Categoria / Category Bolivia 2001

In America, Adventure, Bolivia 2001, Cycling tour On  15/07/2001  No comments

I had seen on tv as well as met people who had done this tour before. So I decided to do a bike tour in the “most dangerous road in the world”, it is from La Paz to Coroico.

We left La Paz at 8:30am and went by a bus van to the highest point called La Cumbre. There we got our bikes to go down. In the first kilometers the road has pavement and it was not too busy. We could reach hight speed. Some say it can be 70km/hour, for sure I was not one of those.

After a short period of time we stopped to see the landscape and have a chocolate, after all, it was really cold. At La Cumbre it was snowing and with the cold wind of the speed, I had the feeling of freezing. We went up a little bit to reach the end of the pavement. There were many tractors and trucks on the road and then it started the unpaved road. Here it began the very dangerous part of the tour. From there on, we had to go down by the left side of the road, that means, the side of the precipice...

In America, Bolivia 2001 On  13/07/2001  One comment

When I am traveling and photographing I always avoid going to big cities. I think they all look alike, it does not matter in which part of the world they are. In this trip I’m using the days in big cities to work on the website. It is where there are the best Internet Cafes. It is also the best place to do cultural programs.

I decided to visit some museums, the first was the Museo de Etnografia y Folklore. It is downtown in an old building, it shows some indigenous cultures with mockups, maps, objects and videos. It also has a video library where people can watch and buy videos. I bought a well interesting book on legends and popular myths from Bolivia.

The next museum was the Museo Nacional del Art, also located downtown, it is not very large. The best part of the visit was exhibition of the work of a Bolivian fine artist called Ines Cordoba. There were many rooms with her work. For me the best was the work done in with metal...

In America, Bolivia 2001 On  11/07/2001  One comment

I left at 9am to a tour in Tiahuanaco. In the way we stopped in the small city called Laja to visit the Baroque Mestizo style church. This was created to commemorate the victory of the Spaniard on the Incas. On the left side, there are Inca symbols as the condor, while on the right there are catholic symbols. The visit the Tiahuanaco starts in the local museum that shows indigenous objects from the region. We learned a little about the pre-Colombian cultures and went for a walk in the ruins.

Tiahuanaco was perhaps the most important culture in Bolivia. It was divided in 5 phases, the first it is believed it appeared 10 centuries before Christ, while that fifth it finished around 1200 DC. After this time the Incas arrived in the region and they took care of the temples.  Popular legends say that Viracocha (the greatest God, creator of the world) lived there...

In America, Bolivia 2001, Peru 2001 On  09/07/2001  2 comments

Crossing the border from one country to another is not a good experience around here. It is even worse if there is threats of closing the roads by the Bolivian farmers that were on strike. I knew I couldn’t go to Copacabana because the roads were closed as a form of protest. I went to the Bolivian consulate to know if I would have problems and they told me to cross the border through Desaguadero (a frontier city in Peru). It should be a longer but safer way.

I left very early so I would have more time in case of getting stuck somewhere. The 3-hour trip to Desaguadero had no problems, therefore the road was good. In the city we had to get off the bus with the backpacks, go in-line to the Peruvian immigration to give the exit stamp on the passport and cross the border walking. On the other site there was a bus waiting for us. We spent some more time in-line in the Bolivian immigration to get the entrance stamp. They gave me a 30-day visa even though I said I wanted to stay longer...