Archiv der Kategorie: Bolivia

Bolivia, World Trip 2018-19

Crazy rocks & dinosaurs: Toro Toro National Park

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From La Paz, we made our way to Cochabamba in a comfortable overnight bus. Busses in Bolivia have really improved since I first visited in 2012, and now we were able to enjoy a full „cama“ bus which basically means super nice and broad seats that recline almost fully. Nice! So we arrived in Cochabamba reasonably well rested and decided to straight away take a minibus onward to Toro Toro. Ouuuff! Not such a nice ride or should I say dusty, bumpy, looong 5 h…until we arrived in the little town of Toro Toro. Toro Toro is known for its national park where cool geological formations and dinosaur footprints can be observed – so that’s what we planned to do over the next 1.5 days.

Unfortunately, Mathijs couldn’t join on the first day due to some nasty chicken he ate at the market the day before. So I was off with a group of 5 other people to Ciudad de Itas which can be translated into „City of Rocks“ – and a rock city it was! First though, it was quite a long drive on bad roads again, higher and higher up the mountains, more and more into the clouds. Damn. When we arrived at Ciudad de Itas, we were completely stuck in the fog/clouds and remained so for the majority of our hike. Too bad, but once again weather was not on our (my) side. Our guide led us on a circular trek past some cool rock formations over the next 3 or so hours. And it was super impressive!! Even with the cloudy weather, some rock formations were really cool and there were some nice views…only not as much into the distance as we would have hoped for. I can only imagine how amazing this must be on a clear, sunny day!

Luckily, quite some parts of the Ciudad de Itas are little caves, so the weather doesn’t matter too much. For me, these were also the highlights! Water and erosion have shaped these rocks into really cool looking caves, something you don’t see every day. It reminded me a bit of some desert national parks in the US (of course only from the photos since I have not visited the US yet).

Afterwards, it was the same bumpy ride back – but at least this time we had some views along the way and the sun was coming out! We managed to talk our driver into some photo stops along the way, which was really nice. It’s too bad anyways that you’re just driving past so many beautiful views without being able to stop and enjoy. I guess that as tourism develops in this area, roads will improve and there might be sightseeing tours offered at one point which go from viewpoint to viewpoint. At least I hope so for future visitors!

Next day, Mathijs was able to join again luckily and we joined with another four backpackers to go on a long, hot (sun was out, yay!) hike to Vergel Canyon. At the beginning of this hike you also see the dinosaur tracks that Toro Toro is famous for. I don’t know, they were nice to see, but not too special for me. I guess it’s too hard for me to imagine that these animals really used to live on our planet at one point.

We then hiked for a while to reach the main highlight (I would say) of the trek – a viewpoint over the canyon with a cool bridge that has been built ideally for pictures. Good idea, Bolivians! We obviously took advantage of this photo opportunity. The sheer drop of the cliffs of the canyon was simply stunning!

What followed was a climb down into the canyon and along the almost dried out riverbed to some waterfalls where you could have a swim. I didn’t feel like changing into my bikini in front of all the Bolivian groups though, so we just chilled in the shade. Later, we had to climb all the way up again which was of course way more exhausting and I was not too sad when we finally arrived back in town…

…where we wanted to catch a minibus back to Cochabamba. Well, we did, in the end, but were a bit shocked at first that all the next busses seemed to be fully booked. I guess it might have been because it was Sunday afternoon and many Bolivians were heading back to their towns if they came here on a weekend trip. In the end, they switched something around though and we were able to hop on.

We didn’t want to arrive too late in Cochabamba since we still had to look for accommodation – in the end though we did end up walking around in the dark, trying to find cheap-ish hostels before having to accept that Cochabamba is an overpriced sh…hole. We had a day to kill there next day though, so spent some time walking around the city, visiting some markets, buying our bus tickets for the night and walking to the cable car up to the Christ statue on the hill…only to find out it was not running that day! Ooops. The only nice part about Cochabamba were the main squares, lined with some colonial buildings and the usual palm trees and benches in the center to relax. After a day though, we were more than happy to move on to Santa Cruz, by night bus once again…

Bolivia, World Trip 2018-19

Lake Titicaca – Copacabana & Isla del Sol

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Our 2nd stop in Bolivia was lake Titicaca. I had visited this place before in 2012, but since the weather in and around La Paz didn’t look great for the next few days, I opted to join Mathijs and go there a second time. Good decision! Last time the bus trip from the lake to La Paz was in the dark – this time I could enjoy all the views I had apparently missed out on! 

Also, we were finally treated with some sunshine and when arriving in Copacabana, walked around the little town I already liked back then. Surely it has become a bit more touristy, but it’s still rather quiet and pretty. After some happy hour beers in the sun, we hiked up Cerro Calvario for some good late afternoon views over the town. It was just as beautiful as I remembered it, but sadly there is much more trash laying around at the top of the hill now. Even though there are wastebins!

Our next day was supposed to be dedicated to Isla del Sol, but we found out that the entire North part is closed to tourism at the moment due to some conflict between the islanders of the North and the Center and South. Too bad! 6 years ago, I had taken the ferry to the North, then hiked all the way to the South where I hopped on the afternoon ferry back to Copacabana. Now this is not possible anymore. What the ferry companies offer instead now, are combined Isla de la Luna & Isla del Sol trips – so that’s what we booked then! At least, Isla de la Luna was something new then for me as well.

The boat trip took about 2 hours until we finally arrived – while it is a scenic boat ride, 2 h is a bit much and certainly due to the very bad engines the boats have. Sloooooowwww boats. On Isla de la Luna, we misunderstood the Spanish instructions and thought we had only half an hour, so quickly went up to the viewpoint and to see the ruins. It was nice, but we felt a bit rushed…only to discover that we would have had a full hour. Haha. Oh well!

The boat then went to Isla del Sol, where we disembarked at Pilko Kaina. In reality, we (without guide) should have stayed on the boat and got dropped in Yumani harbour after, and only the people with guide would have gotten off there. That would have meant losing another 30 min at least and walking from A to A instead of from A to B. So I got a bit mad at the boat guides and we were allowed off. Haha. It was a really nice walk from here to Yumani and we really enjoyed the views! Unfortunately, the snowy mountains were mostly hiding behind a layer of clouds – but the rest of the views we got were still awesome! Isla del Sol, you’ve been good to us: lots of sunshine, lots of great views!

Bolivia, World Trip 2018-19

La Paz – back in Bolivia

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I was excited and anxious at the same time to go back to La Paz – a city I loved so much when visiting Bolivia first in 2012. When going back to places, you never know how they developed, or if this time you are just not going to have such a good time… I was more excited than anxious though. Reallyyyy excited!!! When we landed in La Paz from Santiago, we were tired from a night of almost no sleep and stepped out of the airport right into the pouring rain! Not the best start. Weather remained tricky during our stay in La Paz, with the rainy season having started too early according to locals. We made the best out of it and spent the dry periods wandering around town, exploring the various markets, taking pictures of local ladies in their colourful outfits and (me) remembering all kind of random spots in the city. Good times!

Something I thought I did back then was visit the Mirador Kili Kili – however, turns out Andrea and I gave up too early back then and didn’t make it all the way up to the highest viewpoint. From there, you had amazing views over La Paz, even if the weather was not at its best. Must be awesome with blue skys and the snow-capped mountains in the background!

About half a day of our time was dedicated to „cable car-hopping“. Yes, you read correctly! When I visited in 2012, there were no cable cars in La Paz, but since then there are 8 different lines stretching in all directions of the city. We started with the orange line, and realized at the cable car station that we could easily do kind of a loop, seeing many parts of the city from up high this way. Thought and done! At only 3 Bs per ride, it is really not an expensive way to get around – and a really cool one too! The cable cars are brand new, built by the Austrian company Doppelmayer (for all those with trust issues in Bolivian-built stuff, this is Austrian quality we are talking about!). Every line was different – some went really in between the houses, close to the ground (can’t imagine house owners having been too happy about the decision to build the lines directly above their terraces…), some steeply up the hills to El Alto or other areas. Sometimes we got off in between, sometimes only in the end. The best views were mostly directly out of the cable cars.

One day, Mathijs went to go mountain biking on the Death Road, while I stayed in La Paz since I had already done this in 2012. He was lucky, for on that day the weather was dry and sunny and had an amazing time at the tour – with some great views that not even I had back then (it was one of the few rainy/snowy days I experienced in Bolivia back then).

I stayed in La Paz that day, walking through the streets and enjoying the city. I love this place too much!! For me, it is one of the best cities in the world… I had to get some shopping done (warmer clothes etc), but also found time to visit San Francisco church with a tour. A cute young girl led me around and explained a lot about the church. I actually only went on this tour to be able to access the roof, but it was worth it also for the rest. Turned out the girl was pretty good at taking pictures too, so I got an odd amount of pictures of myself on that day!

Another day in La Paz was spent with a day trip to Valle de las Animas just outside the city. This is a really cool spot that not so many people know about yet. It’s similar to Valle de la Luna but much cooler and bigger. Since I had already seen the latter during my last visit, I was keen to explore new grounds and we quickly found a bus heading in the right direction…only to get stuck in traffic! On the way back we took the cable car from Zona Sur and walked a short walk back into the city center – much better option! Anyways, even though we were once again unlucky with the weather (it started raining right when we got off the bus), we embarked on the 3 h half-circular viewpoint hike – and it was sooo worth it!! Even with the occasional rain shower in between and grey clouds instead of sunshine, the views were just amazing and Valle de las Animas looks out of this world. A truly magical place!! In sunny weather, I’m sure you could easily spend a day here, discovering some more treks… Like this though, it was not the most comfortable hike and we didn’t take too long to finish it. We appreciated the dry periods in between for many photos, and were lucky to find a dry lunch spot. In better weather, we might have added the hike inside the canyon, which looks also pretty cool. Maybe next time…

On our last day in La Paz, it was Thursday and therefore market day in El Alto. A huge market, that we wanted to see and experience! There is a lot of talk about El Alto not being that safe and how there are many pickpockets operating at the market. Well, we just really watched out, carried our backpack in front rather than on the back, locked it and were generally very aware of our surroundings, avoiding getting in pushy crowds too much etc. Even though we did keep our eyes open the whole time (more because of stories we had heard), I didn’t feel unsafe at all. Also, I don’t think anything else than pickpocketing could happen when there are so many people around…so as long as your pockets are empty and you had your backpack in the front + locked + raincover over it…what could happen!? Walking around the market was fun, and the views over La Paz were great as usual! Definitely recommended.

We then left La Paz earlier than we had wanted originally, because of the weather… We had wanted to do some more hiking, but the rain (and snow, higher up) was not on our side. Too bad, seems like at one point in my life I will have to return to Bolivia a third time!