Down to the warm lands, and then Adios, Bolivia!

Hello, and best of the season to everyone.

My departure from my temporary home of Sucre went smoothly, even tearlessly, and I enjoyed my last 10 days in Bolivia with quite a road trip. I've now cross the border now into Peru, where I'm planning to hit a couple of the worlds top hiking destinations in the last __ weeks before I come home.

My first stop was sleepy Samaipata, a laid back town with some cool ruins to check out. I got in early on the overnight bus, and got a little sleep. unfortunately I woke up to the first big rain of the season - kindof dampening my plans of wandering in the hills. The downpour really did complete my environmental culture shock - after nearly three months high and dry in Sucre, where cacti and sparse fungus constitute vegetation and rain fell about once a month, the switch to mid-altitude forest and seven hour rainstorms was a big one.

Lets just say I did a lot of reading.

I woke the second day to rain yet again (it's the rainy season now?) and again, my plans were foiled. The famous Inca ruin of El Fuerte was on the agenda, but being only accessible by a dirt road (which apparently turns to a muddy quicksand impassable for trucks) and too far to hike in, I had to give it a miss. I decided to loop back out of my way, to Vallegrande, on a Che Guevara pilgrimage.

Vallegrande is the spot where the revolutionary/global symbol met his end at the hands of an American-trained ulta-right-wing military unit. Well, they actually caught and killed him at La Higuera, a tiny, remote (inaccessible in the rain) community about 30 km from Vallegrande. I´ve read a book on his Bolivian mission, and a quick visit to the Che Museum was a good brush-up on the last few months of his life. After his execution, however, his body was brought to Vallegrande and displayed, proving to the world that he was finally gone. I paid a visit to the laundry room where the famous and haunting photos of Che dead with his eyes open were taken. This room (part of the hospital complex) is preserved as a memorial site, and is now covered in messages, written in sharpie pen and sometimes carved, from people all over the world who have been moved by Che in some way and have come to Vallegrande to pay him tribute.

The Laundry

Normally the idea of grafitti at a historic site would be weird, but in this case it works, and the effect is quite powerful.

After his Chewas displayed and photographed, his body, and the bodies of several of his comrades who were also executed dissapeared. Despite constant requests and inquires by the Cuban government and the Guevara family, the bodies remained hidden for 30 years. Then, in 1997, a now-elderly retired Bolivian army officer announced that the bodies were buried behind the small municpal airport. The remains were removed (Che's remains were taken to Santa Clara, Cuba, where they now rest), but the spot is still preserved as mausoleum. I paid this a visit, which proved a bit exciting as the tourism office which lends out the key was closed and the twelve-foot high cemetery fence needed to be climbed.

I spent a few days in Vallegrande, and when I wasn't visiting the Che sites, I went for a few little hikes in the hills - the area around Vallegrande is beautiful, and the rain had gone and the climate was beautiful.

The Vallegrande from a hilltop

Next I was back on the bus for a bit of a long tear. My time in Bolivia was quickly winding down, and I still had some things I wanted to do. Mainly, sweaty, buggy, muggy Amazon things. Starting on a Monday morning, I bussed through Santa Cruz (Bolivia's biggest city and stylish, hip metropolitan center - with my dirty clothes and dirtier hair I did not fit in, even on a six hour layover), and caught a night bus out to Trinidad, in the western Amazon. My original plan was to check out Trinidad for jungle boat trips or things of that nature, but with my time running short, I figured Bolivia's Amazonian capital, Rurrenabaque, would be a more likely place to tag on a tour. So, after stretching my legs after the 12 hour overnighter, I bought a ticket for Rurre (also 12 hours) for about 45 minutes later. After the Man vs Bus saga, unbelievably long bus-rides back to back barely phase me. The ride was actually kindof fun - Amazon rainforest and Pampas rolling by on either side, I saw really neat trees, capybaras (big swamp rodents), and about 37 million different kinds of birds. I arrived in Rurre, pretty beat, and after a shower was out like a light.

The next day I got up fairly early (it was about 30 degrees at 6:30), and went to sniff around for a jungle trip to hop on, probably for the next day. What I didn't realize however, was that because I was so early I had plenty of time to get on one that day - which is exactly what I did. An hour or so later I was on a little boat headed up the Beni River (a big tributary of the Amazon) and into the jungle!

Into the jungle!

The jungle tour was great. Boat ride all morning, then an all afternoon hike, then a night walk. The next morning (the night was spent mainly fearing bug-bite induced paralysis and things that went bump in the night) we went for another big hike, this time in the pouring rain, which cleared up in time for the boat ride. Eveything about the tour was great, the guide, a born and bred jungle man, was a wealth of knowledge, constantly stopping to show us everything from cures for rhumetism to natural mosquito repellent to hallucenigenic drugs. He even made a waterbottle holder from a fan palm frond, and whipped up some bright red war paint from a green leaf (of which there were billions).

Tarzan sighting!

A Jaguar Christmas dinner, 2007

Really neat above-ground roots

Home Tree?

Despite the humidty and the bugs, I really enjoyed my time out in the jungle, and wished I could have had a few more days here. Another huge highlight came on the boat-ride home, when we stopped in to see the Macaws - the famous blue and red jungle parrots.

Homes in the cliff, who'd have thought?

These birds are beautiful, but they make a constant racket that is about as pleasant as Yoko Ono B-side

It was really nice to take a quick loop down into the jungle. The heat and abundance of wildlife was a great way to break up my solo portion of this adventure, which has been mountain dominated. I definitely plan to get back to this point of the world at some point.

Orepedula nests doing their thing.

After a good long shower and a night in Rurrenabaque (which I spent catching up with some friends that Lisa and I made in Colombia, and happened to be in Rurre at the same time) I dove into my longest bus yet - 22 hours (all dirt road) up to La Paz. Even to a backside as accustomed to endurance busing as mine, this was a slog.

I managed to stumble through the 4000 meter high chaos that is La Paz, into a hotel, and straight for a nap. La Paz is one of the most interesting cities I've ever seen. Like many cities, it has a glitzy center with modern highrises and playcenters for the rich and famous, surrounded, after a not-so-wide buffer zone, by lower income neighbourhoods, and, eventually, slums. In most cities, when you're in the center, you're completely oblivious to the outskirts and what goes on there. La Paz is built in the center of a steep-walled canyons, so the slums literally climb the walls just oustide downtown, and are visible from absolutely everywhere in the city.

La Parada - the glam strip, with real La Paz in the distance

From the other side of the city (I hoofed it around pretty good in La Paz)

An interesting city to wander around in, La Paz is also the best place on the contintent for high-quality and decently priced textiles and handicrafts, so lets just say my present shopping is finito. After a few days, it was time (and I mean legally time, Canadians are issued 90 days a year, and I left on day 90 - which was fun with the border guys) to jump on the bus and say goodbye to Bolivia. It was hard to leave an amazing country after so long, Bolivia is one of my favourites, and I'll never forget the friends and experiences I've made and had here. Huge thanks to all my friends in Sucre - you guys rock and really were great to live with while on the road.

View from the bus heading towards the border, pretty fitting last view of Bolivia.

Across the border I got back into Puno, on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Known amongst backpackers as a bit of a hole - more a trading town with an industrial hustle, but an annoyingly aggressive tourism scene based around access to Titicaca, the worlds highest lake. A huge draw on the lake are the Uros, floating Islands made of reeds that have been inhabited for thousands of years. The word out is that these are pretty touristy, but I decided to visit them anyways due to some encouragement from my father (who visited them when he was in South America like 87 years ago or something) and from every Japanese person I've met on my trip. Among the Japanese these islands are of a legendary status almost unequaled.

The Uros people on their floating island.

It's really floating! Craziness.

A tiny garden and a traditional boat in the sunshine.

 The Uros people adopted their floating lifestyle over two thousand years ago, to distant themselves from more aggressive groups. This proved useful when the Inca invaded, and then again later with the conquistadores, and the Uros have managed to maintain some of their traditional culture and customs through the years.

Tourism is now a big threat, with mainland based agencies packing people in by the boatload. Despite wandering down to the harbour and buying a ride on a locals water-taxi, I still couldn't escape the tour groups, and it was all pretty overwhelming. All in all it was neat to see the islands, but also served as a blunt awakening to the tourism infrastructure and sheer volume of foreigners in Peru, which far surpasses those in Bolivia.

After another night in Puno I jumped on the bus north, to Cuzco, the former Inca capital and now a definite stop on every backpacker circuit. Here again the volume of tourists has overwhelmed me, as well as the range activities that don't really interest me: Cuzco is the unrivaled capital of the party trail, and the amount of North American-style restaurants, bars, and clubs here is staggering. To each their own.

I have managed to get a trek together though, so tomorrow I am off to the mountains for a few days. Choquequiroa is a (as of now) relatively unknown trek through high jungle and rough mountain ridges that culminates in impressive Inca ruins that supposedly rival their more famous neighbour, Macchu Pichu (which I plan to check out after this trek). So thats that, the first leg of the last leg of my trip. I am having a great adventure, and the thought in my heart that this leg ends at home is starting to feel good, and helping me appreciate every minute.


This blog hasn't been spell-checked, and I've still got some things to sort out for my trek, so it'll have to do in rough form.

Thanks for reading (this will be on of the last), as always,

Take care everyone!

Tor