Thursday, May 11, 2006

Bolivia once again...

Okay, so I have been doing a poor job of keeping this sight updated. But here is a breif rundown on the last few days.
We left Rio about a week ago, took a 21 hout bus to Campo Grande. From there we caught another can´t remember how long bus to Bonito. Bonito is a town that seems to live off tourism. They have a river that is very clear and has lots of fish to see. We opted for the cheap public swimming hole. We rented bikes and rode the 10km which turned out to be like 5km to the river. There we were going to rent snorkeling gear, but the water was pretty chilli and there apeared to be only on type of fish. The fish reminded me of carp at a dock, scavengers looking for anything you`ll throw their way. We tossed bits of cookies and other things and they gobbled them up. Then we layed pieces of cookie on the ledge of the steps and they got brave enough to stick their heads out to grab them. So I took a ritz cracker and held in my hand over the water, one fished aimed with his sofficticated underwater eyes at the cracker and ended up biting my finger. He has tons of little teeth that actually left a pretty good cut that bled for a while. That was about the extent of our adventure. We also ate aligator too.

We decided after talking with other tourists to skip the famous Pantanal tour. The animals seem to be in hiding this time of year. So we headed for Corumba on the border of Bolivia. There we had a military escorted visit of an old Fortress on the Rio Paraguai.
We crossed the border the next day.
There had been quite a lot of political issues going on in Bolivia, so we didn´t quite know what to expect. The border was open now so we crossed. The infamous ¨death train¨to Santa Cruz was shut down so we had to opt for the "Extreme death bus" to Santa Cruz. This bus ride was one to remember. We hoped on with a few other gringos and a lot of Bolivians, for a 20 ride. 95% of the way was dirt road. There were people standing, sitting, and laying down in the aisle. My legs are just too long for that kind of bus. As I became accustomed to the uncomfortable feeling the ride got easier to endure. I has a few feelings of panic in the beginning. You know when you feel like freaking out, but you just catch yourself in time to calm yourself down. Well needless to say we made it.
Santa Cruz is a town in the middle of Nowhere, Bolivia, that has had an enormous rise in population in the last few decades. Coincidentally the rise in cocaine sales from that area has risen also.
The town plaza (which every town in Latin America has, no matter how small or inaccesible the town is. Its always situated in front of the Cathedral) was one of the most modern and well layed out I have seen. I am continually jealous of the Bolivians and Peruvians because they have all sorts of Toyota trucks and Landcruisers that we can´t buy in the states.

After one days rest, a few good empanadas, and some great ice cream, it was back to life on the road.
From what we have heard, the bus companies here are refusing to pay taxes, so the bus terminals are all closed down, with military police guards. The Floatas (nice big busses) are not opperating, but there are people infront of the terminals selling tickets to where ever you want to go. So we took a bus to Cochabamba, 12 hours turned into 17 or so hours. In the middle of the night we had a traffic jamb. It seems as though they are doing construction on a mountain pass, but there is no one there to direct traffic. Picture a bunch on busses and big rigs driving up a hill on a narrow one lane road (thats only one lane at times, not one in each direction) and coming upon a bunch of the same sort of vehicles coming the other direction. ¿What do you do? Well I´ll tell you what they do here. They stop and honk, then honk some more, when that doesnt solve anything they just start squeezing by. Some how we made it. At times we were dead stopped for hours, but we made it. In Cochabamba we hopped directly onto a Micro bus to La Paz. After 24 hours of safe travel we made our way to a hostel with one of the nicest rooms we have had yet.
Now I am writing from an interbet place in La Paz. Erik and I have been looking for backpacking gear today. Although we have everything we need at home, we did not bring it with. The rainy season is over now, but that means its cold. We plan to do a 3 day trek called the Chorro Trek tomorrow or the next day. Then we are going to the Amazon basin to see all of the wonders it has to offer.
After that, its off to Peru to Macchu Picchu. We have not reserved a tour in advance because of the extreme cost, but we hope to do a longer back route trek that should be do able with out advance reservation.
I will update more as i can.
Chris

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