We spent nearly a month at altitudes between 3,500m and 4,000m (if you look up that's the equivalent of 2.2 to 2.5 miles into the sky!) but we never really acclimatised. It's so annoying feeling breathless when you're trying to sleep, not being able to enjoy big meals (unknown for a Duff :), finding it torture to climb any slope/hill and worst of all having the most horrendous hangover when you even sniff a beer!
The other thing you can't help but notice about Bolivia is that there is virtually no infrastructure - outside the capital, La Paz, we didn't see one bit of tarmacadam (well, that's not strictly true as we did see some in the distance near the Argentininian border but our bus wasn't allowed anywhere near it, we'll stick with being thrown about on the rocky/sandy bit of dirt track for now).
This extends to bridges - there isn't any. On the main road from Copacabana to La Paz we all had to disembark from the bus and jump on a rather choppy wee boat to get across the water, while our bus was loaded onto a rather ropy looking barge and floated across! Wouldn't it be better / cheaper / safer / easier for all if they built a bridge?
So not surprisingly then, Bolivia also has the reputation for having "the most dangerous road in the world", but to be honsest we thought all roads in Bolivia could be in with a shout for that title - they're all dodgy. On one road our bus twisted its way up the side of a mountain drove along the ridge at the top and then came back down again - all on dirt tracks! It was like going up a Munro on the Megabus :)
However, Bolivianos have come up with an ingenious way of keeping them and their cars/buses safe - car blessings!! Cars and their drivers come from all over Bolivia to the Catherdral in Copacabana (in one piece hopefully), are decorated with garlands of flowers and then wait in line for 2 hours for the Priest and the Holy Water to appear.
We watched this - it has to be one of the most bizzarre things we've seen! We're not knocking it, as anything is worth a try when you have seen some of the sheer drops these vehicles are trying to avoid - but baptising inanimate objects has to be a bit wacky?? (although when we were watching our bus float across the water we were hoping it had been blessed :)
Us and the bus did make it to La Paz though and its another unusual place! We don't know if you managed to see the Top Gear Christmas Special but they stopped off here - although Jeremy wasn't overly impressed as he said " it is the highest and worst city in the world".
We'll agree in that its probably the scruffiest city we've been to but we liked it for its quirkiness. For a start it has the most amazing backdrop - the whole city is built on the sides of a canyon, and unlike in the West where the best views command the highest price tags, here the lower down you are the wealthier you are! In fact if you live down in "Zona Sur" at 3,100m you're positively loaded by Bolivian standards but sadly if you're up at 4,000m in "El Alto" you're most likely living in extreme poverty along with another million people :(
But we weren't put off by Jeremy's scathing assessment of La Paz and watched the rest of their adventures in the Amazon, which was pretty handy for us as with it being the rainy season we didn't manage to make it there ourselves - but there's nothing wrong with a little bit of "armchair" travelling (we'll be doing a lot more of that before the end of the year!)
So what else did Bolivia have to offer? The Salt Plains! Wow! A dried up prehistoric lake now covered in salt which in places is up to 2 metres thick. It was sooooo flat and you drove for hoursssssss just surrounded by white. One of the last "wonders" we're going to see on this trip.
Talking of the white stuff, Bolivia is where we spent our first Christmas and New Year away from home. And who would have thought we'd be missing the worst winter in 20 years!! - we know you guys are totally sick of it now but it only made us feel more homesick. Maybe there'll be one last flurry at the end of February to welcome us home :)
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