Jana in front of witch market La Paz 2 La Paz
We arrived in Uyuni, which is a small desert city right at the beginning of the salt desert. This meant only 5 minutes of hot water each day, but after three days in the desert even this was heaven. We spend one night in a low budget hostel, together with the guys we did the tour with. Sergio, the Italian is so funny. We went out with him and the two English to have dinner. The English girl called Rebecca is a vegetarian, which is not such a good choice in Bolivia. So we asked the waiter if there would be anything vegetarian on the menu. She replied no, so Sergio went into the kitchen of the restaurant to show them how to cook something vegetarian. Hilarious.
On the next day we went from Uyuni to Potosi, which meant a 6 hour bus ride. It was the worst bus ride of our life. The entire trip was on dirtroad, with cliffs falling off at both sides. Our driver thought it would be the best idea to drive 100 km/h constantly and just honked his horn when we drove into a curve. There were almost constantly Llama or donkeys on the street, but that did not seem to bother our driver. He just kept his pace while honking his horn.
However we arrived in Potosi, alive. At a height of 4060 meters Potosi is the highest city in the world. Potosi is famous for its mines. It was once Latin Americas richest cities, because silver was found here. It s still rich in other minerals, but the people living here seem to be very sad. One reason for this could be the mine work. People working in the mines are paid very good. But the price is high. Mine workers do not get older than 50 years, because they die of pulmonary diseases. When they enter the mines they drink 98 percent alcohol and chew on coca leaves all the time, because they can not stand the hard work otherwise. The temperature in the mines varies between -1 and + 40 degrees depending how deep they work. It must be hell and the workers worship the devil, who they call tio. You can do trips into the mines if you like to, but we did not, because Jana did not like to see the poor men working there. We were constantly out of breath in Potosi, drank Mate de Coca all the time and had a good time with Sergio. Jana and I went to the aguas calientes to take a bath in almost 40 degree hot thermal water. We stayed for almost an hour and afterwards were kind of mentally degraded and soooo relaxed.
Jana, Sergio and I then went on to Sucre, capital of Bolivia. What a difference. Sucre is a colonial city with white colonial buildings, young people all around, nice weather. We met a group of Canadians and English guys. After playing drinking games we went to the city s famous Holland owned Pub/Restaurant/Discotheque. After lots of laughs and dancing we decided to go to another discotheque after the first one closed. So we were standing on the street asking the taxi drivers if we could enter with 15 persons, bargaining the price and so on. Finally we entered a taxi with 5 persons. Through the whole way to the next club Christiano, a half Italian half Scottish guy, was going nuts about our driver s nice hair. He gave him a head massage and trying to kiss him all way long. Poor driver, but we could nearly breathe, because we had to laugh so hard.We spend two days in Sucre, enjoyed the sun and good food.
Now we are in La Paz with 1.5 million inhabitants the biggest city of Bolivia. For the first time of our trip we stay in a hotel with three stars. Breakfast included we pay 10 euro for the night, so 5 euros each. Amazing, but true. Bolivia is so cheap, we had lunch today, including salad, soup, the main dish, a drink and dessert for 1 euro each. Even if you want to spend a lot of money you can t. Today we went to the coca museum. Tomorrow I will do a bicycle trip on the world s most dangerous road (for more information check out www.gravitybolivia.com) from La Paz to Coroico where we plan to spend two days. Jana will follow in a car, because she is so good in downhill mountain biking, that she would get bored on the way down. If I still live afterwards you ll see some nice pics. Then it s off to lake Titicaca and we are almost in Peru.
