Friday, August 6, 2010

This is Earth?

Salar de Uyuni (the great salt desert of Bolivia) is like no place I could ever have imagined.

This fairly thin crust of salt sits above a salt water lake that is up to 20 meters deep. You can turn around in a circle and only see blue skies and white salt for miles and miles, but the desert is also home to islands (with 1000-yr old cactii), fresh water lagoons and beautiful jade flamingos.







La Paz

La Paz is a city of only 1.2 million people (can you tell I'm a New Yorker?), but its neighborhoods are sprawled across a long stretch of mountain cliffs. It turned out to be a much different city than Dixie and I had anticipated: larger and more modern. And while traces of it's colonial past remain, it is only one of La Paz's many flavors.



Unfortunately, we've lost 2 half-days in La Paz because I was sick when we first got here and then our return from Salar de Uyuni was delayed by a day due to a strike (resulting in a 14 hour bus ride that I really don't want to relive or recount). Nonetheless, our visit was well-timed: we arrived the day of University Folkloric Parade and during Bolivia's Independence Day celebrations.



Thursday, August 5, 2010

Lake Titicaca and its Islands

Lake Titicaca spans the border between Peru and Bolivia and is "the world's highest navigable lake". But despite the rather specific title, this large, deep blue, beautiful natural wonder doesn't need to be stretching for it's accolades.

From Puno, a town of about 180,000 people, we set off by boat to visit three of the lake's islands and Copacabana (our first stop in Bolivia).

Our first destination was Uros, a collection of man-made islands that float on the water's surface. They're made primarily by chaining together mounds of the reed grass that grow in the lake, and then piling on layers of dried reed until the island is sturdy enough to support 10-20 families, their homes (made out of reed), and their meeting areas. The lavatories sit on separate islands, which serves as a good incentive for young lads and lasses from Uros to learn to row fast (on reed boats, of course). Uros sounds like an idyllic paradise, but the altitude and the lake bring rather cold, unparadise-like temperatures.

Our next stop was Tacquille, a much larger island with great scenery and a community whose men knit their own hats. These hats carry a special significance, as married men wear hats with a different color scheme than their single counterparts, and a prospective groom must make a hat with a tight enough knit that it can hold water to win his would-be father-in-law's approval.

The next day, we crossed the (entirely unprotected) border into Bolivia. We headed first to Copacabana, a pretty little town whose claim to fame is a cathedral that houses a statue of a dark-skinned Virgin Mary. Peruvians and Bolivians alike make pilgrimages from far away to pay homage to the Madonna.
From Copacabana, we caught another boat to visit Isla del Sol (Sun Island), the purported origin of the Inca culture. The island houses a small garden of native plants, a museum of Incan and pre-Incan artifacts found on the island, and a shaman who performed a short Aymara ritual blessing for us.

From Isla del Sol, we could see the Bolivian Andes on the far shore. Even though we were at 4000m ourselves, those peaks (especially Illampu at 6000+ meters) towered above us.

When we landed on shore around sunset, we took a bus to La Paz, the jumping off point for the final sights of our trip: the pre-Incan ruins of Tiwanaku, and the great salt dessert of Uyuni.

We arrived in La Paz just in time to catch the end of one of their biggest folkloric (carmivale-like) parades, put on by the university students.

Machu Picchu

After leaving Manu, we had a brief stop in Cusco, which allowed us to get through the worst of some stomach problems that had flared up the morning we left Manu. Fortunately, the desire to be in prime condition to see Machu Picchu overpowered any competing interest to see more of Cusco that day. So we rested.

Early the next day, we took the train to Aguas Calientes, the small tourist trap that everyone visiting Machu Picchu passes through at some point. We arrived just before noon, met our English-speaking guide, and headed straight for the site. We had to: we only had the afternoon to spend at MP because we hadn't been able to get seats on a late enough train the next day to have time to return to MP. That meant no chance of catching sunrise at MP or hiking, Wainya Picchu, the small peak that rises above the site. Truthfully, both of us were a bit relieved to be dropping the idea of waking up at 3am to wait in line for the first buses to Machu Picchu. Instead, we tried to be the last to leave MP in the afternoon, snapping some pictures as the sun set.

Machu Picchu is probably the best documented of the sights we've seen, so there's not much for us to add. We had a fairly typical experience, though I did lead Dixie on a rather meaningless 40 minute hike because I "can't read simple maps very well" (Dixie, consider this my penance).

I will say, though, that despite the hype surrounding Machu Picchu and the climax of our trip in Manu, Machu Picchu did not disappoint. Hopefully the pictures won't either.