After two goes at arranging flights to Bolivia the tour guys decide to go far the safe option of flying us via British Airways Heathrow to Miami, staying overnight in Miami and then take American Airlines down to Bolivia.
So it’s a off the wonderful terminal 3 of Heathrow, a slight jest on my part. Maybe Heathrow number the terminals on the scale of quality they provide, that could explain terminal 5.
On the flight I talk to a marketing guy from Emirates airline, it’s clear they are going to be the biggest in the world soon. Look out all those other so called big carriers. British Airways was more than fine though.
It was almost easy getting into Miami through Immigration, well almost just an hour or so in a queue. Miami welcomes tourists I understand though it’s difficult to believe when you’re being herded like cattle.
The overnight hotel is the International Airport Hotel in the airport terminal itself. The only thing I’d say is this is the only hotel I’ve ever stayed in that even though the room was pre-paid by the tour company they charged my credit card for the night without even telling me. This happened to other people on the trip too. We did get the money back but it is hardly the action of a reputable hotel.

The next morning it’s off the American Airlines for a 9 hour flight. The only thing I’d say is these guys are rubbish. You would think it is not unreasonable to expect a meal on a flight of that length. Not with American just one tiny snack that wouldn’t satisfy an emaciated sparrow on a diet. And $5 for a bottle of wine that is just water. Mind you the hostess smiles at you as you get ripped off.
The plane stops in La Paz before flying onto the city of Santa Cruz. We arrive late at night and are quickly ferried into the hotel the Camino Real it’s superb and great service, a real hotel after the Miami cowboys.
The next morning is a trip to Samaipata. It’s about 2 hours away on the top of a mountain. The road up to it is hardly designed for a push bike much less a mini bus but we make it thanks to a driver who might well be the Stig having seen his skill at driving uphill on dirt tracks with 1000 foot drops on one side.

Samaipata is a massive carved rock outcrop on the top of a mountain. It was carved some 3000 years ago although the Incas added to it. It’s an amazing site, as you stand on a wooden platform to overlook the site amongst the panorama of mountains all around. The only slight blot is that there is a haze everywhere caused by farmers burning off old crops in time for spring.
We walk all around the site it’s lovely to be out in the Great Outdoors after 2 days of flying and airport queuing. The site is very quiet and we are by ourselves as we wander around the mountain top to look at the prehistoric and Incan sites.
After this and the precarious rush downhill on the bus we go to lunch in the small town of Samaipata. It soon becomes clear on the trip that for Bolivians the adjectives ‘quick’ and ‘light’ have absolutely no meaning whatsoever when attached to the word lunch. Thus a quick lunch is 3 courses, as is a light lunch, just the same as a normal lunch really.
Samaipata is a small sleepy pleasant town with a small museum that’s not too exciting, but the wander around the town is very pleasant
The plan is to visit the centre of Santa Cruz at the end of the day but it’s already dark when we get back and we are reduced to a quick walk across the main square.

The next morning it’s an early start for a short flight up to Sucre. Not all our bags leave the hotel with us and it’s a mad scramble to send the missing bag by taxi to meet up with us at the airport. I’ve never been to keen at leaving my bag outside the room door unless I see it make the bus and now I check even more carefully. Bolivia is a new tourist country and the job of transferring us to the airport was given to the new trainee who forgot to count the bags. Oh well we all have to learn.
The flight takes us out of the lowland area and up to the Andes and the plateau area known as the Altiplano, the landscape gets visibly drier as we head into the mountains. Sucre airport must have the smallest runway in the world perched high in the mountains, our pilot puts the plane down a few inches from a ploughed field.
Sucre is lovely an old colonial city of white washed buildings old churches and houses. In fact it is a legal requirement that all houses in the city centre are painted white. Don’t anyone tell Boris Johnson.
It’s not that big a city and starting a tour at the Plaza Pedro de Anzares, a broad square that overlooks the city. It’s a great place to start a tour to see all of the city beneath us and the panorama of mountains that encircle the city. We then get a bus into the city centre we see all the sights of the city in a short walking tour.

It is Saturday so the main square is full of families enjoying the warm weather buying balloons and ice cream. Almost bizarrely in a corner of the square the indigenous Bolivians are holding a hunger strike to get more democracy for Sucre from La Paz and more power from the Spanish Bolivians. In this small area we see the tensions that encapsulate the political pressures in the country. The next morning there is no evidence of the protest at all. I guess the awfully nice riot police have moved them on.
After a quick lunch, 3 courses see above. We visit a cement factory. Not the most likely of tourist attractions even in the old Soviet Union. But it’s to see the thousands of dinosaur footprints that were found in a quarry in 1994. In fact there are 5000 prints from 150 different types of dinosaurs here. It’s the biggest such site in the world by a factor of 20.
It is very impressive standing looking out at the quarry seeing the tracks of dinosaurs running across the massive slab of rock opposite the very good museum and visitor centre. Almost as exciting, is watching a thunderstorm burst across Sucre, and then almost immediately disappear.

The final visit is back down in Sucre to the Museum of Indigenous Art. It’s an old colonial building dedicated to the weavings of the Quechua peoples of the area and it is a lovely museum with some superb displays.
Then it’s back to our hotel the Hostal de su Merced an old colonial building full of grace and old world charm close to the main square, so much nicer than the modern styles of its often bland competitors.
The next morning is a day trip to the Sunday market in Tarabuco which is about 90 minutes away. The first stop on the bus, however, is to pick up two cooks and food. We mustn’t be too far away from a 3 course lunch as we might all fade away.
It’s a lovely drive over the parched hills to the small dusty adobe town of Tarabuco, and again a complete change from colonial Sucre to be in a town showing its indigenous roots. It’s a pretty town in a dry valley, and the market has taken over the whole town with stalls spilling from the main square down alleys and side streets out almost to the countryside. It is also very busy with lots of local people dressed in very colourful outfits. It is clearly a local event and not put on for the tourists. And whilst there are other tourists around, we are very much a minority. Indeed in some parts of the market bartering rather than money is the basis of transactions. We wander around totally unbothered by anyone; we visit a vegetable market on the edge of town before edging back through the crowds back to the main square.

The market is definitely a must for any tourist as good as the Monday market in Djenne.
Lunch is in a small private house that our tour guides from Sucre have taken over for the day. The cooks have been very busy and serve up an amazing lunch that is really excellent. I think must be getting into the Bolivian way of seeing things.
Back in Sucre for the evening we dine in a small pizzeria on the busy central square of Sucre, it’s a shame to leave Sucre is a lovely and comfortable town that you could easily live in.
But tomorrow it’s off the Salar de Uyuni salt flats. Our travel plans change a number of times as there is talk of major demos in Sucre tomorrow that may well cut the city off. On a sleepy Sucre Sunday it seems almost unbelievable that tomorrow might be full of violent demos.
In the event nothing happens and we leave Sucre without a problem. We head higher into the mountains to Potosi. The mountains are really dry and parched and stretch for miles and miles. It really is beautiful countryside. We pass through massive river valleys where the rivers are just tiny streams after a dry winter.

Potosi is a strange town. It is built at the bottom of a conical mountain called Cerro Rico. That’s Spanish for Rich Mountain which points to the reason for this place. The mountain was full of silver and in the seventeenth century was the richest place on earth. We are stopping here for a visit to the Santa Teresa convent and, of course, lunch before we continue on a way to the salt flats.
Potosi is the highest city in the world at 4,100 metres and you certainly notice the lack of oxygen. The convent is incredible we are the only people in the building and it seems a great honour to be allowed in. Built in the seventeenth century in lovely pink stone it is a step back in time.
We then have the standard 3 course lunch. This is regardless of the 5 hour ride over the mountains on dirt track roads to get to the salt flat that lies ahead for the afternoon. I really don’t think the concept of a packed lunch has hit Bolivia yet. Indeed we are so late it is dark before we get to the salt flats and it is quite a scary drive in the mountains. We stay in Potosi on the way back from the salt flats so more of the city later.

The road over the hills is rough but the scenery is marvellous (the Bolivians were working on putting tarmac down so it may be a lot easier now). The further we travel the more barren and desert like that it becomes. We stop in a small village for a drink but the toilet facilities are set behind a wall, it’s safe to say they don’t have much in the way of tourist facilities a bit like Heathrow really.
The hotel the Luna Salada lodge is built of salt, it’s weird the floor is like a white pebble beach, even in the bedrooms it’s all pebble floor apart from the shower. It’s 3700metres high so it is very cold even with the open fire in the dining room.
The next day after a lovely breakfast in the white sea shore of a dining room with its tables and chairs made of salt we venture outside. It is very cold but the vista is incredible, the hotel is on the edge of the salt flats and after a sandy beach there is the white smear of the salt flats stretching for miles and miles surrounded by distant mountains and volcanoes.

Our first stop is a village on the edge of the flats where the industry is to turn the salt into table salt. We visit a tiny family cooperative. The father is drying the salt and crushing it whilst the female members of the family are bagging it. Their 4 year old daughter is also working, she has a cleft lip but is busily helping fill bags. It’s distressing to see a family that are truly living on the edge, but they do seem happy. Our local guide dismisses the girl as simply playing which does tend to highlight the split in Bolivia between the haves, primarily of Spanish descent and the have nots mainly of indigenous descent.
I buy two gorgeous candlesticks made of salt by them as a tiny thank you to the family. Unfortunately they didn’t survive air travel.
After this we get back in our four by four vehicles and head out onto the flats. The flats cover 9,000 square kilometres. It is bizarre and breathtaking to be surrounded by this sea of white salt that stretches for miles and miles. Indeed we are heading for an island in the centre of the flats some 30 miles into the flats. We stop a couple of times to appreciate the unique vistas. It’s a chance to take photos that look as if you are holding cars or people in your hands due to the white background. For me I simply wander around in sheer amazement of the unique landscape.

It is vital you have sunglasses for the visit to the flats something guide books often miss. I’m a spectacle wearer and I don’t do sunglasses so we had a mad rush to find some in Potosi.
We arrive at the Isla Pescado a solitary rocky outcrop in this sea of white that is covered in scrub and tall cacti. We climb the small hill to the top to admire the view. However given the altitude we are at it seems a big climb and it’s time to take it slowly.
There is a small hostel and a restaurant on the island so we don’t miss our lunch.
After lunch and some time wandering around the island and the salt flats we head back to the hotel. I try to do some sunset photography but it is so bitterly cold outside I’m soon forced to retire to the bar.
The next morning it’s a very early start to head back to Potosi, well it would have been if our vehicles had not been blocked in by some Argentineans who had arrived late the night before. We wake them up with cries of you may be good footballers but you’re lousy parkers, or something similar.

On the road we have a short stop in Uyuni before heading off towards Potosi. We stop at a run down deserted old mining town called Pulacayo. We parked by some incredibly rusty gates that are opened by two guards in camouflage uniforms and ushered in. Inside is a bunch of rusting hulks of old steam engines, trains left behind to rot away after they gave up on mining in the town. Amongst these old wrecks is the last train robbed by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It seems a shame that it is slowly rusting away to nothing.
We move on the same dirt track over the mountains back to Potosi. We only have the remainder of the day to see the city and given our delayed start it isn’t going to be a lot of time. I’m greatly encouraged that our local guide has taken the decision to decide on chicken for lunch and phoned ahead to the restaurant in Potosi. I was wrong of course; it is still the standard 3 courses plus tea or coffee.

After lunch we head out of the relatively prosperous centre and head up to the Cerro Rico Mountain. Our first stop is the Miners Market; it’s a very poor district, miners and vendors barely scratching a living and the light rain that is falling gives an air of desolation. We visit a tiny shop where the miners buy supplies; our guide comes out of the shop waving a stick of dynamite. I step back thinking of trying to explain this in Miami airport.
The mines on the mountain are run by a series of cooperatives of indigenous miners after the Government gave up trying to run the mines. The life expectancy of miners is in the mid 30’s; basically they work as they did 300 years ago. There are some 7000 miners including 1000 children. This truly is life on the very precipice of existence.
I don’t care for enclosed spaces so I’m not going into the mines, I’m joined by another of our group, but 4 are going on a 20 minute tour into the mines. They buy cigarettes and coca leaves in the market as presents for the miners they’ll meet.

We stop for them to put on overalls then go up to the mine entrances. As they disappear off the sun come out. We walk around and take the car a few hundred yards away to watch the comings and goings on the mountain. It is fascinating to see men women and children going in and out of the mines.
After this we head back to central Potosi to visit the famous Royal Mint House. We only just make it before it closes; in fact the guide was almost leaving to go home when we arrived. The Casa Real de la Moneda was built in the 1760’s it is huge and slightly austere in the early evening light. The machinery used to make the silver coins of the Spanish empire is very interesting, all massive wood cogs that fills an entire room. The museum of coins is also very interesting as is the gold encased altar in a church deep in the Mint House.

The next morning it’s another early start back to Sucre to catch a flight to La Paz. There is ice and frost on the top of Cerro Rico and it’s a beautiful sight as we leave the city.
The plane doesn’t land in the city of La Paz, but El Alto the feeder city which is perched on the canyon top above La Paz. On the way into the city we stop on the canyon edge to look down on La Paz. It is unlike any city I’ve ever been to, once down on the valley floor in the centre you can look up at the ramshackle houses clinging precariously to the steep valley side of the city’s poorer inhabitants. And the traffic is just unbelievable. On the city tour we had to find a policeman to help us across the road otherwise I might still be there. The traffic makes London or New York look like a sleepy town.

In the afternoon we do a city tour. We start in the main square the Plaza Murillo with its colonial buildings the parliament and the presidential palace and the cathedral. It’s a pleasant square with some impressive buildings. I may not be the grandest square in the world but it does have a real charm.
After this we visit the Calle Jaen the best preserved colonial street in the city and home to three museums. It’s a narrow lane that almost focuses your view up to the slums clinging to the valley lip above the city.
We then pick our way from traffic jam to jam past the football stadium and out to the Valley of the Moon. It’s an area where rainwater has carved strange and weird pinnacles into the rock and mud. We wander around these strange shapes wondering how we would get back to our hotel in the rush hour traffic.

Somehow we make it back to the Aymara market district. Even though it’s late in the day it is still busy with lots of Aymara women selling all types of vegetables and fruit. We walk off into a street Calle Linares that is known as the witches market the Mercado de Hechiceria. There are perhaps a dozen or so shops that sell hundreds of bottles, cans, sweets, statues and other things some as bizarre and gross as Llama dried foetuses. I guess you would be really ill to need one of those. Our guide Marcello takes us into one shop. The shopkeepers seem happy to see us poke around and take photos even, but I’m not sure it would be quite so inviting being on your own.
After that it’s back to our hotel the Presidente a short walk away but on the other side of one of the major roads in La Paz. We stand there for an age waiting for a gap. La Paz has no mass transit system just thousands of mini buses called micros. They have a driver and a conductor who also at each stop calls out the destinations. And that is the sound of La Paz a line of micros stuck in traffic and each conductor calling out destinations above the cacophony of traffic, a strange sort of music really.

Just as I’ve given up ever crossing the road Marcello asks a traffic cop to stop the traffic so we can get across who obliges and we make it back to the hotel
The Presidente is a really nice hotel I’m not sure it really warrants the 5 stars it boasts, but it is very comfortable and friendly.
A city tour is great but the next day is a free day just to wander around La Paz and soak up the atmosphere. I’m up before breakfast and head back to the Plaza Murillo. It’s nice and quiet and great time to get photos before lots of people appear. There’s a very bored police riot squad hanging around and I ask to take a photo and get a great pic of a young riot policeman. Later Marcello wonders about my sanity when he sees the photo.
I’m also really keen on pics of shoe shine boys. Some of them who really don’t want their school friends knowing what they do, wear balaclavas and masks and it seems such a sad way to live, but of course they don’t want their photo taking and I don’t care to intrude but I do get a couple of quick pics.

Then just as I’m about to head back to the hotel for breakfast a small shoe shine boy with no mask comes up to me to sell me a shine. Whilst my Spanish is all but nonexistent I show him I’m wearing trainers, but I ask him for a photo by pointing at my camera. He is happy to pose and without him asking I give him a few coins, what he would he have earned from shining my shoes. He was so surprised and happy that it is really humbling. I get his name Juan Carlos In wish I had the Spanish to ask him lots more and he slowly wanders off to find some customers. I cannot help wonder what he is doing now and hope he is OK.
After breakfast we head up past the lovely Iglesia de San Francisco into the market district.
The market is bustling with life, everywhere are Aymara women selling a wide range of fruit and vegetables their stalls spilling out from the pavement onto the street. Great photo opportunities are everywhere. It’s not only fruit and vegetables too, on one street there is a line of stalls with women all selling and gutting fish whilst conducting a lively banter with each other and customers alike.

We walk down onto the Prado the main thoroughfare of the city and immediately within a few hundred yards the city has become westernised. We walk to the city prison just for a look as a by passer tells us a story that you can visit by bribing the guards a story confirmed by my Rough Guide book. We don’t risk it on our own. Later telling this story to our guide he looks very worried apparently it’s an urban myth.
On route back to our hotel we stop by the Plaza Murillo. There is a display by dancers from the town of Cochabamba to celebrate its two hundred anniversary. It is really colourful and different I’m so lucky to catch it as there are close to the end of their display.
After lunch we wander round to look at the railway station that is now the bus station. It’s a really great facade of yellow steel and glass.
I loved La Paz. You can’t say it has unmissable architecture but it is unique and has sights and sounds that I will never forget.

The next day I’m going to Lake Titicaca. As there are only two of us on this part of the trip we are in a mini bus with the local tour company’s youngest guide. She is very earnest; fortunately my fellow traveller has lots of questions to keep her busy.
On the way down we stop to watch a peasant family sowing potatoes in a dry field set in the flat Altiplano plain as the sun beats down.
Our hotel is the Inca Utama Hotel on the shores of Lake Titicaca. As well as the hotel and a jetty for boats the site boasts an eco village, observatory and two small museums.
The eco village is an outdoor replica Andean village complete with a Aymara woman weaving. There is also an Aymara man making a reed boat. He explains at long length how they are made. He then gets out an old copy of the National Geographic and shows us an article about Thor Heydahl and his journeys on reed boats. I’m beginning to think this is a little off the topic as these were all ocean expeditions, I’m thinking of a beer at lunch. The man turns the page, I can almost taste the beer, and he shows a photo in the magazine of Thor Heydahl and his crew on the Tigris expedition, then the bombshell as he says ‘And that’s me’ pointing at himself in the National Geographic.

My jaw drops in amazement, and I can’t help find it very funny. Now Demetrio Limachi explorer and reed boat builder to Thor Heydahl seems a lot more interesting!
After lunch we visit the other two museums they are very good for a hotel but not really show stoppers. We also go to the observatory but it is effectively outdoors it is absolutely freezing and not a lot of fun. Even in the dining room it is cool at best and a good jumper is a necessity, at least there are electric blankets in the bed!
The next morning is a full day boat tour on the lake. There is some confusion on the plan for the day. We end up sailing across the lake to Copacabana to meet some German tourists who are coming over the border from Peru. It’s a lovely run northwards on the lake passing a narrow point in the lake and the Bolivian navy port. The town of Copacabana is enjoying a busy Sunday in the sun. The beach is full of people and painted boats, and around the cathedral there are lots of stalls and flower festooned cars waiting to be blessed. The white cathedral which has a Moorish look is very beautiful in a large courtyard with lots of people going in and out.

The next part of the visit is to the two islands that were at centre of Incan religious beliefs.
Back on the hydrofoil having collected the Germans we head off to the Isla del Luna( Island of the Moon). It’s a small island that rises sharply out of the lake. It’s a step climb up through Incan terraces to the Incan temple Inak Uyu. It’s a red lovely coloured faced facing a flat grass covered plaza. It’s also a great viewpoint over the lake and the snow capped mountains that surround the lake.
After that it’s back to the boat for a short ride to The Isla del Sol. Like the Isla del Luna it rises sharply out of the lake although it is a lot larger. It has a small but busy harbour and again it’s a steep climb up to a small restaurant for the standard Bolivian lunch. Unfortunately that was the extent of our visit, and I can’t help feeling a whole day on the island would be well worth it.
But we are on route to the stop I was most looking forward to, the reed islands and a visit to the Uros Indians who live there. The island is close to the lake edge and our hydrofoil boat can’t dock at the island. So two boats come to meet us, the Germans get on the larger motor boat and we are consigned to the rowing boat. The rower is a Uros girl of 16 or so called Hilde. She is accompanied by a girl of 8 or 9 called Rebecca. Both are in traditional costumes. Rebecca peers out from under her straw hat and is not too certain about having her photo taken, but one smile from me and she is posing with glee.

The island is not large and it is a strange sensation walking on the compacted reeds. The village have all come out to see us. The Uros guys on the island are linked with the hotel we are staying with who give them help, so they are all really friendly and happy to pose for photos without asking for payment. It’s late afternoon and the light is super for photos too. But a short visit hardly gives you time to really understand their life on an island that is decaying beneath them and needs constant renewal. It’s such a shame to leave to be rowed back to our hydrofoil and an even greater sadness to say goodbye to Hilde and Rebecca.
Back at the hotel I stand on the jetty for some sunset shots. The temperature drops even faster than the sun and I’ve moved from a tee shirt to jumper coat and scarf in 20 minutes and I’m still really cold so it’s off for a beer.
The next day we are going to Tiwanaku on route back to La Paz. Tiwanaku is the site of a city built nearly 3,000 years ago on a plain between Lake Titicaca and La Paz. There is a small but good museum at the entrance to the ruins, but personall I think the main attraction is the ruins themselves. Just inside is a massive earth mound the Akapana the remains of a pyramid that would have dominated the city. From the top you get a great view of the site. The two main sites are both temples the Templete Semi-Subterraneo which as the name suggests is a sunken square patio 2 metres deep with some 200 stone heads in the red wall of the temple. The Kalasasayo is a massive temple surrounded by impressive stone walls. It contains an exquisite carved arch the Puerta del Sol.

After this part of the visit it’s time to go back to La Paz for one last night before an early morning flight to Miami.
This time I’m stocked with food to cover American Airlines lack thereof. La Paz is so high the plan can’t be loaded with too much fuel or it won’t get off the deck. So it is a short hop to Santa Cruz to fuel up. Even so the plane seems to go along the runway for miles before it takes off!
We say goodbye to Bolivia as we leave Santa Cruz and then mentally prepare ourselves to struggle through the cattle pens of Miami airport.

I travelled with Bales Worldwide, www.balesworldwide.com I found them to be excellent, it’s not the first time I have travelled with them. The trip was excellent and Bolivia should be on everyone’s list of places to go. The only thing I felt was that the trip could have been a day or two longer as there are some long journeys involved. There wasn’t enough time in Santa Cruz, and certainly not in Potosi.