Stunning Salar de Uyuni

After returning from the Amazon, we had a quick stopover at the Wildrover (long enough for a beer but not long enough to sucked back into the party cycle) and then took an overnight bus to Uyuni to visit the Salt Flats. Salar de Uyuni is the world’s largest salt flat and incredibly beautiful – another of those “must do” activities in South America.

We opted to do a one day tour on our way to Argentina (the All Blacks impending game restricted our time) and we booked this in La Paz as we wanted to start as soon as we arrived in Uyuni. We ended up travelling with Alkaya Expediciones, which provided a large 4×4, a Spanish speaking guide and great lunch.

The tour starts with a visit to the train graveyard before heading out across the salt flats. We stopped several times to take photos (trick photography is a bit of a big deal at Salar de Uyuni) before visiting Incahuasi Island, where huge cacti rise up about the white plains. Absolutely stunning!

Touring the Amazon

A trip to the Amazon was right up there on my South American bucket list. We chose to do the tour in Bolivia mainly because it’s super cheap compared to other countries, particularly Brazil. Generally there are two types of tours – a jungle tour or a pampas tour. The jungle takes you right into the Amazon rainforest but it can be difficult to spot animals, while the pampas takes you through the Amazon Basin’s wetlands and is good for wildlife spotting. As an animal nut, I insisted upon the pampas tour.

After a short flight from La Paz we landed in Rurrenabaque (flights are cheap, meaning you skip a terrible 24 bus ride on unpaved roads and we got to see the sun rise over the Andes, which cast beautiful golden pink light over the mountains). We were travelling with our friend Uriah who we had met at the Wildrover and decided to book the three day tour back in La Paz with Extreme Expeditions as we were arriving early in the morning and wanted to start the tour on the same day. It’s much cheaper to book your tour once you’re in Rurrenabaque but we didn’t have the luxury of time so ended up paying a few hundred Bolivianos more.

The tour starts with a horrible four hour jeep ride along an extremely potholed and bumpy road – this was pretty horrendous considering we were travelling with a hangover. Finally we got to the where the boats depart along the Yacuma River. The boats are narrow with two fold down seats on each side, there were eight of us on our tour plus our guide but the boat accommodated us fine. We cruised along the river for several hours spotting alligators, caiman, monkeys, capybaras, pink dolphins, turtles and lots of birds. The tour included food and basic accommodation at the Pampas Lodge. That evening we headed further along the river to watch the sunset and meet up with the other tour groups for beers (we bumped into lots of our Wildrover mates, including the two Gemmas and Tim from NZ).

The following day was spent anaconda hunting – we came across a South American cobra and an anaconda, despite the cold and overcast weather – and piranha fishing. On the final day we jumped into the river to swim with the pink dolphins (I consider myself quite brave considering the waters are infested with piranhas and there were alligators floating a few metres away).

We stayed one night in Rurrenabaque following the tour as the thought of relaxing by the pool in tropical weather sounded delightful. Unfortunately only the first day of our tour was warm and sunny, with the other days unseasonably cold and overcast. We stayed at Ambaibo Backpackers Hotel, which was cheap, has a huge pool, nice rooms and a pet toucan! It was also located a block away from the French patisserie that sold the best crossaints and pastries I’ve had since Paris.

The tour we booked with was one of the cheaper ones on offer and as such it wasn’t terribly eco-friendly. Our tour guide encouraged us to feed the monkeys and alligators, even though the pamphlet handed to us by the park rangers specifically said not to feed the animals. I also don’t think we were suppose to handle the snakes and piranhas, but again no complaints from our tour guide. But the pampas tour has been one of the best things we have done in South America and I highly recommend to anyone who makes their way to Bolivia!

Cycling the World’s Most Dangerous Road

One of the “must do” excursions while you’re in La Paz is cycling down the World’s Most Dangerous Road. The Death Road used to be a major highway over the Andes linking La Paz with Bolivia’s Amazon Basin and wasn’t uncommon for cars/buses/bicycles to plummet down cliffs due to the very narrow road and sharp bends. Today the route has been replaced by a modern (and much safer) highway so the Death Road is primarily used by a handful of locals and tourists on bikes.

Working at the Wildrover came with another perk – a free day cycling the Death Road with Gravity Assisted Mountain Biking. Gravity are an awesome company – fantastic bikes, experienced and friendly guides, and above all very safe! And they give you a CD at the end of the day with heaps of photos so most of the snaps I’ve posted can be credited to them.

We were lucky to get out of La Paz on the Wednesday morning of our ride as a huge strike meant road blocks and limited access to and from the city. At an altitude of 4700 metres we began the decent on a nice paved road through snowy mountains. I loved this part! The second part of the journey was the Death Road itself and this is on an unpaved gravel road. I have no experience at mountain biking and was absolutely petrified for most of the way down, riding very slowly and trailing behind everyone else in my group. But it was still awesome and at least when you’re travelling slowly you can be fairly certain you won’t go over the edge. Ryan, on the other hand, had no fear, cycling as fast as he could for most of the way down. On one of the last bends he hit a pile of gravel and came off, scratching himself up pretty bad. He survived but finished the journey in the van – as a wise tortoise once said “slow and steady wins the race”. The day wrapped up at an altitude of 1200 metres with lunch and beers at the La Senda Verde, a not-for-profit monkey and wildlife sanctuary.

Living in La Paz

Trying to sum up a month of living in La Paz is tricky. Partly because my memory is a bit of a blur, but also because it’s hard to put into words how much fun it is working at the Wildrover. Now working at an Irish hostel in one of the world’s highest cities is definitely not a traditional Bolivian experience. But it is a traveller experience and the people we met made it one of the best parts of our trip.

By this point of our OE we had realised the funds were running low and we would need to find some work to stretch out the journey. We started off our time in La Paz at Adventure Brew Backpackers. It’s a really nice hostel with great facilities, an all you can eat pancake breakfast and a pretty good location next to the bus station. We were offered bar work straight away but Adventure Brew was somewhat lacking in atmosphere so we decided to check out the competition. After stopping at the Wildrover for a beer we were offered a job by the bar manager, Paul. The deal was working four 8-hour shifts a week and in return we would get a free bed (in a pretty gross 8 bed staff dorm), a free meal each day, and a handsome discount off our tab at the end of the three week working period.

I’ve broken up our La Paz experience into three categories: Sobriety, Partying and Other.

A) Sober Activities
When we first arrived in La Paz, we had several days of getting our bearings and exploring the city. I decided to take a free tour with Red Cap Walking Tours. The tour begins at Plaza San Pedro where you have a full view of the comings and goings at San Pedro Prison. I had read Marching Powder at the beginning of our trip and the place fascinates me – it’s almost impossible to visit now so I had to settle for an exterior view. The tour takes you to various markets, including the Witches Market where dried llama foetuses are displayed at street stalls. I highly recommend Red Cap Walking Tours as it provides a good introduction to the city, shows you where to get the best freshly squeezed juices in town, but also gives an insight to the customs, traditions and history of Bolivia – and if you get Marius as your tour guide then you’re guaranteed to have a good time!

B) Party Activities
Partying was our number one activity in La Paz and we’re pretty good at it I must say. My daily routine turned into waking up around 2pm or 3pm, spending the afternoon watching the America’s Cup, and then partying until at least 6am in the morning. Each night consisted of new friends, lots of drinks, this song and a couple of games of pool at the Wildrover before heading to another bar around 1am (either Traffic, The Dubliner, Mongo’s or Mythology depending on the day of the week).

C) Other
Sometimes you do manage to get out of the hostel and do outdoor activities, such as attending the Bolivia vs Ecuador World Cup Qualifier at the stadium in La Paz. I’m no football fan, but seeing a match in South America was on my bucket list because of their reputation for a crazy, chaotic atmosphere. However this game turned out to be rather subdued, with a half filled stadium and ban on booze. But things did liven up when Bolivia scored a goal in the first few minutes of the second half. The other thing about La Paz is that it has some fantastic restaurants, partly due to the large expat population. We had an amazing meal at The Dubliner with our Irish mates, Liam and Carla, where we chowed down on massive steaks and smokey ribs. We also dined at the French restaurant Rendezvous with our other Irish mates, Paul and Kate, where we sampled foie gras, calamari, lamb while sipping wine beside the fire. Yep, living the food dream! And with a handy “Wildrover Staff” wristband we were treated to some nice discounts at most restaurants in town.

But the best part of La Paz was the people we met! The Wildrover bar crew – Jack the lad, Paul, Kate, Boston, Simon, Matt, Kieran, Lydia, Alex, Lisa, Aimee, Chelsea, Yosef, Luis – and of course the Wildrover staff – Edith, Ben, Silvia, Nelly, Litzy, Mariana, Sergio, Julio, Yanira. And special mention to those who never seemed to leave – Julio, Daniel, and I’ll pop Owen in there too. Being based in La Paz for so long was great as we managed to catch up with people we had met up north, including Liam and Carla, and our NZ mates Christine and Simon. There’s nothing like spending several days partying with new friends only to have them disappear and then return a few days later with tales from the Amazon or Salt Flats and to carry on the festivities.

But all good things must come to an end. And after a month of this party routine my body was starting to freak out and the All Blacks were calling Ryan’s name to Argentina so we decided to hit the road again. I don’t know if I’ll return to La Paz again to work but I would take a week of partying at the Wildrover any day.