Copacabana and Lake Titicaca

Copacabana and Lake Titicaca, Northern Bolivia (border with Peru)
12-13th June (just the Tues night!)

The travelling with a travel companion begins! Copacabana is the main town on the shores of Lake Titicaca and feels like it's only purpose is to house, feed and tour to the brim all the backpackers who stroll through on their way to/from Peru. Isla del Sol and Isla de la Luna are the sacred Inca islands in the southern end of the highest lake in the world. An early bus to Copacabana, and a top tip from a pal in La Paz to leave our big backpacks in storage overnight, made sure we had time to catch the 1.30pm bus to the south end of Isla del Sol. We completely underestimated the length of time it took to walk from the South end to the North but after a 4.5 hour hilly and sometimes quite steep walk through the middle of the island we made it to the north to see the Inca ruins, had some Jalapeno pringles whilst watching the sunset and had a 40 minute walk in the dark to the nearest village to go knocking on doors for 'dos camas por favour senorita!' The next morning we had to make the trip back down South, a 3 hour walk along the coast to get the boat back to Copacabana. We will never know if the man in the North lied to us about the tourist boat not running because from some points on our return walk we saw plenty of boats making the northerly trip. A quick shared pizza in a delicious Mexican restaurant and we legged it for the overnight bus to Cusco. First border crossing for Seanie!

SEANIE ON TITICACA: (150 Words Max)
We get into copacabana and realise its not really everything that barry manilow's song had promised. so we hopped the first boat out to isla del sol, thinking it'd be a nice easy stroll in the sun and we'd make it back in time to get the bus out of the place to puno for the floating islands. About, 2 minutes up the set of steps (which resembled a sheer rockface to my mind, laziness gets the better of me again) that lead you up to the first town we figured it was time to abandon that idea. Anyway we wandered in on this festival which we figured was just to celebrate our achievement of conquering the steps, apparently not seeing as had been going of for about a week and was due to continue for another week or two after.. typical south america they'll make a month long party out of anything! I think it was actually celebrating the discovery of pizza on the island... can't be sure tho, don't have the best spanish. So we walked for ages saw a nice inca ruin, ate some skittles, pringles and freddos while watching the sunset. All the rest is a tad mundane so I'll spare you the details. The end.

What's this? A little festival? We thought we were so lucky to have stumbled across this, little did we know they carried on all week. Probably all month - Peruvians love to party!

Sunday best!

It's not so obvious here, but these ladies have quite large bottoms.

Little baby sleeps through it all!

Before the procession entered I thought this crowd was a lot!

Jive time!

Enter marching band with dancing ladies - watch yo'self, shake yo ass, show me what you got!

Captive audience.

No roads on this island, this is the widest of the paths you'll see.. further down will be a series of rocks to clamber over and some steep steps. G'wan Donkey!

Token 'I'll walk ahead' photo. Check out the seriously impressive farming terraces that completely cover the island.
Fair play.

Some spot.

Hitting the north of the island, well over half way.

It's an Inuksuk! 

By chance we got the colours of the Bolivian flag in the palms of our hands whilst eating skittles, so we offered them to the Sun. Seemed like the appropriate thing to do on the Island of the Sun.

Inca ruins seems just like anything you'd find out West in Connemara.

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#1 FREDDO

La Paz, Bolivia

La Paz, Bolivia
June 7th - 12th (Thur-Tue)


My first proper cama night bus (fully 180 degree reclining seats, most of the time you pay for this but never get it!) from Sucre to La Paz was almost crowned the best bus journey of South America until we arrived and my luggage wasn't to be found from under the hood. An hour and a half later and some help from two Swiss girls whose luggage was also lost, and our stuff was found in the luggage compartment of another bus parked up in a petrol station fifteen minutes away from the bus terminal.. phew! No harm in the delay however as I arrived into the infamous Wild Rover hostel in La Paz before Sean anyways, his last flight from Miami had been delayed by three hours. Sean brought out some invaluable items in his luggage, but of course his bags were lost too! Two days later I received my beautiful new camera lens, 8 Freddo Caramels and 2 packs of white chocolate buttons.. delighted is an understatement!

Our time in La Paz was spent relatively quietly.. NATTT! Day 1 included a full exploration of the city, getting caught in some form of riot and a walk to San Pedro prison where the prisoners live in luxury and control the countries production of cocaine. 'Seanie, what's that noise.. is that.. gun shots?!' Day 2 was spent cycling full suspension mountain bikes for 4 hours down (really down as in from 4650m to1200m) the notorious Death Road for 60 odd kms. Some of Death Road's facts and figures for 2012 include a Japanese tourist who died whilst doing the deathly combo of cycling and taking a photo (..!) and a high school football team whose bus driver fell asleep at the wheel. I survived, of course, but the pain in my arms from all the rock and rubble abuse lasted for 2 days! Day 3 was spent hungover, lounging around the hostel amongst the other walking dead and watching the boys 'learn' moves from an Israeli Special Forces assassin (fact, not fiction). Day 4 will be known as 'The Day of the Irish Game', very well spent considering we were in the most famous Irish hostel in all of South America. Day 5 was spent dragging Seanie to the brilliantly cheap Witches Market where I finally bought my alpaca Christmas jumper, Seanie an Aran sweater and we had an early night before setting off for Copacabana and Lake Titicaca on Day 6.

'You couldn't blame them for thinking that the world revolved around them!'
- Sean on La Paz's geographical position in the center of a massive crater.

Building blocks? No, just houses with windows really far away.

View into the valley where we started the Death Road trip.

La Paz was great fun because it was the reunion/meeting point for all my travelling buddies who I'd met along the way, from Buenos Aires, Salta, Sucre and of course the Salt Flat crew! Sean and I also made a good few new friends who we will hopefully meet again as we go North. Sean also made besties with Ed, bromance numero uno. 'We can meet up in Newcastle!!' - token words said to most new pals.

SEANIE ON LA PAZ: (150 Words Max)
La Paz was an experience to say the least. I eventually realised my body's breaking point, not actually as satisfying an experience as you might imagine... managed to make it through the death road, in shorts and tshirt (which is an achievement seeing as the place is colder than an eskimo's .... nose) cos my bag could keep up with me through the 30 or so hours from barca to la paz. then it was just one massive blur fuelled by free shots from the bar and my boarderline obnoxious happiness to not be working 60 hour weeks. To summise, la paz has taught me: "you'll never beat the Irish!" (even if we do lose 3-1 to croatia), sometimes its better to just say no and of course I'm a trooper and I can make it through anything!

Southern Bolivia

Uyuni (1 night), Potosi (2 nights), Sucre (8 nights)
24th May - 12th June

So somehow I spent three weeks in Bolivia, I didn't realise how much there was to do there and the fact that Argentina and Brazil put me over budget meant that it was time to move on quickly out of Chile and save some dough by chillin' in Bolivia... as oppose to Chilean.

I was quite scared to take out my camera in Southern Bolivia, and in all of Bolivia generally because of all the stories I'd heard about muggings and backpacks being cut off of people's backs! Sian, Grace, Chris and Jonny and I arrived in Uyuni dead after the Salt Flat tour so instead of moving on as quickly as possible, which most people do we stayed the night and ate in a fantastic Lonely Planet recommended American pizza place. The group split up with the girls and Chris heading further south while Jonny and I moved onto the eastern city of Potosi.

Potosi has been a mining town since the 14th century, and for a long time had a greater population than New York or London. Along with Bolivia's other largest industry (cocoa farming), it is one that most people have vary little choice as to whether they go into it or not. On our trip into the mine we spotted a few potential 16 year olds, nothing younger despite hearing reports from other groups. The legal age limit is 18, and once you start working your life expectancy is vastly reduced. It is extremely rare to hear of miners who have worked in there for more than 25. At one point we met a miner who had worked in the mines for 26 years.. he had one collapsed lung and serious serious scars from the front of chest all around to his back, he breathed out of a hole in his neck and was missing an eye. Not for the faint hearted. I found the entire experience thrilling, I loved crawling like a soldier through all the narrow tunnels and clambering down meters and meters of uneven rocks and elements. 'Watch out/Don't look up because you'll get X in your eyes!' X being a number of outrageous fresh elements powerful to burn out your eyes! Be grand, I say! Such a shame that Jonny lost all the photos on his camera because he took some great pics that day :(

After the mine tour we shared a taxi with some pals to Sucre, the 2.5 hour trip cost us €4 each. Sucre was the surprise of Bolivia for me, a delightful whitewash 'constitutional capital'. It was easy to notch up 8 nights here when every day consisted of waking up, eating some cornflakes and banana for breakfast before making my way to 3 hours of spanish classes. Coming back for a quick sandwich in our delightful three story hostel with a terribly sociable rooftop terrace run by the OCD workhorse Mike the German Mathematician. Mad man, horrific jokes. Once everyone had made their lunch and come back from the various Spanish schools a big group of us would make the steep walk up to the city's viewpoint and pan out in the sun, all working on Spanish homework whilst sipping fresh fruit juices until the sun went down. Dinner was either a group family meal with fresh market produce (€3 each MAX) or else out in one of Lonely Planet's recommended top spots (including drinks total=€10 each MAX). So hard to leave.

Salt Flat Tour

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia
24-26th May (Thur-Sat)


On Thursday morning Jonathan, Chris, Sian, Grace and myself set off from San Pedro de Atacama, Chile on our Salt Flat tour, ultimate destination being Uyuni, Bolivia. We had shopped around and were able to get a discount because there were so many of us as we'd be able to fill a jeep ourselves. Even though this is how it was promised to us, inevitably it wasn't to be so when we got to the Bolivian border. The legal capacity of the jeeps is six, but we had seven. Immediately we had all made up our minds to write terrible reviews of the tour company on the Lonely Planet forum but in the end despite being terribly cramped for the 3 days we were overall happy with our trip! It was bloody freezing most the time but an absolutely unforgettable experience, best described by the following photos.

Day 1. Casual volcanic activity.

Day 1. I <3 Sulphur

Day 1. Day of lagoons; red lagoon and first flamingo sightings.

Day 2. Early sunrise at our truly terribly hostel.

Day 2. The morning after the worst night sleep in the world. 5 of us spooned in those 2 beds at the end,  we stole blankets from the empty room next door so one bed at 18 blankets and the other 16 or so. To bed I wore 3 pairs of leggings, two thermal tops, a thermal jumper thing, two hoodies, a scarf, gloves and a hat. It was miserable.

Day 2. Random rock collection in the desert.

Day 2. Dali rock tree

Day 2. Frozen lagoon with more flamingos.

Day 2. Lagoon number 7 with flamingo number 2,000.

Day 2. Fiat tractor in a tiny village whose economic activity was based on quinoa and llama.

Day 2. VW hippy van.

Day 2. Dinner on the line at our salt hostel.

Day 2. Tea time with the team in our salt hostel, which was in the absolute middle of nowhere.

Day 3. After a good night sleep we woke up to catch sunrise over the salt flats. This was the view  from the salt flat hostel while I was brushing my teeth outside, using bottle water.

Day 3. Baby blue sun rise!

Day 3. Hello llama!

Day 3. Salar de Uyuni - 170 km x 30 km

Day 3. Ninja time!

Day 3. Hello dinosaur!

Day 3. Uyuni, at least this kid had something to there.

Day 3. Train from Uyuni goes once a week.

Day 3. Train wreck, with an ode to dubstep.

Day 3. Train wrecks.

Day 3. Doggy in Uyuni, thought at the time it was unique to find him lazing about like this but I'm now aware that Bolivia is full of dogs like no country I've ever seen before. Ever.