the mountains, with white mountain tops on the background, it is sooo big!
There is a lot of pollution, lots of noise and you have to watch out constantly that you don't get hit by a car...
As it is very high, we both have, again, the symptoms of hight sickness, stomach and belly, headache, not that nice..
They have an interesting market, quite weird though: the witches market, where they sell all kinds of herbs and stones and dead animals, that are believed to cure diseases or bring good luck.
Tomorrow we are going to lower lands, Coroico, but first we have to cross the world's most dangerous road by bus, brrr

A lot didn't happen up until now, but less for you guys to read
In Potosi, we went to visit the mines of Cerro Rico, where they extract minerals and silver, and where the people still work in very poor conditions. Equipped with helmet, boots en an outfit, we wondered through the underground tunnels of the mines, going 4 levels down on shabby ladders, quite scary!
We met the miners, gave them some presents, coca leaves, drinks, alcochol and dynamite, the youngest miner was 15 years old and quite drunk... Most accidents happen when they fall of the ladders drunk, or by inhaling the gasses of the dynamite, thus their life expectancy is very short. We felt a bit guilty, being the western tourist who disguise as miners to check out the bad conditions in which the poor people live...
Then we took a bus to Sucre, the cultural capital of Bolivia. We didn't see much of the city yet as we have been relaxing on the roof terras of the hostal the whole day long, but it seems a thrilling city, nice buildings and parks, a huge market, and very lively bars at night!

Bolivia is really impressive, especially the country's nature, you have everything here (except the sea), and we are living quite a culture shock at the moment! Up until now, everything was quite european, clean, well organized, cosy, etc, but Bolivia is quite another world! There is nothing european about Bolivia, the hostals are quite shabby, everything is sooo cheap, but the Bolivians still try to get an extra 'Boliviano? (the local currency) for every little thing you ask. A big difference with the Argentinians, who are willing to help you at any time in everything. Bolivian people are very reserved, shy or impolite, we don't know what it is really, but they aren't very helpful... But we heard that the people change a lot from area to area, so we don't want to generalize! They lack in organistaion too, as we saw when taking busses here; the busses seem as they will fall apart at any time, our backpacks are thrown on the roof, and inside it is really packed, but the landscape you see when travelling makes everything ok, it is such a beautiful country!
At the border we net some nice people, a French and Argentinian guy, with whome we have been travelling up until now. In Tupiza we did a nice walk through the mountains, again amazing mountain constructions.
Uyuni is the world's largest saltplane, 12 000 km2, which is incredible at a hight of 3600m! We did a tour of two days in jeep, driving through the salt plane, where there are white plains as far as you can see, incredible! The next day we climbed a volcano! We didn't get to the top though, but nevertheless we got to a hight of about 4500m!
Today we arrived at Potosi, the world's highest city and World Unesco Heritage site! And we can feel it... I (Anke ) got really sick, guess it is the combination of altitude sickness, the salade I ate yesterday and the lack of sleep, anyway I feel quite terrible, but I guess that's again part of travalling no? The only solution is chewing Coca leaves and drinking Coca tea! We didn't see a lot of Potosi yet but it seems a lively city, very cold though!

From Salta,we took a 'remis' (a local taxi) to Cachi, a little town, 3 hours driving through small curvy mountain roads, rivers that flooded, a quite inaccesible road,but worth crossing because of the nice views. Cachi is really small but very cosy, with a nice little market place (where we met a couple from Texas in the only bar, that were there 12 hours in a row drinking beers, but not much to do, but to go hiking,and so we did. We decided to walk 7 kms to a little town nearby (where there was still less to do),but where we picked up a dog that followed us the whole day long (in Argentina it is normal that you are constantly followed by at least one dog). As we wanted to take another road to return to Cachi,we asked some locals, and followed their directions taking another way back. We discovered that the other road was actually three times as long, after another 10kms (the dog still at our side),I (Anke) was getting quite tired (ok,exhausted), but Bart reveiled himself as an untireable monkeyboy,climbing on every mountain we passed! Anyway,after some 20kms walking, there was finally a car that passed, we were so happy! The driver pointed at the dog,so we yelled that he wasn't ours,that we didn't have to take him, but actually the driver was the dog's owner,that was looking for the dog! Result: the dog got a ride and we could hike some more...
We had a good night's rest,and took the bus to Cafayate in the morning,a little town famous for its wineries and mountain ranges. We went to do some wine tasting in a local bodega and visited the wine museum. In the evening we drunk the bottle we bought and went to the local 'festival'. The town celebrated the Jesus de la Misericordia; it was like a typical folkloric fair in a little town, with a tiny stage on which people from Cafayate did local dances and sang religious songs; in between a woman kept on talking about Jesus and the Lord, but it was nice to see how the local people celebrated. The people here in the north of Argentina are incredibly religious, the churches are always full, and every time they pass a church or cemetry, they say a pray. The people are quite poor here,but they are not really interested in making money, they don't like working...
They are very aware of nature and they want to maintain their culture and their way of living ,so innovation is the enemy,because innovation brings pollution and deterioration of their culture and of nature off course.
This is good for us,because their nature and culture are amazing! We went to Quilmes, ruins and a fortress from the Quilmes civilisation, built upon the side of a mountain, really nice,especially if you hear the history of the place: they were attacked by the Incas but resisted, but eventually were horribly overthrown by the Spaniards.
The next day we did a tour to the Quebrada de las Conchas,some incredible mountain constructions (as soon as we can put the pictures on my facebook,go and look for mountains in the shape of the Titanic, a frog, an amphitheatre, and obelisc, the devil's throat...). We could really walk into the mountains, into the different shapes,and through all the different colours of the mountains, red,green, yellow, white,you see all colours and shapes in the same mountain range!
In the envening we met a couple from Belgium in the restaurant,and guess what their names were... Anke and Bart! Crazy...
Then we celebrated our three year together with a full day busride! yeah! and on top of that, the bus had a problem with the brakes,so we couldn't continue and had to wait (in the rain) for a new bus to pick us up, so we arrived really late at night... We decided however that we had earned a nicer hotel room for this stay, the romantic diner had to wait until the next day, as many restaurants were already closed... romantic !
So the next day we had a quiet day,visiting Tilcara,a nice town nearby, and we spoiled ourself with a nice dinner by candlelight and romantic singing on the background...
Then we went to visit Iruya, a town that is like hanging at the cliff of a mountain,really beautifull! As also the 3 hour busride to get there, a curving road going up until 4000m altitude, just a pity of the weather,it was really cold and rainy!
And today,we crossed the border to BOLIVIAAA!!! We thought the north of Argentina was already like bolivia, but the change is actually quite big. The town at the border was 'real' Bolivia,with only very tiny little people with two long plaids and a hat,with a lot of skirts on top of each other,woolen socks in sandals,and carrying a kilo of freight on their back (or a baby). Especially at the border,it was stunning to see how much they can carry on their back,people running forth and back between the Argentinean and Bolivian border, to smuggle as much as they can into Argentina,as Bolivia is much cheaper.
This was a first impression of Bolvia, the first day...