Bolivian Jungle Trek from Rurrenabaque

So I'm going to make a start on catching up with the blog posts and what I've been up to over the last month, no easy feat as its been pretty action packed! Anyway, first and foremost - our trip into Bolivian Amazonia.

We started our tour in Rurrenabaque, its quite a nice little town on the outskirts of the jungle. We arrived early and found this little bakery owned by a french guy. It was just opening and we had a couple of pan au chocolates straight from the oven. I reckon you'd be hard pushed to find a better place to get breakfast in South America. They were amazing.

As far as the details on prices and everything go for those of you interested I'm afraid I can't actually remember what we paid for the 3 night and 4 day excursion. What I do know, is that being Bolivia, it is one of the cheapest places you can organize a jungle trip from, and there is the added advantage that it is a low risk area for malaria, so you don't need to take any crazy pills.

It takes about 2 hours to get to the boat from the town, and it is one of the bumpiest roads I have travelled on. That didn't stop me from falling asleep anyway, much to the amazement of the other passengers.



Floating down the river we saw loads of wildlife, especially alligators and giant rat type things, lots of birds and once a monkey far off in a tree. We had to get out and push the boat a few times because we did the trip before the start of the wet season. You soon realize that the alligators are a lot more scared of you than you realize. In fact, by the end of the trip we were swimming in the river with dolphins while the alligators watched from the banks.

We stayed in this awesome kind of tree house come jungle lodge which was brilliant to watch the sunset from and listen to the sound of the jungle and the insects around you of a night. They had a nice room full of hammocks which was great to relax in too.

On the second day we went looking for anacondas and managed to find a few buried in holes in a field which was pretty cool. The best part of the trip for me however was the piranha fishing on the last day. Unfortunately it had rained a lot the day before, which meant that the water was more silty than usual and this stops the fish from sensing where the meat is as well, but their appetite was still pretty voracious considering how many times they got the bait off my hook. Eventually I managed to get one, and I later fed him to an alligator. Ken, another guy from our group managed to catch an eel and fred caught a kind of catfish thing. Don't think any of the catches would have sustained us that well though. Good job we had a chef back at the ranch, who, like most chefs on these tours, excelled in making pretty horrible tasting soups with bits of potatoes floating in. Lovely!

On the journey back from fishing though it was really dark, and as we maneuvered through meanders in the river our headlamps caused red reflections in the menacing eyes of the congregations of alligators waiting quietly in the water. The photos don't do it justice but that image of loads of glowing eyes is one of the most memorable things about the trip.

A few photos from Cochabamba

As my time in Cocha draws to a close, here's a few photos from the flickr account I just set up. I thought i'd include a few tracks from another friend from home, George Lenton, so you can watch and listen.

Next month is going to be a whirlwind tour through Peru hitting all the major sights, as I travel with one of my best mates Fred for 3 weeks. Really looking forward to that, because it will be great to see him before I move to Aus for a while.

Another thing coming up soon is a post about this Friday night. I'm going to be djing in a club here in Cochabamba called flowm, we'll see how dubstep, crunky house grooves and drum and bass goes down in Bolivia!

Enjoy

 Spanish Sahara - George Lenton remix by georgelenton

Travel lessons from a frutas ensalada

My favourite place to get breakfast in Cochabamba is the Mercardo de Comida, full of great cheap food, bustling with people, delicious smells and the sound of the stall owners trying to entice you to try their sopas.

I must have tried almost every frutas ensalada vendor in the market by now, for those who fancy making the journey its on calle  25 de Mayo between Sucre and Jordan.

Here are a few shots of the breaky!

Everyone has their own preferences, I prefer durazno yogurt (peach flavour, excuse the spelling) I like to get a lot of the helatina (the red jelly stuff) and most of all I hate it when the vendor tries to bulk my ensalada out with too much papaya and bananna. However, as the most feared ensalada critic in town, most of them know better than to try that shit on me by now. The best stalls are the ones on the far left of the market with proper seating areas.

Where am I going with this though, I guess the thing about staying in one place for a while - at least a month - is that you take the time to find these kinds of spots and places you love. You make friends with more of the locals, you get to explore little surrounding villages which you might not ordinarily visit on the typical trail - like our Sunday Chicha trip to a nearby village called Tarata.

Chicha is an alcoholic (2-3%) drink made from maize, it is fermented and served directly from the big earthenwear urns shown above and its a kind of straw yellow colour. At first I didn't really like the taste, as it could be described as a little sour, like a cloudy cider, but there seems to be a correlation between the amount you consume and the enjoyment you derive from each sip! Usually when you go to one of these Chicherias you're given a big jug of Chicha, along with one coconut shell, which you top up and pass around the table to share. Its very different to drinking wine or beer, I felt warm, relaxed and sociable after we'd had a few glasses.

Volunteering in Cochabamba & Textile Presentation

As some of you already know, I've decided to stay in Cochabamba for a month. The weather is great every day as its at a lower altitude than most of Bolivia and everything is absolutely dirt cheap! Me and my mate Rich joined a gym, and membership for the month was £5, breakfast is 50p every day... more on that in another post; I'm currently trying to hunt down the best frutas ensalada in Cochabamba.

So aside from pumping I-ron and trying to improve my terrible Spanish, I've been volunteering for a small textiles company here. They only have around 8 bolivian ladies working for them, sewing a variety of alpaca products by hand, and they have been going for around 15 years. 

I have just finished my first week, and I mainly did market research to determine whether they could attract designers from abroad and began brainstorming ideas for a company website - something they desperately need in order to attract foreign business. Anyway, my first presentation is embedded below, check it out!

One more thing for those of you who that are interested, the link to the foundation that arranged my internship - Sustainable Bolivia - is here. Thoroughly recommend them. You have the option of staying in one of their 4 houses here in Cochabamba, or for a small fee you can stay with a host family. Personally I opted to stay in one of their houses because there are some great people here and secondly, I dont think the poor Bolivian family would appreciate my nocturnal weekend hours.

Aha bolivia on Prezi

Urcupiña Street Party

Urcupiña - Nr. Cochabamba, Bolivia

At the weekend a group of us from the organization I'm staying with went to the annual Urcupiña street parade. The
event basically consists of lots of different dances and you buy a seat in the stalls overlooking the road. It is considered
to be one of Bolivia's most important cultural events. This year it fell on the 14th August and lasted from 12 noon to
around 8 or 9pm.

The event is a part of the celebrations surrounding the mystical story of a shepherd girl used to go every day

to the hills in Calvario. Legend has it that after befriending a strange woman with a baby, good things started

happening in the village. The villagers had seen the girl talking to this lady and wanted to meet her. One day

when the lady appeared the girl rushed back to the village to say 'orkhopeña' which is quechuan for 'she's here'.

When the villagers arrived, the woman was no longer there, but there was the image of a woman in the stone of

a rock. The villagers were convinced that she was the Virgin Mary, and called her Virgin Urcupiña.

Since then, once a year people go to a statue that was made of the Virgin to ask for good things, and to repent

their sins. They do this on a 14km midnight walk up to the hills she used to visit.

The actual dances and street parade on the day the day before the walk started over 40 years ago,

and consist of variety of dances, which all symbolize different periods of history and struggles that

have been overcome. For example, one of the dances called 'Tobas' shows masked characters

preparing to fight for their land. Another, called 'Caporales' depicts the era of Spanish colonization, which is an aggressive dance in which the guys wear Spanish style boots with bells on and create a beat as they go. The Tinkus dance depicts the history of violence in Potosi, and so on.

The celebration is just as much an excuse for many of the locals to have a good time, drink and dance. We were sat right behind a group of guys, who in typical Bolivian hospitality shared with us their drink, and who we joined in shouting 'Beso!' (kiss me) to the more attractive female dancers as pictured below.

Unsurprisingly, no besos were received with this method, but people kept on dancing to the music created by the parade regardless. I loved the relaxed attitude towards health and safety at the festival, somehow everything just seems a bit more fun without it. At one point we must have had twice as many people than we should have had on the wooden planks in stalls you view the parade from. There's no railings on the side or anything either, just a 10ft drop to the floor. Occasionally the police would decide to release tear gas too, which I found a bit bizzare because it effected everyone, despite the fact that there seemed to be no trouble anywhere at all. Perhaps it's just part of the experience though...

Going Down To Devil Town

Potosi, Bolivia

I went down a private mine in Potosi yesterday. The mine was once government owned but it has now been privately owned since the 1990's. It was quite a nerve-racking experience, especially after I discovered on the way there that there are approximately 200 cave-ins somewhere in the mountain each year.

Reassuringly, the guide told me 'it's like a big piece of edam cheese in there, and there's a lot of pressure from locals for miners to stop working there'

Fortunately, the most dangerous parts of the mine are at the very top levels, and we were at the base of the mountain where the rock is not as wet and the predominant mineral is zinc. At the top though, there is more valuable silver, and miners regularly risk their lives to obtain it.

We put on overalls, boots, a hard hat and headlamp and ventured in to the mines. It was exactly how you'd imagine an old mine out of some western film; iron rails on the ground for trolleys to whizz along on, with wooden rafters supporting the roof and a line of bare light bulbs disappearing around the corner.

The air got hotter and dustier the further we walked, and my breathing got heavier as I struggled to get oxygen. Suddenly, a distant rumble prompted the guide to shout,

'Trolley! Quickly, get to the side! Come on!'

Like a herd of panicked antelope we all started rushing around to try and find a cove to squeeze into at the side. I must admit I was genuinely scared for my life as the approaching rumble got louder and I still hadn't got to safety. To my relief I squeezed into a spot, then as I saw the trolley approach, pulled by miners, travelling slowly at about 4 miles per hour I felt a bit stupid. Then again, everyone was the same - in the dark, unfamiliar environment we were all paranoid.

The guide pointed to a tunnel of the side of the main track, just big enough to crawl through, and on our hands and knees we followed behind. The tunnel climbed up and down, and at one point we had to crawl on our bellies to get through a tiny dark gap. We reached an opening and some miners, with sacks of rocks on their back, scuttled past. Our guide gave them some water and cocoa leaves we had brought as presents.

The guide congratulated us on getting past the hardest part 'many tourists turn back at that point' he said. For me, however, the most dangerous part was still to come. As we descended a ladder to get back on to another rail track, there came a call from above and the guide shouted for me to stay where a was. A few seconds later and a huge wooden support rafter fell from above, right between me and the rest of the group ahead. 'Quickly' the guide shouted and the rest of us ran past the beam to catch up with the rest of the group.

We stopped for a while with a resting miner, and the guide gave him some more of our gifts. His job was to shovel the contents of each 2 ton trolley into a pile where it would be winched up the following day. He had to move 40 tons of rubble before leaving. I helped him shovel for a bit, and after 5 minutes I was absolutely knackered. I'd done my fair share of shoveling saving up for this trip, but down there with no oxygen, in the hot dusty environment I could hardly breath. It was an eye opening experience, these miners have to be really tough to cope with the conditions. When you think there are kids as young as 15 down there helping their dads, its like going back to the 1900's.

The guide told us that this guy has it easier than most. To extract the minerals the miners have to make holes in the side of the rock, then, place dynamite in there, run and then shovel the rubble created into the trolleys to be to sent of for processing. These holes can me made in one of two ways; either by hand - a process which produces less dust but is slower, or with pneumatic machinery - fast, but very, very dusty. A miner using machinery can make 400 Bolivianos a day (£40), which is a lot of money for a Bolivian. However, these miners have a life expectancy of 10 years before developing the fatal 'black lung'. Our guide's uncle died of cancer at 37.

This isn't a 'nice' tour if you're thinking of doing it, but it was definitely a big shock to see the conditions that some people work in every day. The organization is structured in such a way that it takes 3 years of working in the mines to become a 'member'. Then, after working there longer, you can work your way up to the position of leader. You can pass you're leadership position on to your son when you die or are no longer able to work, and so - because of the time and effort invested by fathers in the mines - you have situations where families work and die for generations in these mines. Our guides father worked as a leader, and he explained the pressure he faced from his family to continue in his father's footsteps.

We saw a shrine to the Devil, the tradition of offering him presents; llama sacrifices, cocoa leaves, cigarettes etc can be traced back to the Spanish, who tried to use the devil to instill fear in the Indians taking silver from the mines. The symbol had an opposite effect, as the workers didn't see him as a 'bad' God. Rather, one to appease with presents in exchange for less accidents and the discovery of better mineral deposits. Even today, you'd never hear a miner exclaim for God - this is strictly the devils domain.

Before heading off, we witnessed the heart juddering demonstration of a dynamite explosion. I know I wouldn't want to be in a mine when one went off.

Desert Driving

From the dusty desert town of San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, a group of us booked a 3 day tour through the Atacama desert and the salt flats to Uyuni, Southwest Bolivia. Absolutely the best experience of the trip so far and definitely worth the cold, showerless nights!

The first thing we saw were the brilliant coloured lagoons. Although it was difficult to understand our guide, I think he said, addressing us in formal spanish, that this was because of oxidized copper minerals in the water. We then went to some thermal springs where the water was 30 degrees, lovely to get into but not so nice getting back out into the freezing wind! It was pretty funny, we saw about 3 people stack it on the slippery algae on their frantic entry into the pool, which was met each time with great applause.

It's hard to do the scenery justice in these photographs but it was like being on another planet driving through the desert. Since we went during the month of July, the sky was a crisp dark blue and the contrast of this against the reds and oranges of the surrounding landscape was fascinating.

We stopped at some huge volcanic boulders to see the surreal effects of the wind and heat erosion (onion skin erosion if my year 9 geography is correct). This also released the inner rock climber in me.

On the second night we stayed in an awesome salt hotel, and Javier gave us the option of getting up at half 4 so we could see the sunrise over Salar Uyuni, the highest and largest salt flat in the world, formed through the evaporation of the sea water that was cut off like a giant rock pool by the surrounding mountains and volcanoes.

So rising early, we raced against the sun to a coral island called Isla Incahuasi, covered in cacti, in the middle of the salt flats. I climbed to the highest point of the Island which absolutely knackered me out because of the altitude. As I waited up there for the sun to slowly rise, illuminating the brilliant white crust and for the moon to disappear from the purple sky behind me, it was all worth it.

We took a load of photos that mess around with perspective on the salt flats which was awesome, some of the best ones are on my mates camera but here are a couple anyway. Apparently the salt crust is around 80m deep in the centre of the flats.

Finally we stopped off at the locomotive graveyard in Pulacayo which contains the rusty remains of the train stolen by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

For those interested we used the tour company 'Cordillera' and our driver Javier was sound, not a fingerless, one eyed, drunk driver as the hype surrounding these desert tours would have you believe. So I'd definitely recommend booking with them. Also, beginning the tour from Chile meant ascending from 3,665m at San Pedro de Atacama, to around 4,900m within an hour or so (the ascent is more gradual if you start in Bolivia) , I'd heard loads of stories of people suffering really badly from altitude sickness but honestly everyone on our tour (2 4x4s with 11 people altogether) was absolutely fine, apart from a few headaches in the night which a few pills can easily calm. It does get pretty cold though so layers + a sleeping bag (can be hired) are essential.