Walking the Inka trail, to the community Chaunaqua

When I came back to Sucre, I met my danish friend, Anne Sofie, who had started arranging a trek to Chaunaqua and the cráter of Maragua. The number of people wanting to go just kept growing, un til we were ten, and nervous if we`d have room in the trucks going and if we`d find shelter for all of us in that tiny community. I was overall positive, taking it easy after my first experience of being sick, the night before. In the end, people got spooked by tour agencies saying that it was so hard to find the way, and that three girls had gotten lost for three days, a week before. Only me and the danish girl were still set on going, yet we decided to only go to the community.


We got so many different messages about when the transport was going, that we were there at seven o clock, while they didn`t arrive until 9.30. We decided to grab a taxi some of the way, and got off one hour before Chataquila(90bolivianos in total), and started walking, reflecting, chewing coca, taking photos, and just enjoying a good day.

When we reached the top, storm clouds were thundering, but they were meeting a wall of strong wind, so they kept fighting against White clouds and sun.

The white side won, right until we were done exploring the community, and were ready to retire. We stayed in the hospital, with matrasses, blankets, toilets and a kitchen.

The toilets were provided by “Plan fadder”, which was really nice to see!

The older people there only speak qechua, besides a cute old woman running a little shop. Others speak spanish too. We met a nice man riding towards La Paz, that stopped to talk to us for twenty minutes about the village and Bolivia. He was looking at the community with a western view, from having been in the US; to him, it was poor and full of potential for tourism, so he wanted to make a hostel and bring people there to visit the nearby crater, salars and hot springs. Its a beautiful place, and we enjoyed its genuinity and being the only tourists there.
He also talked a lot about drugs, how 15 porcent of Bolivia did drugs, and how he thought chewing coca was also a drug. What surprised me, was that before mid desember, there had been a drought that had killed many of the animals there. Then it started to rain for two months. I guess my timing isn`t that bad after all.
We were laughing at the warnings we got on forehand, as the whole Inka trail is a road where the trucks and buses pass by with ease, and in the morning, when it was raining, we got on that bus for 10 bolivianos.



There was a big party going on in a village right outside of Sucre, that made all the hostels fill up. I had decided to go straight to La Paz instead. I got a bed ticket for 80 bolivianos, but the damn seat wouldn`t stay down, so it wasn`t the most comfortable night in my life. I`m back in the friendly Hostel Cactus, for another night, before going to Uyuni.

Coroico – La Paz - Sucre - Potosi

Fernando gave me quite a shock when he told me that he wished to buy Tornado. We talked a great deal about it, and I was to think about it as I went to Sucre and Potosi for a few days. That way, I could go straight to Uyuni, without a detour. It was also good to ride a bus for a bit, only for the realization that I don`t want to sell him. Talking to Victor about northern Argentina also confirmed this. I grinned by his comment on that I did better on bad roads than on paved, good ones, anyway.
Riding from Coroico to La Paz is beautiful; lots of green, turns and climbing. In the end, though, we were just too heavy to make it all the way up. He knew where to pick me up, so he told the bus driver to take me to the terminal, with all the stuff, where he picked me up after.




We then ate, arranged all the stuff, washed the bike, sunbathed, and went to play beach volleyball in the southern part. There`s a nice park there with an entrance fee of 3bolivianos. In the park, there were a whole bunch of Norwegian volunteers that we played with. It was a bit strange to return to being a gringo in La Paz after many days of no tourists and little towns. I was once again struck by how strange and fascinating La Paz it. It`s never boring to look at.
I also learned about the tsunami that had struck so terribly, and I want to send my best wishes to everyone involved.
The same evening, I got on that thirteen hour bus ride to Sucre, a city with a very good reputation. I like it. I`ve found a lot of nice places to spend my time; a lovely main park, a market with great juices(had 5 and a half glass of three different juices for breakfast with some other gringos, and a very good salteña), a nice tea place to read at night, etc. I`m staying at hostel Amigo, which is strange. They charge you to watch a movie in the tv room, so no one uses it.

I`ve done shopping, fixed my jacket, treated myself(or my hair) at a hairdresser, tried a good mondongo, read, seen the intense movie: black swan, in the cinema, and hung out with people in the hostel.
I found myself mentally tired and bored the second day. At first I tried to fight it, and talked to some others that shared the same problem. Later on, I realized that I was wrong to do so.
When you travel, you don`t allow yourself to be in a bad mood because you feel like you have no right to. You start to take things for granted as you`ve already seen so much, and thats when a lot of people start looking back too much and get homesick. Yet its only natural to have ups and downs, and though you might be down for a reason, sometimes its good to let yourself feel it a bit before you kill it with a change of scenery or activity. Maybe cry to a sad movie and let a lot of pressure go. Very often you also need to exercise or to be productive.
Travelling can be a very superficial experience, where you only search for highs and pleasure. Sometimes what you need is actually pain, to remind you how good life is. Thats one of the good things about some treks and riding. Sometimes you need to take in the unfortunes of the people you see. Still, I don`t go around feeling sorry for everyone. I`m not that big of an idiot. That woman selling gums on the street corner could be the happiest woman I`ve ever seen.
The bad mood passed after watching the sunset from the mirador, overlooking the city and surrounding mountaintops. Later on, I went with an irish woman to see a fountain-light show in the main park, which was peaceful beneath the stars, yet they enjoyed playing everything from japanese, classical and dance music to it.






The next morning, I had some of the crappy breakfast, read in the strong sun and went with a danish friend to rent bicycles. You can`t, without a guide, so I decided to go to Potosi for a daytrip, after all. The bus ride was said to be amazing, and it was! 14 kr for the 3-4 hours by bus and 30-40 by taxi. Definatly recommending the taxi, as its faster and gives you the opportunity of stopping to take photos.
I booked a mine tour through "the real deal" and met some germans who brought me to this really nice hostel: koala den; 35 bolivianos pr night w (free) tv and Great movies, good breakfast, hot showers and free internet. Also very nice people.
The next morning, I did the Potosi mine tour. I wrote a long entry about Potosi and the mines, but its disappeared somehow.
Potosi would`ve been a rich city if they had been able to keep their silver-wealth. Instead, the mines are almost empty and Potosi is poor, without other income than the scarce silver and tourism. They will keep the mines open for as long as they can.
8 million people have died in those mines; many, african slaves. Families have and still work together. Boys from 13 to 65 work there now. Things are different: they chose how much they want to work and earn more than waitresses, f.inst.
There is no bathroom in there, and they never eat in the mines, no matter how many hours they work in that dust. They only chew coca leaves on the job, which is one of the gifts we as tourists bring, as well as dynamite, which you can buy in a normal shop.







Last photo is of the road between Potosi and Sucre. Worth a look.

The journey to the Amazon

Day 1:

We left the hostel at 7am, and I drove for the first half, where there was a lot of descending and 70% paved roads. Eventually, he told me, he began to relax as he saw that I was a “very good driver”. Yay. I let him drive for the intense offroad, though. They say the road up north there is worse than the tourist attraction: the worlds most dangerous road, and they were right! The roads could barely fit a car, so you had to honk before every turn to let them know you`re coming. From there, it went straight down, faar, far. Many areas are made up of mud and puddles, and you pass by a lot of landslides. Some places, rocks were still falling. One massive rock fell off a truck, and landed one meter from us.


Day one:

We drove for quite some time, and it had become hot, so we went for a swim in the Amazon river. – Amazing! But then we encountered trouble: a long line of trucks and cars lined up towards where a landslide had destroyed the road, and they had apparently been rebuilding the dirt road for already a day, and wouldn’t finish until night time. We were told that one could drive a smaller road up the hills, so Fernando went for it, while I crossed over by foot and walked to where he was supposed to come down. Unfortunately, it didn`t work, so we went back to the nearest town to spend the night. While I was waiting around for him, I met some guys who were going to join the navy. I didn`t know Bolivia had a navy, as they don’t have any ocean line, since Chile took the northern part of Atacama, but they still practice in places like Lake Titicaca.
Driving here is intense and beautiful. Quite the adventure! It often smells like Colombia, which makes me all nostalgic, though Bolivia is wonderful, too. We could hardly see anything on the way back to town; there was so much dust that you had to honk extra. We were also all covered in dirt and mud, so after washing ourselves, we gave Tornado a wash in the river. He`s now getting a new front light.

Day 2: We visited Rurrenabaque, which was an hour away. Its packed with tourists.
As for the Ayahuasca ceremony, I`ll have to hunt it down sometime, somewhere in the future. In Rurrenabaque, they don`t do it right. In Iquitos they do. In Rurrenabaque, you get a weak potion from a shaman thats from
La Paz. Some locals told me that you had to live with the shamans for months before they`d give you it, or you could go to where they grow it and ask around a lot. I was, mildly spoken, bummed.




We struggled a bit with the lack of gasoline. Another motorcyclist had to push with one foot, while driving, so that we could get to Rurre, to buy some overprices gasoline from a water bottle. Gasoline just wasn`t reaching Rurre.
We then cooled down again in the river, before dinner and reading a bit. I`m now reading "Zen and the motorcycle maintenance".




Day 3: And so it rained

To expect rain in the rainforest, in the rainy season, is not exactly crazy. There was nothing to do when it first began. I was tired, so sleeping the whole morning in the family hammock was way okay for me. Later
in the day, we explored the nearby area and gathered guava fruits and some other fruit, I can`t remember the name of. Before sunset, we played football with the locals, with a big handball. In between that, the family, as always, fed me with way too much food, so that I had to relax and write some. I`ve been writing about people this time, only its not for publishing. Just for me. It was nice to recall.









The food bit makes me feel a bit bad. It`s been a while since I`ve had to deal with politeness, and when we went to a family birthday party at their friend`s place, they fed us even more. Chancho, the meat is called.
White and delicious. The house was packed, and some people couldn`t sit. There was a loud buzzing of a motor, as that was running to keep us entertained with electric light! All in all, a very good day in the little town called El Horisonte, with the family of El Chaco.


Day 4: Entering the jungle

Right now, you can`t do tours on the rivers, where one normally does them, as the rivers are too fisty. Most tourists say that the problem about the Amazon in Rurrenabaque, is that its too touristy. With a local tour guide that hadn`t done a tour in a whole year, far from where the others were doing it, I didn`t have that problem.
He actually owns a great part of it, saving it for later, when it holds greater value. We spent the nights in the shelter of a roof, though we did buy a tent for the mosquitos. They didn`t sting me much, but God, they are annoying!
The reason we couldn`t go yesterday, was that rain makes the rivers too tall for crossing, and we had to cross two of them. We went early, as it does get really hot in the day. It did. There`s a lot of mud and dead trees
right now, and our guide, El Chaco and his budd, were very upset by this. Both kept saying over and over that I Had to come back in the dry season, and that its just so much more beautiful. I still did find it beautiful, though.










Its a bit like the jungle in northern Colombia, only that you`ll find much more interesting animals and fruits, for instance. I discovered one of the best fruits I`ve tasted. Chocolate! Not kidding, chocolate! Surrounding the seed
used to make chocolate, is a wonderful and sour fruit that resembles passion fruit. I just discovered this fruit(or was handed), right before we encountered a big tarantula. Just standing there, really.
I enjoyed the four hour walk with machetes, but got tired of mosquitos in the end, and was glad to get a fire going. The guides wanted us to rest, so they left us to search for prey, while we constructed a bench and found
trees to climb and swing in. I read as they came back, while Fernando was cooking. I keep letting the men do the cooking. What a terrible lady I am.



Day 5: Jungle trekking

The walk today was much prettier, though tiring. Like the locals, I`m chewing a great deal of coca leaves; just got the hang of it! This gives you energy and a lot of nutricion. Thats why the two of them chew so much: they
work with timber. I gave away my ibux and panolin, as he said they made wonders for his back problems. They were just as wonderful as lime. Lime is amazing. Lime cures everything. Sugar is bad, but with lime its all good.
"no pasa nada".





In that photo, I`m drinking very healthy water from a tree.

We were walking slowly, creeping up on monkeys a lot. They`re fast little buggers, but we got to see a great deal of them from afar. As we were walking, El Choco suddenly throws himself back at me, in fear, hoing a word I didn`t
understand. Apparently, there was a big snake. The other guide killed it with a machete(photo), and we could see a frog just standing a few inches from where it had been, possibly in shock and bliss that we had just saved its life.
Close one!





As for other animals, we found a massive turtle that Fernando brought with. It didn`t occur to me that we`d be eating it for dinner and breakfast. It was actually really good! Poor people eat a lot of it. One shouldn`t eat too much.
After a nap on a plastic carpet, we were going to go hunting for Chancho, but they got away. That just reminded me that I forgot to try their rifles! Damn...

Day 6: The return

It seems like a short trip to visit the Amazon, but it didn`t bother me, really. We`re still in the jungle, in some way. Just not squeezed in between trees and mosquitos. Its still beautiful and warm.
We woke up to rain again, thinking; nooo. But the rain passed, and after some turtle pasta, we were off again. As we started out a bit late, it got Hot! Then a powerful wind started to tear at the treetops, so that trees were falling, and the rain was on again. It wasn`t cold, and I didn`t mind the shower, so I walked without poncho. It reminded me of good old, rainy days, playing football, for some odd reason. Luckily, we could still cross the rivers.





The family had cleaned all my clothes and shoes. Most of them got dirty again the same day, but the effort was delightful. We said goodbye, and head off an hour later. We didn`t make it all the way, as the roads were awful, but it
was so beautiful in the hours before sunset, that I was thrilled to be on the back, taking photos. There were a lot of kids with waterballoons on the sides of the road, but we avoided them, luckily. Its carneval season in Bolivia, and in Oruro, especially, madness rules. Fernando said that yesterday, all bolivans were wasted. In that little town, some women with colorful, big skirts, were dancing in the streets to terrible orchestra music. Other than that, people decorate their vehiculos. I was considering to decorate Tornado a bit.

Day 7: San Borja

We drove one hour to San Borja, which is a quite large town. We found a nice hotel and head off to swim in a little lake. There was a very nice little area with a flat, wooden boat, that I sunbathed in, while Fernando was manoovering. He was too much of a chicken too swim in the waters, even though the family living there, said it was fine. We just got back, and the rain is pouring. We, who were going to see some local tribes living without shoes!
This town loves karaoke, so I have a feeling we might fall for that trap, tonight. After some spare parts shopping today, we`re off to Coroico, tomorrow.


Day 8: My ass!

Sore. So sore!
We drove off at 7.15 with fresh gasoline and an extra waterbottle full, just in case. For a few days, we couldn`t get hold of gasoline from the stations, as the trucks didn`t make it cross the bad roads. The scenery was still great, yet cloudy, for the most part, but it was hard to always enjoy it with that sore butt, from in total, ten hours of humpty dumpty roads. It was really, really bad somewhere, and I had to get off to walk a few times. Reaching Caranavi to have lunch, swim in the river, and sunbathe, was amazing. After that, we were off for another two and a half hours to Coroico, which is a stunning little town on a mountainridge, surrounded by many other green, lovely mountains, and a river below. I`m quite swoomed, and wouldn`t mind staying here, really. But the whole morning tomorrow will have to do. I`m considering catching a night bus to Sucre(roads are said to be terrible) and then later to Potosi, before returning to La Paz. I think its a good idea to go straight to Uyuni from La Paz, avoiding that detour. Buses are cheap as hell anyways.

02.03.11 A new travel buddy

Change of plans, again. After jobhunting online, Fernando came along, and we went for a ride. He first took me to his favorite sandwich place, where you can also play beach volley. We will!
Then he told me that we could go to the Amazon tomorrow morning, and we are. I let him get aquainted with Tornado, and he showed me all of La Paz and Valle de Luna. When we continued on to a beautiful lake in a quiet village, the rain started pouring, so we had to find shelter and eat cookies for an hour.
As Tornado still has too little force, we took him to the mechanic, but they said it will pass as we descend.
Later, I still had some shopping to do, and we trotted along to finish the search for rainpants and a memory stick. I'm a bit tired of speaking spanish all day, as he doesn't speak a word of english, but I`ll get used to it. Kinda have to.
We're not going to Rurrenabaque, where the rivers are all flooded, but an hour away, where its not supposed to be that bad. But yeah, I wont be able to post pictures for a while.