Travel Blog: Day 27

Ok let's see...what has happened since my last post? In Puno I made a boat tour to the famous floating islands of the Uros. They were really interesting to see but I must say the Lonely Planet was right about the commercialization of the islands. When we left the women sang something in their native language for us (Aymara) before switching to "Vamos a la playa" and in the end the all waved and said in unison "Hasta la vista baby!"

After that we went to the island of Taquile where we hiked a little and learned some stuff about the local culture.

The next day I went to Copacabana - a small village on the Bolivian coast of Lake Titicaca. I spent most of the day reading before I had some Mexican food for dinner. This stuff must have been really bad because it made me sick for the next 4-5 days. That is why I wanted to get the hell out of that place and went directly to La Paz the next day...missing to visit the famous Isla del Sol.

At first I really didn't like La Paz too much but that was partly contributed to the lousy weather and me being sick. When both these conditions got better I actually came to like La Paz. It is really hectic and there is lots of traffic (and thus lots of exhaust fumes) but the setting between the two mountain ranges is spectacular.

Then I met some other travellers that I got along with really well and we decided to spend two days in a small village called Sorata to relax for a few days. We stayed at an eco-lodge called "Altai Oasis". It was a wonderful place with lots of green grass, colorful flowers and an army of animals: 4 dogs - including 2 puppies, geese, chicken, ducks and ducklings, two llamas, kitten, two cows, a sheep, a goat and probably some more that I didn't see.

On our first night we tried to cook some pasta....in a a kind of camping kitchen where you had to make a fire to cook upon. It was great fun even if the result really was not that great :-)

The next day Oliver (England) and I hiked to the cave of San Pedro. It was an easy but amazing walk with ever changing views of the surrounding mountains. The cave was quite impressive, too, but the pictures didn't turn out very well.

After going back to La Paz we went to have dinner at one of the fanciest restaurants in La Paz because it was Joanna's (US) birthday. We had a fabulous meal for less than 10 Euro each.

Tonight I will take the night bus to Uyuni to see the the famous salt flats. Upon my return to La Paz I only have one more thing to do before I fly to Rio de Janeiro: Cycling down the "World's most dangerous road" also known as the "Death Road". This sounds way worse than it actually is because nowadays there is hardly any traffic on the road and the cyclists have it basically to themselves. The amazing thing is that on the 65 km the road descends almost 3000 meters and thus includes several vegetation zones from the altiplano to the rainforest.