Frozen off our Titi´s & Kaka´s

Hola Amigos


Well not so long since the last blog, but it seems another couple of weeks sees us in another country or two, we are certainly travelling pretty fast, and seeing lots and lots of things!


The last time we left the blog we had just completed the gringo trail through Peru, and had just arrived onto the shores of one of the highest lakes in the world, the beautiful (if unfortunately named) Lake Titikaka.


A number of communities still exist on the lake, creating islands of floating reeds and attempt to maintain traditional life, whilst sharing this with travellers. Sadly it is yet another case where the intrusion of tourists has led a culture to sell out on its past and become completely reliant on dollars produced through selling handicrafts. On the way to the island you are bombarded by people selling you pencils for the young kids of the island, when we arrived on the island we realised that the kids there have more pencils than the workers of the derwent factory..... one young´un that carrie found, made better work by eating her pencils....



From Puno it was a short bus ride across the border to the Bolivian side to the small town of Copacabana, where jewellery toting expats lurk at every corner. It seems that lots of people decide on a completely alternitive lifestyle when they travel, and think making jewellery is the way to go, to be completely unique from other less authentic travellers, it is quite amusing to see them lining up 5 deep with the other travellers to hawk their wares....



Copacabana is a stunning town, but one of the more unfriendly places we have come across, so after a couple of days we were off, walking around the lake to catch a boat to isla del sol, birthplace of the Inkan empire, an island in the middle of the lake. We had imagined a power boat would be the way to go, but we were accostered by the Bolivian rowing team of Carmello and Willi who in ever opportunistic fashion were out to make a dollar or two, rowing us the two hours out to the island. I am becoming somewhat of an expert on suberb places to sit back and have a beer, and i think that the isla de sol, has shot to the top of the list. Saphire blue waters, snow capped mountains in the distance, honking mules, fizzy beers and no refridgerator required (due to the extreme cold).... not too bad



From the highest lake in the world, Lake Titikaka it was off into the centre of Bolivia to the highest capital city in the world, La Paz. It is a simple marketing strategy used to full affect throughout Bolivia. With warnings of how dangerous the mean streets were we ventured out with bags locked and hands on wallets, but nothing could have been further from the truth, La Paz is a beautiful city, nestled in a valley with the city spreading up the hills on all sides, with snow capped peaks off in the distance. We had a lot of experience walking the streets sorting out visas for Brasil, a two day ordeal culminating in our bacpacks being locked inside the consulate, not too bad, but we were locked out on the other side.

With newly aquired visas in hand it was high time that we took on one of La Paz´s principle tourist attractions, a scenic bike ride down the most dangerous road in the world. Up until 8 months ago when a new road was opened this road was the only link between the city of Corroico and La Paz. A single lane gravel road that stretched for around 35 kilometers snaking up the side of a mountain. Apparently the road averaged around 80 deaths annually as oncoming traffic was forced to reverse up the hill (sometimes many kilometers) for safety turnouts. The steepness of the road is breathtaking. For the cycle Carrie and I opted for a twin suspension, hydraulic disk brake variety of mountain bike that had higher road handling specs than the old beemer at home. Immediately we knew that it was some of the best money we had spent on the trip so far. The ride starts at around 4800m altitude and takes you around 30km on smooth bitumen roads. We started above clouds and then tore down the hill at breakneck speed overtaking buses whilst riding through the clouds. The entire ride was around 65km and during that time you drop around 3600m in altitude, so there wasnt a whole lot of peddling required which was definitely a good thing, cause riding in altitude is hardwork! It was impossible to remove the smiles from our faces as we belted down the road, although passing tombstones written in a variety of different languages was quite sobering. Apparently 18 cyclists have died in the 15 years they have been running tours down the hill, but our guide proudly claimed that his group had never lost a member, once again money well spent.



From La Paz we headed into Northern Bolivia into Amazon territory, we shirked the 24 hellish hour bus ride (covering only 380km) and decided to take the half hour flight. The flight was a bumpy one, that took some nervous passangers dangerously close to the Andes, touching down on the dirt runway in Rurrenabaque was well received.

We jumped straight out onto a 4 day 3 night cruise up the river, with a great tour group made up of an aussie couple, 2 irish girls and a german with red hair in a green t-shirt by the name of paddy, go figure.... The initial boat ride was amazing, we spotted turtles, pink river dolphins, alligators, monkeys, capabarras (worlds biggest rodent), birds and literally hundreds of caimans (still not sure what the difference between them and a crocodile is)

The trip consists of a number of activities centred around the river, but the highlight was the waking up the second morning with anaconda hunting the order of the day. It is fair to say that i am not my best around snakes, and the thoughts of wading knee high through swamp land to tackle 5m long snakes was not the most appealing, but after dragging me from the bed and a few consoling words from Carrie i was off and hunting. I am not sure how much thought i guide put into the presnake briefing, which basically consisted of, split up, they are hard to spot, if you do spot one call me first....

After an hour of me in my own splashing through swamp doing my best not to disturb caimans, and more importantly anacondas our guide spotted one and pounced. Our tour group was promoted as an eco-friendly outfit, i think in Bolivia that means that they are allowed to tackle, tug and manhandle snakes, as long as your hands are clean and you dont take too many photographs. I guess from a country that produced Steve Erwin, we cant really say too much. Our guide and fellow aussie snake wrangler adam were required to grab the rest of the group and i had the job of holding the beast by the tail, the strength in this 3.5m snake was impressive. It truly was a beautiful animal and we were lucky to see such a good one, that said it was great to let it go and to get the hell out of the swamp!

The other activites included swimming with the dolphins, the apparent rule of thumb is that if there are dolphins around the caimans, alligators and the piranas are scarce, not too sure about that theory, but when in rome! We all made sure the guide jumped in first before ponying up the courage to follow. It is fair to say that the pink river dolphins are not as attractive as their port river cousins in adelaide, they probably dont have their own websites or round the clock coverage from channel 9 either.... we are really missing channel 9 news over here! We also did a bit of pirana fishing, our guide landing a couple of red bellied ones. It was strictly a catch and release process though.

One of the highlights was a soccer game where we got to play against a few guides in a grassy paddock with the sun setting magestically in the background... the action shown by me has not done any favours in convincing the south americans that aussies will ever be a force in future world cups but it was great fun.

Our tour ended with us returning to Rurrenabaque and hoping to get onto our flight the next day. A bit of early rain just before our flight had us wondering what happens to a dirt runway during rain, we soon found out as they shut the airport down. Concerns peaked as we realised that we had a flight in La Paz early the next morning, but as the rain continued we missed that flight. A quick call thru to Norwood Flight Centre had us sorted with a next day flight, which due to more rain we missed aswell. Another phone call had us resorted and praying for no rain. It was quite interesting seeing the collection of nacionalities that accumulated at the office waiting for further updates. A small Australian consulate was created that centred around the free 8ball table in our hotel, playing a bit of 8ball and having a few drinks was the order of the day.

With the rain stopped and only a few days late we departed Rurrenabaque, then Bolivia for our flight to Rio De Janerio in Brasil. This flight had us stopping over in Santiago Chile where we spent the night snoozing in the airport.

Rio De Janeiro has been amazing, but more about that in the next blog, i think this one is long enough!

Congratulations to Mark Riccuito, 312 games heartbreak finish.

Brett and Carrie