South Westy Travels: Bolivia

We entered Bolivia the same way we left Peru: along the shores of Lago Titicaca. We camped just beyond the town of Copacobana for several nights on a tip from Didi, a Belgian woman we met in Cuzco, and spent our days nosing further north along the Bolivian side of the lake.

The Burly Beast on Lake Titicaca

Looking back on Copacobana from our campsite

Mike Chet and the Beast on Lago Titicaca

I loved the lake and its many faces. So big as to be oceanic, Titicaca shared its many moods with us. Sapphire is the color we saw most often, but we also saw many shades of green and grey. Calm waters and frothy white caps all made themselves known.

Along the chilly southern shore of Titicaca

Sunset over Titicaca

However, I’ll share a sad truth with you. Much of the lake shore, especially near population centers, is choked with basura (trash). Certainly not unique to Lago Titicaca, Peru or Bolivia, but rather, a theme we have seen throughout Latin America, the prevalence of roadside trash is heartbreaking. Of course, plastic is a huge part of the problem.

Basura on the beach at Copacobana

From Copacobana, we headed to the Cordillera Central and spent several days chilling at the Altai Oasis in Sarota. I’d gotten the cold Mike had in Cuzco and this was the perfect place for recovery. The owner’s son loaded a ton of music onto our computer including Bossa N Stones a breathless girl band doing Rolling Stones covers. Totally fun to have new music! Check them out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFQVuJjvn-k

Despues de Sarota, we hit La Paz and loved it. It’s a cool city with a nice vibe. I enjoyed traipsing up one hill and down the other in this unique setting of a city built on a series of super steep hills. The weather was superb.

Overland travelers like us generally stay at the Hotel Oberland. It is in Mallasa, a tony suburb of La Paz and Swiss owner Walter has set aside a small parking area for overlanders. The parking area is basic to be sure but it’s great to have a secure place in a big city.

The hotel itself is lovely with a good restaurant serving food like raclette and fondue that was a salve for the Swiss and German travelers’ home sicknesses. There is a nice pool and a great sauna that allowed me to turn our stay into a spa vacation.

But the Hotel Overland is just one reason travelers come to La Paz. Another is Ernesto Hugg, mechanic extraordinaire. Travelers with all kinds of vehicles make appointments with the esteemed Ernesto while in La Paz and the lot at Hotel Oberland is full of travelers jostling for position based on who has the next appointment with Ernesto.

The scene at Hotel Oberland upon our arrival

There were a few things needing attention on the van, nothing critical but more in the ‘annoying’ category. Mike went and met with Ernesto, but decided if we were going to have parts shipped in he could do the work himself and we wouldn’t have to wait for an appointment. We left for Coroico.

Coroico is a cute little town halfway between the jungle and the mountains and thus has a very pleasant climate. The lower altitude was also welcomed after being up so high since Ecuador, through much of Peru, along Lago Titicaca (3820m) and in La Paz (3660m).

We hooked up with the local Spanish instructor and gave our language skills a boost, we enjoyed life in a small town, I got one of the worst haircuts and color jobs ever, and we just generally relaxed after being in a big city. Ralph and Corinna, two of our favorite people, crossed paths with us here for the third time. They kindly spent time giving us tips and info on travel in Chile and Argentina.

Ralph and Corinna with Tortuga del Mundo ( I love this photo, not only for how lovingly he is looking at her (they were married on their trip in Mendoza Argentina) but also for the smudge of dust on his shirt. Just as I was about to snap the photo he reached over and tried to dust off the 'Tortuga del Mundo' decal on the vehicle door, and then wiped his hand on his shirt in typical boy fashion!)

And then, a small antifreeze leak alerted us that a weird plastic part that distributes engine coolant had cracked. Uh-oh......

Mike went in search of a machinist in Coroico who could fashion a replacement piece, but everyone he asked told him to fix it with Poxalina. Now we had never heard of Poxalina but Mike bought some and we skeptically translated the package directions to mix the two part epoxy and mold it around our broken piece of plastic.

With the Poxalina’d part in place we headed back to La Paz thinking maybe we’d be going to see Ernesto Hugg after all. But upon our return to the Oberland we ran into Didi (the Belgian woman mentioned previously) and her husband, Guy. They had lived in La Paz for 8 years and Guy gave Mike the name of an old friend who owns a large construction manufacturing company, conveniently headquartered just a few kilometers from Hotel Oberland.

And this is how we met Miguel Reznicek at Pretensa. One of the nicest people we’ve ever met, Miguel set one of his employees up making us a new piece. And indeed, a few days later Miguel stopped by Hotel Oberland with a newly made piece. Check out his personal website http://www.intoku.net/ for a glimpse into his ethos.

We’ll never know how long the Poxalina would have held. We know it held long enough for us to get from Coroico to La Paz. More importantly, we know the new piece is as strong as anything we would have had shipped in and we got to meet some great people along the way.

The scene at the Hotel Oberland upon our return (we are in the far upper left-hand corner).

Mike holed up in our little corner of the parking lot of the Hotel Oberland as we waited for the newly crafted part.

Okay. Titicaca was great. La Paz was great. But, really, the highlight of Bolivia for us was the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. I was skeptical before we arrived. It was hard to imagine what driving and camping on a wide open sea of salt would be like.

The Salar is in the remote south west corner of Bolivia and driving there is part of the experience. Just 10 percent of the roads in Bolivia are paved and some, even major routes, are worse than many 4-wheel drive roads we are familiar with in the Colorado mountains. We traveled kilometer after kilometer of filling-loosening washboard over which the maximum speed is 15-20 miles per hour. This slow approach gave me plenty of time to ponder what was to come.

We spent two nights in the desert and then passed through some really small native villages before reaching the Salar. It was late and the sun was setting as we drove out onto the salt for the first time. We headed for the Isla de Pescado (my nickname-sake island).