Bolivia - La Paz and Tiwanaku 26th -28th January 2011

At 3640m La Paz is the highest capital city in the world, and just above on the valley rim is the highest commercial airport in the world at 4058m, El Alto...

La Paz a crowded polluted city of...

narrow Streets....

Open Plazas....

Where...

traditional meets modern...

...in everysense...

Despite the dense traffic, the crowds of people, the fumes from traffic congestion this feels like a friendly open place, yes its a little worn, yes it needs money to modernise, but it still has a charm of its very own.

About 90 kms outside of La Paz, on the cooler Altiplano is a site of great archaeological signinficance, Tiwanku...never heard of it we hear you say. Well it was the predecessor to the Inca empire and emerged about the same time as the pyramids were being built 40 centuries ago (about 2000 BC, before you get the calculators out).. These people evolved into a complex culture and built a city to support between 20000 - 50000 people, this is Tiwanaku.

The reason you may never heard of it is because everything in S.A. is focussed on the Incas, and  Bolivia is so poor that little money is available for excavating, or promoting it. There is reconnstruction work going on but progress is slow.

we took a tour bus...

...not as slow or unmanoueverable as our driver proved to us...

 to Tiwanaku..

Corner of the reconstructed Akapana Pyramid, has the same dimensions as the Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt...

...Section of the outer wall of the Kalassasaya...the big stones are about 3m high.

Not going to win any beauty prizes, but this is an important stela..

.

Detail of "writing" from the above stela..what does it say? nobody knows...

...the Tiwanakan equivalent of a loud hailer...the hole has been shaped like the human ear canal and can amplify the voice...

...close up of said ear hole....

...the Ponce monolith....found by Mr Ponce...

.The Gateway to The Sun... carved from a single block of andeasite, weighs 40 tons...

one of the four walls of "heads" in the sunken temple...

..detail of the precise stone carving on a section of stone from Puma Punku...

this sandstone block a temple platform weighs an estimated 135 tonnes...

The builders of these monuments used only two types of stone, sandstone which is local, and andeasite (like granite) that had to be shipped across Lake Titiqaqa from 100kms away.

They also created a network of raised beds surrounded closely by wide canals of water. the water acted as a solar heat store during the day which kept any crops grown in the beds warm at night. Recent studies have shown that the temperature of these types of beds is upto 8 degrees warmer than that of the open ground. This is a significant benefit especially when growing food at 4100m where night time temperatures drop to zero and with the chill factor on te Altiplano taking that even lower.

The site at Tiwanaku was robbed by many people and the Spanish conquistadors were the last in a long line. Much of the original stone work has been used in buildings in the local town and taken for the railway .

The excavated site is small but the stonework is impressive not only in its scale but also int the precision of its carving and use of metal clamps to tie blocks together.

The people left no written record and only the pottery and stoneowrk remains to create a story, a story that predates the Inca by several hundred years.

Interested in more take a look at Tiwanaku

Next stop Sucre, but we need an overnight bus, what could possibly happen next.........

Bolivia - Copacabana to La Paz 26th January 2011

Look out blog followers we are nearly up to date!!

We'd heard many stories about Bolivia, and most in general bemoaned its rough edges and lack of service culture, but these seemed to be unfair comparisons with other "westernised" countries in S.A. We thought the best place to find out would be La Paz. But to get there we had a journey.

Our transport was a little 30 seater coach, very modern with air con and reclining seats...nice.

...looking back and saying goodbye to Copacabana...

Sorry to go on about this but the scenery out of Copacabana was stunning (tried looking for a different adjective sorry, but try this next description and you'll get the picture).

If you have ever driven up the M6, just south of Penrith, there is a range of mountains called the Howgills. In early morning or late even sunshine these hills look to be made of velvet, soft and undulating and changing the character of the light as it strikes them.

ahh........gentle sleeping giants

However lets get away from the misty eyed view and get back to reality. The main road to the capital is only two way so there is a lot of....

...overtaking involved..sometimes on clear streches....

...sometimes on not so clear stretches...

We also had a ferry crossing at Tiquana...

The coach went on a barge, powered by a 40HP outboard ( again quite slow)...

Whilst we the passengers caught the latest in equally slow speed aqua technology...

...here we are appropriately packed into our little boat of paper thin wood,  like sardines....

Oh lucky on this day tey weren't using the inappropriately named...

...our bus just being reversed into dock with the barge equivalent of a Jonah in the foreground...

Anyway we made it safely across just in time to catch...

...the latest in online banking...

Yep there were two fold up tables in the back of this van with two bank clerks, you can just see to the two armed guards. the satellite dish uplinks the transactions direct to the central bank; neat huh! Suddenly Bolivia is looking a little more advanced than we thought.

So we drove a bit more...

saw a few more trucks...

and eventually came to the worlds highest capital....

...Nuestra Senora de La Paz...to give it the full title...

Try this link La Paz if you want to know a bit more.

Bolivia - Puno to Copacabana 24th - 26th January 2011...

Hurray another stamp in the passport, but not until we have gone through the immigration process in Peru and then Bolivia (40 minutes of queuing here and there).

It was quite easy. The transition from Peru to Bolivia was not as dramatic, both countries border Lago Titiqaqa, both have quechua and Aymara speakers,both have rural economies and they are both at the same altitude.

Once across the border its only 8 kilometers to Copacabana, where you have to pay 1 bolviano to get into town.

There are inca ruins here and Pre Inca, but this place is more famous once the spanish arrive. The town has an impressive....

...Basilica, which houses "Our lady of Copacabana" one of several virgen morenos worshipped throughout S.A.

The Basilica is built over the site of an Incan fertility temple!!!!!

The locals also have their vehicles blessed at the Basilica, and promptly have a drink to celebrate, before driving off under the protection of god...

Trucks and flowers,...you've got to keep up Eddie Stobbart....

....and cars alike are dressed with flowers, blessed by the priest and driven off by the owners..

Oh and not to be outdone by Puno......

...they also have pedallos here too....

Nearby (well 2.5 hrs away by the slowest boat imaginable) is the mythical birthplace of the Inca royal line, La Isla Del Sol, which we decided to pay a visit to....

yep there she is...lucky we were on the slow boat otherwise we might have missed this shot...

 There is a wild beauty to this place...

...which pictures can't begin to capture....

There are also Inca ruins..

...woohoo...surprise... Inca ruins...

 But there were people here before them, the Tiwanakans' (say that carefully); more about these later in the Bolivia - La Paz blog.

We were dropped off the boat eventually (did we mention it was the slowest boat ever) at the north end of the island, and walked the 8 kms to the southern part of island. 

Besides the breathtaking scenery, this is an opportunity for the locals to levy small charges for you to use the only footpath on the island. There are 3 of these levvies to pay. one at the north, one in the middle, and one in the south, the path was suitably rocky. 

The time it took us to walk the 8 kms the boat managed to motor from our drop off point to the south part of the island to pick us up. We were told that it left at 1600 hrs, but there is an inexplicable temporal anomaly on this mysterious isle, because the boat left at 1530hrs; its a good job we didn't stop to take too many pictures.

Despite all these things it was a really nice day helped by good weather and a nice slow boat to relax on back to Copacabana.

Copacabana is a real staging post for turistas on their way to La Paz, and we are no exceptions; so the next stop is the highest capital city on the planet.

Peru - Cusco to Puno

Apologies for the length of the last 2 blogs; we're trying to catch up by using the good internet connections in La Paz ( more about this later).

Well the transition form Manu back to Cusco was abrupt, steamy hot jungle to cold dry high Andean air.

But next we were heading even higher into the Andes, we were off to Puno on the Altiplano of the Andes, and Lake Titicaca, the highest freshwater lake in the world.

The bus journey is on a road that follows the train line we took 9 years ago, and again provides the casual observer with a blinding display of natural beauty.

The Altiplano is a unique place of brilliant blue skies, thunderous cloud, rolling hills and grassland and crystal bright sunshine....

OK so we have the thunderous cloud, and rolling hills bit...

..heres a little of that crystal bright sunshine...

 and this part of or jorney eventually ends in...

Puno....

Besides Inca ruins, Lake Titicaca, old steam boats (Yavari story ) and pre inca burial sites (Sillustani), Puno can offer...

...tasteful pedallo rides on a pea green lagoon....

The day after we arrived the whole town was in celebration for the FIesta de Candelaria, which involved some drinking followed by wild dancing, fire works and more drirnking, dancing, fireworks, followed by more...well you get the picture, everyone had a good time... all day and night.

celebrations Puno styleeeeee....

They really do know how to celebrate....

Next stop is Copacabana, Bolivia, not the more famous Copacabana, Brazil; although the latter is named after the former....

Peru - Cusco and Parque Nacional Manu - 17th- 21st Jan 2011

Its 9 years since we were last in Cusco, and everything looked and felt familiar, although we don't remember it being as cold as it was. We decided not to revisit Macchu Pichu, but we did look at some of the sites again...

 We took another look at the Qoricancha, the inca holy of holies, and this is interesting because of the quality of the masonry,..

...you really can not insert a piece of paper into the joints...

...and those joints extend along the entire length of the walls, with no cement or jointing, just andeasite blocks interlocked together with precision...

This small block is only 1cm squarish but passes through the width of the wall about 50cms...why ? no one knows...

The Qoricancha is where the Inca (the king, and his high priests would perform the most sacred of rites)and some of the rooms would have been covered with gold; in fact the quechua word Qoricancha means place of gold. The Inca attached no value to gold apart from its appeal for decoration. This is unlike the Spanish conquerors who stripped the Inca Empire for every ounce of this metal they could get. All that remians today is the Andeasite blocks so intricately laid together, that it was easier for the Spanish Franciscan monks to incorporate it completly into the monastry they built on it than to take it apart

We also visited Pisac, famous for its handicraft market, but we really went to see the Inca ruins...

Field terracing, and buildings in the distance.

And Ollantaytambo, where the Incas held out against the Spaniards, but were eventually defeated, and forced to retreat to Vilcabamba...

Ollantaytambo, terracing on the steep hillside, with the "fortress" above...

Whilst in Peru we took a fews days trip into the Manu National Park. What no Inca ruins I hear you say, no steep terraced fields and fortress buildings perched impossibly atop precipitous mountains. No this is pristine rain forrest pure and simple

Manu

We'd never heard of Manu before looking at our sabbatical year and where to go. It is quite remote, with one road in and one road out, and takes a full day of travelling to reach the outer limits of the National Park. But once there the memories of the tough journey slip away.

Our journey started in Cusco at 0500hrs and a drive south to pick up a new tar road to Paucartambo. This is a new road still under construction, being cut into the face of the mountainside., but after an hour and a half we saw bus loads of people walking on the road. There had been a landlside further up which took out 500 metres of the newly cut road. We had to turn around and head back towards Cusco and pick up the only alternative road to Paucartambo, through Pisac. So three hours after setting off, we actually set off.....

Despite the delay we were spoiled by the landscape...

This is just above Pisac on the good bit of road to Paucartambo...you can just see the hairpins in  the distance below...

...and a bit further on, it was so cold we could not feel our fingers.....cos there was snow on the Andes!!!!

At the end of this part of our journey was Paucartambo, a Spanish colonial town established as a base for the search for El Dorado...

This is the main square with statues to symbolise the different regional dances..

Main street, just outside the main market...

After this the road surface got a little rougher in texture, and steeper as we descend from the Andes to the lower levels of the rain forrest.

From the high Andes we descend through several ecologically distinct zones, Puna (low lying shrub), Elfin forrest, Cloud forrest, Rain forrest and then jungle.

Compacted gravel road... between 4 and 5 metres wide....

But depite the journey there are some pretty sites to see....like cascades...

...one of the locals hitched a lift....

In fact there were butterflies on the road and in the air every time we stopped...

...Some Blue...

...Some red...

..oh and not to mention the quetzals...

..and of course the cloud and  rain forrest that is home to all of the above and more.

...this is the view of the cloud forrest from the single track road (there are the occasional passing places)...

At the end of our road is ....

...Pilcopata....believe us its busier than it looks...

The following day we had to drive to Atallaya to take a boat, but first we had to help a truck otu of a rut...

...there is a 200 metre drop on the right...this little mishap delayed us for an hour and kept us from...

Atallaya "port"...on the Upper Madre de Dios river

 and our ongoing...

journey down river....

An hour later and we were in our lodge. here we spent the next two days spotting loads of wildlife, but mostly birds, the most interesting of which was....

..the Hoatzin...

These birds eat a diet of toxic leaves and have evolved as ruminants to help them digest their odd diet,kinda funny looking too!  (other ruminants for example are cows, who have 4 stomachs to digest plants). They don't appear to have any distinctive song either apart from very heavy breathing.

We also saw some cute squirrel monkeys and a white caiman on a night walk, as well as....

..a nightjar resting on the trail...

Our 5 days in Manu flew by especially when 2 days were needed for the drive in and out, but we wouldn't have missed it, the scenery is stunning  and the wildlife even more so....

Thanks to Fredy (our guide), Chistian (our driver) Carlos (the boatman) and Fredys mum (our cook).you can contact Fredy directly on www.greenlandperu.com

As ever we had to move on and our next destination is Puno, on the shores of lake Titicaca.