Beautiful Bolivia

Me and a friend caught in a candid moment.  I'm much
more handsome in black and white.  Photo credit.

Bolivia.  It has tickled the fancies of everyone from Victorian "gentleman explorers" mapping the Amazon, to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid fleeing the long arm of the law, to Che Guevara stirring up a revolution and severely pissing off the CIA.  And this is to say nothing of the Bolivianos themselves, who even within their own borders can find themselves in cities, jungles, mountains, and deserts of salt (sorry about the ocean, guys, but you'll have to take that up with Peru and Chile).

Presently, however, the massive and landlocked Bolivia is firmly on the Gringo Trail and finds itself hosting a smattering of Americans, much of Europe, and, more specifically, what has to be a third of London.  Seriously, there couldn't have been many people left living there this past July.  But I digress.  I found myself a happy member of this crew, and Bolivia stole my heart.  Seriously, just wow.  It also stole my breath...even coming from Quito, La Paz and Lake Titicaca are HIGH.  I spent a week there, and never adjusted to the 13,000 ft or so elevation of the region.
 But as my altitude issues have already been sadly documented on this blog, I will get on with it.

Entering La Paz

At over 21,000 ft/6,400 m, Illimani stands watch over
Nuestra Senora de la Paz

La Paz is a tough city to fly into, for pilots as well as for passengers.  The pilots have to land in El Alto, the town that lies above the rim of the valley that contains, as best as it can, the sprawling La Paz.  The elevation is about 13,300 ft, and so has predictably unpredictable weather.  When I left, for example, it was snowing.  I was then delayed on the runway for over 2 hours because fog had reduced visibility to about 10 feet.  Add wind shears to all of this and the fact that there isn't much around it in terms of backup plans, and you have an unsavory situation for anyone but the most experienced pilots.  So there's that.  For travelers, La Paz will either be hard on your wallet, or hard on your sleep habits.  Flights at reasonable times charge you your first-born child.  Reasonably-priced flights take you through 3 other layover cities in the middle of the night.  As I have no children to sell, I took the second option and arrived strangely alert and just in time for sunrise.

Loki Hostel

I stayed at Loki Hostel, which is a total shit show, but in the best of ways.  To call it a hostel is misleading; it is a hostel, a bar, a restaurant, and a tourist information center all packed into a renovated, seven-story mansion in downtown La Paz.  The bar, which is all of floor 7, has a great panoramic view of the city and is open all day, to the hazard and enjoyment of all.  Things really gets going around 9 or 10 pm and last until the bartenders decide that they are done.  When exactly that is, I can't say with certainty.  I made a good run at it one night, but 4 am found me turning in with the whole place still packed and going strong.  The main advantage of a staying at a place like this for a solo traveler is that it affords a lot of opportunities to meet up with others heading your way.  Many maps have been drunkenly stooped over, and many a friendship forged as people realize that they are going the same direction, or they hear about something interesting that they would like to jump in on.  Even if you stick to your plan and do your own thing, it can at least be fun to share stories, or to belt out karaoke in front of some likeable strangers and nightlong friends.

The busy and colorful streets of La Paz.  Get out of the
hostel, people!

On the negative side, these places can be dangerously self-contained.  A lot of people end up barely leaving the hostel.  To be fair, La Paz is a huge and confusing city, and if you don't speak Spanish, you are more or less going to be lost outside of tour companies.  But come on, you didn't come all this way without a sense of adventure, did you?  Are you really just going to sleep until afternoon and then get drunk at the bar again?  So you can hit on that Aussie guy/girl?  Oh, okay, it looks like you are.  Cheers.

In addition to the time-suck and the temptation of what's comfortable, these kinds of places can be anything but restful.  If you count yourself among those who like to sleep at night, this may be hard on you.  And there are no nights off.  "Sunday" has no real meaning for anyone who's been traveling for more than a week or two.  The bottom floors are okay if you're looking to get away from the noise.  I paid a little more for a room to myself on the 2nd floor rather than sharing a dorm with 10 others and a techno beat.  What can I say, I'm getting old.  In Bolivia, though, this isn't even much of a financial hit, as everything is absurdly cheap.

Around La Paz

Photo Credit 

Historic La Paz is quite beautiful, with large plazas, colonial-era Spanish buildings, and the Basilica de San Francisco.  You can spend a day among the crowds just walking around, popping into restaurants, and building your collection of alpaca-wool sweaters.  I have heard many, many horror stories about people getting sick in Bolivia, but if you are strong-stomached and/or have some antibiotics handy, you should try some of the street food as well.  Something you will also most likely notice in La Paz is the large number of shoeshine men and boys that are all wearing baseball hats and balaclavas to cover their faces.  I didn't know what to make of it at first, so I looked it up and found this article on BBC News that explains that they need to hide their identities to avoid discrimination.  It is a highly stigmatized profession due to class issues that still haunt Bolivia, as well as due to the reputation that the "lustrabotas" have as thieves and alcoholics.

Spiderman seems to have lost some confidence...

Starting out, with the Basilica de San Francisco in the
background

The most fun thing that I did in La Paz, however, was called Urban Rush.  There is a tall hotel building in the downtown area called Hotel Presidente.  This hotel rents out their top floor to a rappelling/abseiling company.  What they offer is the chance to repel down the side of a building in the middle of the city while wearing a superhero costume.  It is exactly as awesome and ridiculous as it sounds.  I tried really hard to squeeze into the Batman onesie, but it was a little too reminiscent of Chris Farley in Tommy Boy.  After donning the outfit of your alter ego (all that were left for me were orange jumpsuits, unfortunately), you have a brief tutorial before stepping out of a window on the 15th floor and walking down the wall.  For your descent, I recommend an emotional mixture of giggly and terrified, which is what I went with.  When you are 20 meters from the bottom, the people working the brakes on your rope (you use your own belay device, but there are 2 other people spotting you) ask you to let go of the rope, count to 3, and jump out away from the wall for a free fall.

Moments before the free fall.

Death Road

Did I mention that Bolivia is beautiful?

A more well-known attraction of Bolivia is the opportunity to bike down the road formerly known as "the most dangerous road in the world."  It was called this because until 2006, this narrow, winding road with sheer cliffs going up one side and down the other was heavily used by car, truck, and bus traffic.  Tragedy here was far too routine.  Ever since a new road has been opened, though, the death toll has gone down dramatically.  The old one has been renamed "Death Road," mostly as a promotional gimmick for bike trips.  Now, I don't want to downplay this: one side of the road is simply a void, and there are big consequences for ego on this road, so proceed with caution and go at a speed that is comfortable for you.  And please, no selfies.  But the Cliffs of Insanity aside, it is not an incredibly challenging road, and it is 4-5 hours of almost entirely downhill mountain biking.  I absolutely loved it.  The two best companies to go with are Gravity and Altitude.  I went with the latter for about $75 US.  You can certainly find cheaper, but really, do you want to?  I know people who haggled other companies down to $30, but think about what you're doing.  A shitty bike that hasn't been maintained makes for a rough day in the best of circumstances, and you don't want any surprises on this trip.  If you know more about bikes than I do and can do a more thorough self-inspection, by all means, go for it.  But don't get cute here.

Getting to Isla del Sol

After three days in and around La Paz, it was time to head onward to Lake Titicaca and to one of my

Our sure-footed Captain

favorite misadventures to date.  From La Paz to Copacabana is a pretty easy 3-4 hour bus ride.  You can either get a ticket at the main bus terminal, or you can book through a private company that will pick you up at your hostel.  Copacabana is the biggest Bolivian town on Titicaca, and if you are looking to catch the ferry out to Isla del Sol, then you will want to make sure you arrive before 1 pm when the last boat embarks.  Isla del Sol is the mythical homeland of the Inca; it is where their origin stories indicate their civilization began and their first king was born.  It is also an island in the middle of the world's highest navigable lake with no roads or vehicles, only hiking paths.  Because there are no roads, you can catch a ferry to either the south end of the island (closest to Copacabana) or to the north end of the island, 8 km away.  I had booked a hostel for 2 nights on the south of the island.  I bought a ticket for the south ferry, showed it to the man on the dock, and he directed me to the boat on the left.  As you may be surmising from my tone, this was not the south ferry.  I had mistakenly boarded the

I think I can live with this error...

north ferry, which is a full hour longer, and I was ultimately dropped off at 4 pm with a very large backpack and 3 hours of walking to do if I wanted to make it to my hostel.  So, that didn't happen.  Luckily, I had started playing cards with a few other travelers and by the time I realized my error, we were four games deep into Spite and Malice and it didn't seem all that important.  When I got off the boat, I had new friends in Mike from England and Josefien from Holland.  Like me, Mike had boarded the wrong boat, and Josefien had a hostel in mind that she had read about, so off we went.  All three of us had been traveling solo, but when you meet kindred spirits, you know it pretty quickly.

Three of a kind en La Ruta del Sol.

Bolivian Wedding Crashers

As it turns out, the north end of the island is really where I wanted to be, anyway.  Most people opt for the

Dancing their way into the party.

shorter ferry ride, so the south tends to be more crowded.  The north has only 2 restaurants that seem to observe no regular hours, and a few tiendas where you can pick up snacks.  There is a trail called the Ruta del Sol that runs the length of the island, offering elevated views of Lake Titicaca, which may as well have been an ocean from where we stood.  There were no lights in town, so you needed headlamps and flashlights to walk around after dark.  From our hostel, you could see every star in the sky, and we drank quite a few bottles of wine as we developed cricks in our upturned necks, listened to a storm across the water, and laughed giddily when it started snowing lightly around midnight.  Josefien and I made it our mission, no matter how cold it was, to go swimming in the lake before we left.  Mike quickly volunteered as photographer.  We also may have crashed a Bolivian wedding.  It began with curiosity, and we ended up being invited into a seated circle of Bolivian women in traditional dress and gold teeth to eat chalky potatoes and savory, savory pork.  We left after a little while, but when we heard it still going on after sunset, we had to make our way back to investigate the state of things.  What we saw was very clearly the after party, and we found ourselves among the more dedicated Bolivian party goers, dancing in the pitch black night with no lights to blaring salsa music.

The Roads not Taken

Like all travel stories, our magical time on Isla del Sol had to come to an end.  We took the same ferry back to Copacabana where we would part ways.  Mike and Josefien were both heading to Cuzco, Peru to see Machu Picchu and to do some jungle trekking.  I had already been there, years before, but I was a half a second away from abandoning my trip to Chile to keep our gang together a little longer.  Ultimately, I said so long, with vague and hopeful plans of meeting Josefien in Amsterdam, and Mike in Munich for Oktoberfest.  Sitting in the van on my way back to La Paz and a flight to Santiago, I couldn't help but feel that I had made the wrong decision.

We did it! I might lose some toes, but we did it!

And who knows what was waiting for me at the south end of Isla del Sol.  What would my trip have looked like without my two friends?  I would have hiked around, read my book, and met other people, and never have been the wiser.  Robert Frost very famously wrote about this phenomenon, and how way leads on to way, but there is something else this makes me think of even more: a very weird, very cool podcast I like to listen to called Welcome to Night Vale.  You should check it out, because it is nearly impossible to explain.  In one episode, the radio host is talking about nostalgia, and he points out that we don't actually feel nostalgia for the way things were, but rather for the way things weren't.  I could spend an eternity exploring all of the choices I didn't make.  Who the hell knows, maybe that's exactly what we do.  But not in this lifetime.  Here, we all just have to wonder how things might have gone differently, and to be both tortured and encouraged by the fact that all of it was our choice.  And to remember, of course, that there are many more choices to be made.

Coming soon: 

From Chile to Iceland

or 

Why the Hell Didn't I Choose Somewhere Warmer?