Las Pampas

Rurrenabaque is a small town approximately one hour by plane north of La Paz. We took the tiny 10-seater, extremely turbulent Amaszonas aircraft through the spectacular mountains only a few kilometres to our side and over the vast blanket of trees that is the Amazon, into the stinking heat of sea level.

Once we found out that the hostel we wished to stay at, the one recommended in the guidebook, no longer existed, we made our way to the closest available room elsewhere. Instead of glass windows, it had mosquito nets and a beautiful view of the Rio Beni. At two o’clock in the morning, I moodily knocked on the neighbour’s door. All night he had been watching TV at high volume and with no glass to shut out the noise, mixed with the heat, I had lost my patience. The guy was asleep, not even realising the disturbance he was making. After that I slept well, until the morning when I got locked in the communal toilet; sick from something I had eaten the night before. Unfortunately, that sickness carried on for the next 5 days.

We left town in a rusty, dented four-wheel drive and drove 3 hours along a bumpy, dirt road, inhaling dust though our mouths, noses and ears until we finally arrived to Pampas del Yacuma, upstream of the Rio Beni. We couldn’t get there sooner. Other tourists crowded the lawn as we waited to board our motor canoe-like boat. Once cruising down the river, we lost sight of the other groups and soon we were alone in the wilderness, if not for the native animals.

The banks of the low river were filled with them soaking up the mid-afternoon sun; from alligators to turtles to the Capybara (the largest of the rat family) to an extraordinary array of bird life including local types of ducks, eagles, storks, chickens, herons, birds of paradise, you name it. We washed the sweat off our hot skin in the muddy water as Pink (Amazon River) dolphins swam around us. As kings of the river, neither alligator nor piranha dares come near.

At the lodge, we settled into our room, filled with mosquito net-covered beds and again, no glass windows. There was no electricity after 9pm anyway so there wasn’t any risk of being kept awake. The water for lodge came from rainwater so showers had to short and all the huts were elevated on stilts. Apparently the river rises so high in the rainy season that it floods the nearby pampas plain and hence the huts sit on water, with alligators swimming rather close by.

Yes, apparently the scenery is completely different in the rainy season of summer as opposed to the dry season of winter/spring. The water is said to reach 2 metres above the pampas grassy flatlands where we went to have a cold Paceña beer and watch the sunset. Lucky for us, because with the rain comes the mosquitos and with the banks of the river further away, the animals are suppose to be harder to find. Unfortunately for us though, the sloths only come out in summer.

The following day we set off early through the natural fields in search of an Anaconda. After a painstaking search through the tall grass, one of the guides found a baby, maybe 2 or 3 metres in length. They are non-venomous snakes so there was nothing to be afraid of. It seemed more scared of us if anything. There are other types of snakes and nasties hidden in the lush greenery so we wore gumboots for protection, and also so as not to get our feet wet. It may have been the dry season but the grass did well to keep in the moisture. It was already 30 degrees at 10am when we headed back to camp.

After lunch we went piranha fishing. They’re intelligent little things that nipped away at the meat without so much of a pull on the string. If someone did catch one, photos would be taken and the fish plopped back into the water. Further along the river and further away from camp, we came across howler monkeys whose loud howl woke us up at the crack of dawn each morning.

That night we floated along the river without the motor blasting out and listened to the eerie stillness. Then, out of no where an alligator would jam his jaws shut with an horrendous thud that made everyone in the boat shuddered. Without our flashlights, we could just make out the reflective, metallic eyes of those giant, reptile predators.

We watched the sunrise on the other side of the bank and listened to the music of Mother Nature in the morning. Everyone seemed to be out, except for the alligators. We saw toucans and macaws, and little yellow squirrel monkeys came right down to the edge of the bank to greet us. We rested from the heat in the hammocks before it was time to go back down the never ending bumpy, dirt road, once again filling ours lungs with dust and giving me heat rash across my chest and back, onto the tiny airplane and out into the cold, high altitude air of La Paz.

Note: The Pampas area within the limits of the Beni River is home to more than 1,000 species of birds, 300 species of mammals and 200 species of reptiles. If you want to see strange animals, it is much harder to find them in the Amazon.

Tiwanaku

It’s hard to imagine a time before the Incas built Machu Picchu, the Aztec built Tenochtitlan or the ancient Egyptians built the Pyramids of Giza.

As far back as 1200 BCE, the Tiwanaku people built a beautiful port at an astonishing altitude of 3,850m on the southern edge of Lago Titicaca, the side of the lake that now belongs to Bolivia. Recognised as being the oldest ruins in the world, Tiwanaku is one the most important precursors to the Inca Empire.

We took the local bus (van) to the site for about 20 cents and arrived after tirelessly waiting for the bus to fill up completely in La Paz and a very cramped 2 hour journey. The driver dropped us off a mere 3km from the archaeological site, although he had insisted he could take us directly there. We began the exhausting walk in the dry, windy high altitude heat before we hitched a ride on the back of a local's truck. The thrill of living on the wild ride was short lived as we soon approached our destination and profusely thanked our driver.

At first glance Tiwanaku was not what I had been expecting, no giant pyramid in your face or herds of tourists living through the lens of their cameras. It was quiet and sparse, and completely soaked in rich, mysterious history that archaeologists are mostly still uncovering.

It’s monumental architecture is composed of large, perfectly rectangle blocks made from ashlar. Each block is fitted perfectly above the other with no evidence of mortar to hold them together and were frequently fitted with elaborate drainage systems. More impressively is that the blocks were quarried at the volcanoes at least 40km away and it is a mystery as to how they were transported to the site, what with the largest block weighing 131 metric tons.

The Tiwanaku people believed the god Viracocha (creator of all things including the universe, the sun, moon and stars) created people from a great piece of rock and brought them to life through the earth. They also believed that he created giants to move the massive stone blocks but then grew unhappy with them and destroyed them in a flood.

The most impressive remains of the port are those of the Kalasasaya temple, now protected by UNESCO and which dates back to 200 BCE. The temple, a large courtyard of about 130m by 120m in size, was used as a ceremonial centre and for astronomical observations. Its four corners point north, south, east and west. In the centre of the courtyard once stood the Puerta del Sol (Gateway of the Sun), made from a single slab of andesite and estimated to weigh 44 tons. The light of the sun would shine through the gateway twice a year, indicating the autumn and spring equinoxes. However, the Spanish conquistadors tried to rob the gateway. Just as they were about to leave the courtyard, they dropped it and the gateway cracked into two parts. It now stands in this location, still with the huge crack scarring its archway.

Viracocha is carved into the middle of its arch so that he can overlook his people and lands. He is surrounded by what is thought to be either calendar signs or natural forces for agricultural worship. There also appear 12 faces covered by a solar mask and 30 running or kneeling figures, which seem to represent the 12 months of the calendar and their 30 days.

The Gateway of the Sun belongs to a series of gateways at the site, including the Puerta de la Luna (Gateway of the Moon) and Puma Punku (Gateway of the Puma). The puma, king of the animal kingdom, represented the present, the condor represented the future and the serpent was the representation of the past. The condor was the only animal that could carry the soul to the heavens and the serpent took the body back into the earth from where it first came from.

The archaeological site is also home to the temple of Akapana, a pyramid originally compiled of 7 superimposed platforms with stone retaining walls rising up to 18m. Only the lowest of these and part of one of the intermediate walls survive intact. Much of Tiwanaku was destroyed, looted or exposed to amateur excavations. Not much is known about the site and its people as there exists no local written language yet to be deciphered and even today, a lot of Tiwanaku still remains underground.

Our guide called the Tiwanaku people the forefathers of the Incas. When the lake began to dry up and Tiwanaku no longer deemed an appropriate place to live, the people moved west towards Peru and it was there that their sons became the Inca kings.

As one of the locals who still live at the Tiwanaku site, our guide was full of insightful and mysterious stories about the Tiwanaku people and yet hidden behind a perfectly, upright wall he would always try to sell us a piece of stone craftsmanship that he himself had excavated from the site. Indeed, he was a strange mix of morals.

La Mujer Indigena

In 2001, the Bolivian population measured as having a 55% indigenous population, primarily Aymara and Quechua, a 30% population of mestizo (mixed), and a small 15% of the population with European origins. That same year, the indigenous people of Peru formed about 31% of the population, mostly of Andean original but a small percentage also from the Amazon.

Aymara people are an indigenous ethnic group from the Andes and Altiplano regions, which include Bolivia, Peru and Chile. Their flag is known as the Wiphala, a bright assortment of squares quilted together in diagonal stripes and that showcase the seven colours of the rainbow. Don’t ever mistake it for the gay pride flag. It is the Aymarans who have grown and chewed coca plants for centuries, also using the leaves for traditional medicinal purposes as well as ritual offerings to the sun god Inti and Pachamama (mother earth).

Most notably, the Aymara women in urban La Paz wear bowler hats that somehow sit perfectly on their heads and never seem to fall off, even though they aren’t attached. The story goes that a shipment of bowler hats where sent from Europe to Bolivia via Peru in the 1920s to be used by the British workers constructing the railroads. However, the hats were too small and thus distributed to the locals who, along with the colourful aguayo cloth, a big blouse, embroidered long skirts and boots, have adopted it as an ethnic symbol. In fact, hats in general tend to identify indigenous women as being part of a particular ethnic group or village and sometimes even their status.

Most of indigenous women also seem to put their hair into two plaits and add pompoms to their hair-ties. The more extravagant the pompom, the more beautiful the woman/girl seems to be.

Quechua (pronounced as kichwa) is the collective term for several indigenous groups in South America, basically from the old Inka Empire, and also the language formally spoken by the Inkas. Many urban Quechua women also wear bowlers hat as an ethnic symbol, however outside of La Paz, the monteras (the quechua word for a traditional hat) vary incredibly. Just wearing a hat seems to be an ethnic symbol enough.

In Peru, we found the indigenous women to wear what seemed like fabric bowls on their heads, which they fill with fresh flowers and use a sanq’apa, a woven strap, around their faces to keep the bowls from falling off. In other places, the women were seen to be wearing flat, embroidered hats that completely shade their heads and necks.

The quechua men also have a traditional hat which tends to be the chullo, a woollen beanie that is knitted with earflaps. In other parts, quechua men wear decorated felted sombreros. It all depends on their place of origin and with where exactly they want to be associated. Everything is mostly hand woven by the women and extremely bright, and quite frankly, it’s a beautiful way of identification.

Despite their beautiful clothing and cloths however, the life of an indigenous woman in Bolivia, and Peru for that matter, is to the unaccustomed westerner quite unhygienic. Both the men and the women are seen to be urinating in the public streets of La Paz and close to Arequipa in Peru, we even saw a woman squat by the edge of the road and do a number two.

Due to the high attitude, more specifically forceful winds and heavy exposure to the sun's rays, the women’s faces tend to be very worn and weather-beaten. It is very difficult to determine their age and we saw what seemed like women too old to be carry tiny children on their backs, but you just never know. Yet when we saw them smile or laugh, their faces lit up and matched the beauty of their clothing. They truly are extraordinary women. We saw them working side by side with men doing road work, we saw them ploughing the fields or selling in the streets, and for some reason, it was they who always seemed to be carrying the heavy load. Again, they are extraordinary women!

El Camino de la Muerte

Death Road, more formally known as Yungas Road, was built during Bolivia’s war with Paraguay between 1932-35 and for many years it was the only route linking northern Bolivia to La Paz, the capital. It got its name because in 1994 alone, 26 vehicles went over the edge.

The dirt road is narrow and although vehicles come from both directions, there are only a few parts wide enough for them pass. If you get caught in a narrow spot, well one of the drivers has to reverse until they reach a part of the road that is wide enough for one vehicle to edge closer to the cliff wall and other closer to the drop off, roughly 600m straight down. With a total of 61km in length, descending more than 3596m from the Andean mountains into the Amazonian jungle, this means that many of the drivers simply drive off the edge.

Apparently, before setting off, drivers pour libations of beer onto the road as an offering to Pachamama (mother earth), and feed the stray dogs, supposedly the souls of dead drivers. Although there is a new road, it is clear that drivers still use the old dirt track to cut time. An estimate of 200-300 travellers die along the road each year. The new road is yet to be completed though and it’s apparently costing quite a mint. It's hard to believe that the Bolivian government can afford such an extravagant project, what with the bridges, drainage system and guardrails.

Today, the old road is mostly used by tourists who have ironically made it quite a popular tourist destination. Herds of travel agencies flock the streets of La Paz claiming to be to the best company to "Mountain-bike the most dangerous road in the world", a title awarded to the Yungas road in 1995 by the Inter-American Development Bank. In the end, the travel agencies are all pretty much the same and the prices really depend on what kind of bicycle you feel safe using.

When we first arrived from La Paz in our fluoro bike shirts, elbow/shin guards and helmets, the flog lay heavy over the mountains and not much of the view could be seen. The beginning of the journey meant following the new tarmac camino until it broke away and the old camino lay awaiting. We were lucky it wasn’t rainy season and mud wasn't an issue for us.

The group travelled fast and anyone left too far behind would be scooped up in the van following us. It was hard to take note of the dramatically changing scenery for the mind had to be tense with concentration. This was dangerous stuff. One bad move and I too could go over the edge. Every now and then, the guide would stop and check on the group. We would inhale the spectacular beauty and set off again, through the waterfalls cascading onto the road and past the dormant crosses where someone had fallen to their peril.

“Remember, left hand is your front brake and right hand is your back brake. Be careful now. The rocks in this section are very loose.”

I knew it was going to happen before it happened. It kind of flashed before my eyes; the big rock mockingly in my way. I tried to brake softly but it was too sudden, too much on the front brake and I kind just somersaulted over it, landing hard on my left side. I screamed in agony. Perhaps a little too dramatically but at the time, I thought it seemed appropriate. My elbow guard had come loose and blood oozed from my skin. I could feel purple and yellow bruises having field day down from my hip to my knee.

I was fine, eventually. I was told to rest in the van for the next leg. I watched the rich green mountains pass me by and I felt envious of the others with tears flooding their eyes from the wind, bugs flying into their noses and mouths, and panting from the hard slog of the uphill parts. As soon as I could, I was back on the bike, slogging away with them as we twisted and turned, ascended and descended finally to the bottom. We throw off our shoes and vests in the damp heat. We had made it. It was like a whole different country down there. My lungs felt heavy after only just one day of altitude denying them of oxygen.

Driving back, we were held up by indigenous protestors. Having travelled from their village in the Amazon, they were slowly progressing towards to capital to rally against the plans to build a huge highway straight through the middle of the jungle, a venture to be paid by Brazil so that their cargo trucks could swiftly journey from one side of the continent to the other. In the end, the indigenous won.

La Paz

Bolivia: the poorest country in South America with a population of 55% indigenous Amerindian, 30% mestizo and 15% white.

La Paz: the administrative capital and second largest city of Bolivia.

Our first impression of La Paz as we made our way into the valley was a whirl of automobiles driving in all directions, no traffic lights, just a multitude of female traffic wardens uselessly directing traffic and a constant echo of car horns and young boys commandeering people into their (min-van) collectivos*.

Then the altitude sickness kicked in. At 4,100m above sea level, La Paz leaves those unaccustomed to the altitude with a constant feeling of nausea or an irritating pain in the back of the head, not unlike a hangover. For this reason, the locals consume a lot of coca, a plant that has and still plays a significant role in Andean culture. Chewing the leaves or boiling them in water as mate (herbal tea) is not only effective against altitude sickness but also acts as a stimulant to overcome fatigue, hunger and thirst. It is also the coca in Coca Cola. We stuck to drinking mate de coca every morning though as the raw leaves are incredibly bitter and leave a flavour in your mouth that is definitely not for the faint at heart.

To make matters more difficult, the valley part of the city is composed of a cluster of hills so no matter where you wonder off to, there is always an uphill to breathlessly defeat. Yet, its intriguing indigenous culture makes La Paz highly appealing to the western adventurer, not to mention the fact that everything seems ridiculously cheap.

Door to door travel agencies and souvenir shops morph into the witch's market, packed with llama fetus' and voodoo-like statues of Pachamama (mother earth) or idols for love, work and luck. The witches will tell you that before constructing a new house, one should bury a llama fetus so it will remain underneath the house and continue to give it good luck. Here we had our fortunes told by a suspiciously-fraud one-eyed man reading from his tarot cards in the street for a few pennies.

Across the prada (main road) and through the plazas filled with colonial mansions now accommodating government institutions, and hidden amongst the slim alleyways lies Calle Jaen, an old colonial street that houses many old buildings from that era; all beautifully painted in soft pastels and all in amazing condition, a stark contrast to the crumbling, neglected and poor other side of town. Here, we found local designers exhibiting their skills and a cute cafe Café Etnö, where we stayed for mojitos de coca. Of course we became painfully bloated from the ice in the cocktail but it was a fun night nonetheless.

The real La Paz, understandably, is located up on the flatlands above the valley, where more than half the population of the city lives. This is where the indigenous way of the city life comes into its full glory. Here the main drag is filled with street vendors, selling fruit and puffed wheat amongst other things as well as herds of collectivos waiting impatiently to be fill to the brim before setting off.

Other interesting insights to note include the shoe cleaners who wear black balaclavas to hide their identities so as not to be recognised elsewhere as having the lowest of the low job, and the pedestrian helpers who dress in animal costumes to distinguish themselves from the rest of the crowd.

*Collectivos: public people movers, similar to buses in that they follow a designated route but often come in the form of a car or mini-van.

Viaje

And Julia Turns Latina takes 2 months off Chilean life to travel the world. Accounts of her adventure to come...