Hitchhiking the World: Chap 9 (Peru & Boivia)

---April 7th 2016---

It was now the 7th of April, and I was back in La Paz waiting for my parents. I had no place to stay, and unlike all the other time I’ve being in that situation, this time it wasn’t just for a night. I needed a place to stay for a few days, and with internet to communicate with my parents. I had no choice but to find a hostel where I could spend the week. Since I didn’t end up taking the plane from Santiago, which my parents had offered, I proposed instead to help me with the hostel.

This week in La Paz reminded me why I don’t like cities. Not very comfortable with strangers, I stayed alone for the totality of the week. I would play on my computer, took care of the visa necessary to enter Paraguay, ate and slept. It may not have being very productive and definitely less thrilling then hitchhiking, but on the other hand, having a week of personal time where my tired body could rest and where I didn’t have to converse with a dozen of stranger per day, in a language that still isn’t fluid, felt nice.

On the 14th of April, I had to leave my hostel to meet my. But first, I went to the Paraguay Embassy. Like I mentioned, I wanted to use the week in La Paz to take care of it, but to get your vise through Internet needed information that took me quite some time to get, and when I finally got it all, I realised I didn’t have the time to send my passport and get it back on time for my parents arrival. This meant I needed to find the embassy within La Paz. Through my research, I almost found every embassy with as only exception the Paraguay one. But finally, on the 13th, I found the embassy, meaning that despite a full week to work on it, I only had a few hours to take care of everything. Luckily, though, the building wasn’t too far from my hostel, so at 10am, I got there and waited until I it was my turn to explain my story. When the ambassador asked me for my mode of transportation for entering and exiting the country, I told him I was hitchhiking. Surprised he was, but still, he was ok with my crazy plan, and told it wasn’t a problem to for me to enter the country; only, he needed my passport for 24h, which I didn’t have anymore. We came with the agreement to come back after my parents visit.

After leaving the embassy, I got to the airport. I was quite exited for the upcoming arrival of my parents, uncle and aunt, but I still needed to wait until 3am for their plane to land. I spent most of the day doing the usual nothing, and at around 10pm, I started looking for a place to sleep in the airport. Having all my gears with me, I wanted a discreet place to lay down. I found some sort of vending machine wide enough for me to fully lay down, and have my gear hidden. Unfortunately, this was right next to the massage chair. Being the only comfortable chair in the airport, people kept on trying to use them as bed. The thing no one seemed to understand was that at the moment you sit on them, they start saying “Please, insert coin for your massage to start. Thank you” over and over again. After way too long of enduring this annoying message, the people would finally realise the machine wouldn’t stop, and leave for my great pleasure, but it wouldn’t take too long for some other person to sit on the irresistible chair, only for my nightmare to start again. Realising I wasn’t going to get peace sleeping next to these stressful chair of hell, I got to another location, far far away from them, but never got to fully fall asleep. At midnight, I got back up and decided to wait for my parents without sleeping.

I got to the terminal at 2:45 and waited for them to appear from the gate. There she was, my mom. A big wide smile drew itself on my face as I greeted her. A few second after, my dad showed up, followed by my uncle and aunt. It had being six and a half month since the last familiar face, and it felt amazing. That being said, the early morning combined with the lack of sleep form both side got us to take a few hours sleeping, or at least trying, until the restaurant open, and or rented car was ready.

My mom resting after the flight

At 9am, we finally got the keys, and left the airport to head toward Copacabana. We got stuck in traffic and got lost around the metropole, but after just about two hours of driving, we got out.

We drove to Copacabana, but as we got there, one thing seemed pretty clear; altitude sickness was going to be a problem. Living in Montreal (200m), my new travelling buddies had climbed 4000m in just short of 36h, and it showed. My dad and my aunt were fine, but my uncle wasn’t feeling great and my mom was in terrible shape. Even after a one-on-one with the washroom and half a day sleeping, she felt horrible and was extremely pale. Scared, we got to the hospital, but my mom didn’t speak a word Spanish and the doctors not a word English. Not too sure of how much I could help with the translation, I gave it a try. Being a Spanish guide was something, but being a doctor’s assistant felt even weirder. Being able to translate almost everything felt amazing, but that felling was overwhelmed by the feeling of anxiety. Seeing my mom in a hospital bed with the oxygen tank, feeding her air, left a sensation of death floating in the air. As my dad and I were talking with the doctors, the thought of my parents leaving to Montreal started to make more and more sense. I felt horrible. To have waited with so much anticipation for my parents visit and having it slip into your hand at first sight made me feel a little sad, but the most important was obviously my mother’s health. Finally, the doctors told us to give her an extra day. We got back to the lodge and went to sleep, all with a little bit of stress that is.

To our relief, on the next day, my mom woke up with color and a smile, saying she felt much better. As for my uncle, he felt a little worst then the day before. Feeling better, but still a little scared not to be fully acclimatized, my mom decided to take a day off. Without hesitation, my uncle followed, and the same goes for my aunt. As for my dad and I, knowing my mom was much better; we were good to go for a tour on the Isla del Sol.

We got on the ferry, and floated up to the north end of the island. From there, two options were presented, either we visit the ruins from the north end, take a boat to the south end to visit the other ruins, or visit the north ruins and cross the island by foot (about 7km) to the south port to catch or ferry there. The second option didn’t gave us much time, but we still went for it. The hike was gorgeous. The north end had a few leftover ruins to visit as for the rest; it gave incredible view on the two countries bordering the lake. This small 7km hike may have looked easy, but the lack of oxygen was felt by the both of us. Having more days of adaptation, I managed to keep a regular paste, but my dad could pump enough air to follow at the same speed for the climbs. That being said, other than a lack of endurance and oxygen, neither got affected by the altitude. The only ick of this island was the many hidden price all throughout the trail. We paid for a “tour” of the island, thinking after having paid for it, everything would be included, but it turns out we needed to pay 10bs (Bolivian peso) to enter the trail, another 10bs for the ruins, another 15bs, in the middle of the trail (for no apparent reason), and another 5bs to enter the town in which was the port. It wasn’t much money overall, but the constant surprise toll got annoying and fast. Surprised there wasn’t a surprised entry fee to get back on the boat, we started ferrying back to Copacabana where my mom was waiting for us with a wide smile. Both my dad and I felt great to see my mom up and in good health. This meant the trip was back to the original plan; I was going to have a little more time to enjoy my parents company.

The next day, we left Bolivia to enter Peru. For me, this was my first experience crossing a border without my thumb, and with a rented car. I thought it was going to be easy, as hitchhiking the USA-Canada border is hard whereas crossing it with a rented car is easy, but it all but that. The Bolivia exit border rapidly tried to stop us from crossing telling us our company doesn’t allow their car to cross, but despite not knowing which was the right paper when we entered the office, we ended up finding all the permission and finally got in. Despite being a decent puzzled, this border turned out to be the easy one. When it was time to check in our car in Peru, we got stuck with one of those corrupted patrol. We took all the paper out, owing him that our company gave permission to my uncle to cross the car in Peru, but he kept on telling us that the paper we kept on showing was an official paper. After a dozen of minutes trying to deny or entrance, he told us, and without any shame, that he could let us in if we gave him a small bribe. There was obviously no way we were helping a crook, so we kept on arguing with him. He stay stubborn, but still saw the bribe wasn’t going to work; it was time for plan C or D. He went on his computer, shut down the internet and told us he couldn’t get us in as internet was out. We kept on arguing with him up until he told us to wait for internet to get back on. Being now noon, we went for a snack, and as we came back, our border patrol had his name tag removed, and pretending to be friendly, he finally gave us our entrance stamp. But, as we were about to leave the office, we told us with all the confidence in the world that all we had to do was to show him the green document, the one that all throughout our time in the office, we kept on showing him, as if all this was our fault.

Finally in Peru, we drove to Puno, for us to take o small motor boat to the floating islands of Uros. The plan for the night was to sleep in a small resort directly on the floating islands with the local people. As a bonus of these amazing looking islands, we got to dress up in traditional clothing. We then got to buy a few artisanal tissues, ate and went to sleep. The next day, we had a small crash course on the construction of these unique islands. The locals would start by cutting cm x 30cm blocks of roots, about a meter deep, plant a branch of Eucalyptus in the center of them and tie them all together to create a huge platform. From that point, they put about 3m of reeds stacked one on top of the other. As you can imagine, the water rotten the reeds, so twice per month (or three times in the rainy season), they have to apply a new layer, but this causes a problem, the new layer is added to the top of the island, slowly “sinking” the house, so every once in a while, they team up, and with twenty person, they lift to house by hand, bring it someplace else, restack a pile of reeds, and bring the house back for it to be about a meter higher than the island’s floor. At the beginning, the natives were nomads, and used to let their islands float freely, but now a day, they anchor the islands using either Eucalyptus branch stuck in the shallow water, or using rock in the deeper water. As for the life spend of these islands, the roots block (or foundation) can live up to 35 years, so to prevent their islands from fully disintegrating, they’ve build there island on different years. So, when part of their islands gets too rotten, they dive in the 9°C water, cut one of the anchors, remove the rotten material put some new one, re-anchor this particular root system, and use the rotten material as garden soil for flowers.

The traditional dress from Peru

After breakfast, it was time for us to head back in town, get money out, and head toward Cusco. As planned, we got back in town, tried to park in front of the police station, where they told us we were going to get a ticket, forcing us to park elsewhere, and went to the bank, where they told us the person capable of helping us wasn’t there for another half-an-hour. Having nothing much to do, we visited the cathedral, and visited the courthouse. We were greeted like kings. Two lawyers rapidly came to see who we were, and invited us to see a few trials happening to happen as we were there. But for them, this wasn’t enough; they managed to get the president of the courthouse of the Puno region to receive us for an audience. Being the usual translator with my uncle, we managed to exchange on the different subjects of law. The most intriguing one was by far the animal property issues. Having no property, most local ranchers leave their animals free, giving the opportunity to crooks to still the animals of the neighbour saying it is theirs. Obviously, he gave us a few example of how to treat such an issue, but my favorite was the way to find the owner of a duck. They would capture the duck, put it in a dark bag, bring him away from his house, and let him loose. Wanting home, the duck would run back to the house of the owner, giving an answer as to who is the actual owner.

My family and I with the director of justice of Puno

To that point, the day proved to be quite beautiful, but life had a different plan for us. As we headed to the car, we noticed the doors weren’t closed properly, scared, we check for our bags, and we realised we had just being robbed. All of our small bags were gone, as for Bernard and Nathalie, my uncle and aunt; they lost all of their cloths, and an Ipad. For Bernard, over 6” tall, this was a problem, as finding cloth his size in Peru/Bolivia would be a hell of a challenge. As for my dad, he lost his camera, and his phone. And as for me, my camera was also gone, with my rain jacket and my pocket knife. Obviously, all of our souvenirs bought the night before were gone with our bags. We went to the police station to declare what had just happened, and as they examine the car for digital prints, they checked for the lock, and it was indeed broken. We made a rapport which took them about 3h, and when they finally got the rapport finish, we left Puno. Not only was some of our stuff gone, but due to the extensive time at the police station, we had to start our 7h drive at 3:30pm toward Cusco. At least, none of our passports were gone. We drove until we reached Ayaviri, the Kankacho (lamp) capitol of Peru is located, and ate their famous Kankacho, and drove to Cusco to arrive at destination at around eleven o’clock. The start of our trip may not have being great (my mom at the hospital on the first day, stuck with corruption on the third, and robbed on our fourth), but this weren’t going to bring us down, we just got unlucky. But now, when someone will ask me if hitchhiking is dangerous, I can affirm that driving is much worst, so no, in 7 month on the road, nothing really bad has happened, whereas within 4 days of road tripping, two days turned out less than ideal. I guess looking like a homeless doesn’t appeal robbers and corruption.

The original plan was for us was to take the train to Machu Picchu the following day, but as we were working on getting our train ticket, we realised we weren’t going to make it; there was no more room for the day. I a desperate attempted to get a train ride to Agua Caliente, we found an agency that offered us a full day tour at the Machu Picchu, with a private guide. Of course, we jumped on the offer, and at 4am the next day a bus came to pick us up, brought us to the train station at Ollantaytambo, were we zoomed through the valley I had walked through about a month before, and got on our tour. Needless to say, we learned a lot about the Incas and the ruins themselves, but the most amazing piece of information we got on the Machu Picchu was that it lasted only 20 years; from its earliest construction to the day it got abandoned.

World famous Macchu Pichu

After our tour of the ruins, we climbed back down, ate, and went for the thermal bath of Agua Caliente. Jumping between the freezing cold shower and the naturally hot bath felt great after the sweaty climb back down, and was a perfect way to wait for our train to come back.

We came back to Cusco late at night, but didn’t have much time to rest since at 7am, we needed to get up for us to leave town by 8am. The reason was that we had planned a hike at the Rainbow Mountain, near the Ausangate Mountain. This colorful ridge had being on my bucket list ever since I left, but after doing much research, I had to give up on that dream (minimum 150km walk through 4000m+ mountains). But, just a few mouth before, the Peru government had built a new road connecting the different towns south of the ridge, opening a new entrance, just 4h walk from it. Seeing that, as we were walking in Cusco 2 days before, I jumped on the occasion. So, at around 11am, we picked up our guide, waiting in a nearby town, and we drove into the depth of Peru. When we finally arrived on site, a gorgeous view of the immense glaciers of Ausagate Mountain (about 6200m) greeted us. We got out of the car, and started walking up to the next glacier valley. Our trek started at 4300m. At this altitude, the oxygen is much less, about 40% less then at sea level. A tiny 5min walk could leave us breathless. As for climbing 600m, it will figuratively kill you. Not having enough horses for everyone, I volunteered to walk the totality of the trek. But after 2h of climbing at high altitude, my body couldn’t take it. My breathings were deep, but couldn’t pump enough oxygen. Due to that lack of oxygen, my legs were burning like they have never burned; each step demanded tremendous effort. Furthermore, every once in a while, the lack of oxygen would leave me brain dead; for a step a two, I would be completely out of balance and almost conscious less, up until I could catch a deep enough breath to win back consciousness. One of the many “sharpa” coming down from the morning tours offered me a horse, but seeing the summit closing in got me to refuse and keep on going. But if things weren’t bad enough, it started hailing as we were still climbing up. Knowing we weren’t going to see the colored ridge and being completely destroyed by the hike, I finally gave up, just a few hundred meter form the summit. As for the rest of my family (who had climbed with the help of horses), they wanted to reach the summit. When I heard everyone wanted to reach the summit, I pulled all the energy that was left in me and went for it. Boy was it tough, but the view of the neighbouring valley was worth it. White peaks framing a glacier valley were lite up by the one opening between clouds; it was magical. Unfortunately, I fell back on Earth when it was time to climb back down. The way down turned out to be twice as painful as the climb up. I felt like I was walking with knives stabbed in my legs, so as we got back to the horse, I climbed on one, and that was it, no more walking unless I have absolutely no other choice.

The lack of oxygen really strained me out

It might not look like it, but despite all the pain withstood during this hike, I still enjoyed it quite a lot. I’ve always loved trying to find my limits, and during that hike, I did. Hiking at high altitude is something I had never done, I wasn’t sure I could do it. But after having seeing what the effect of high altitude can do to you, and seeing that I can keep on pushing in such condition is for me quite thrilling and pleasant, so no, this wasn’t a bad moment, but a rather great one.

That night, we were supposed to drive to Puno, a six hour drive. But all exhausted, we decided to call it a night at Sicuani. We looked around town, and finally found what looked like a decent hotel. I have to say, the hotel was pretty decent, but the owner was a real pain it the b***. My uncle and aunt were the first one to pay for the room; a 60 soles room. Nathalie, my aunt, gave the man 100 soles. He gave her back 20. We looked at him and told him there was 20 missing. He shook his head no, telling my aunt that the 20 soles on the table (the one he had just given her) was hers and that she needed to pay an extra 40 soles to make it to 60, completely ignoring the fact she had given him 100 and that the 20 was his. All happening in Spanish, my aunt could really argue, but thankfully, I knew enough Spanish to take over the situation. We argued for a little while until finally, I managed to get the 100 soles back, to start again. This time though, I talked to him just like if I was teaching a kid how to count. The owner pretended he got confused, but we all knew that he was just trying to get some money out of the gringos wallet.

On our way back to Bolivia the next day, we stopped at the Sillustani Chullpares before tackling the border mumbo jumbo. We got there expecting the worst, but unlike the first time, things worked nicely. On the Peru side, the lady that took care of the car’s immigration was new. Not knowing what to do, her boss came to help her out; no corruption this time. As for the Bolivian side, we stayed in line for a little while, but once we managed to push ourselves through, we were told everything was fine. Happy all the borders were crossed, got back in the car and drove through the night up until we reached La Paz.

Sillustani Chullpas

To start the Bolivian section of our trip, we needed to cross the totality of the country to reach Uyuni. We took all day to cross the country, but just a few minutes after sunset, we found our hotel. The Luna Salada, had something special. Unlike all of the other hotel we had done, this one was made of salt. The floors were salt grain whereas the wall, bed structure, table, etc. were made of salt block. Of course, the table had a cloth covering it and the bed had a regular mattress, but the salt wall definitely left a unique sensation. This hotel had another feature pretty unique. Not only did we have free buffet for breakfast and supper, but a lunch box was made for us in the morning. This meant that for two full days, we were completely free, sort of a vacation within a vacation within a vacation.

For our first day at the flat, we chose to explore the north. We drove to the beginning of the Salt road, but rapidly decided to head back in town as the entrance to the flat was blocked by water. Eventually, after talking to a local, we got the information needed to cut across the water and start rolling toward emptiness. We rolled for over an hour and a half before the scenery started to change. Once at the Tunupa Volcano, we had to change course to aim for Salinas. For me, this was back to the farthest road I had hitchhiked on in Bolivia, about a month ago. But, despite having hitched on this road, there was still one more thing for me to visit, something I had never seen other than in the Cairo Museum in Egypt: mommies!! We drove over the ridge and down to Alcaya, a tiny little town lost in nowhere. Not having much time before dark, and still lots of driving back to the hotel, we needed to hurry up. Not wasting a minute, I started walking along the badly marked trail to the mommies. My paste was fast, and same was for the climb. I searched and searched to find the mommies, but time was passing by and I couldn’t find anything. Finally, after almost losing all hopes, I found a small cavern protected by steel wires, and through these wires, I could see them, three full mommies. The first one had a broken neck and most of the bones were exposed, but as for the other two, the full skin covered the skeletons. It was amazing to see these mommies, thinking they had withstood the test of time to become near immortal (their body that is). As my mom, uncle and aunt started the hike back down, my dad and I decided to keep hiking a little more as I knew there were still a few mommies around. Just a few meters up the hill was indeed another cage with another two mommies. We observed them for a few minutes and decided to climb back down to be able to reach main land before dark.

My first real mommies

After our encounter with the ancients, we drove back through the salt flat, to the shore at which was our hotel, and waited for sunset to finish the day for us. Now in pitch dark, and with a car full of salt reducing visibility quite drastically, this resulted into a bit of an accident. As we were driving on a narrow bumpy road, with ditches on both side, my dad lost track of the road and drove the car off course flying into the ditch. The car started bouncing between rocks up until my dad won over the control of the car and stopped it. Much more scared than hurt, we looked at the situation and saw climbing back on the narrow road wasn’t going to be too much of a problem. Needless to say, we drove much slower for the rest of the ride.

My dad enjoying a walk to nowhere

For our second day, we tackled the south shore of the dried lake. But, rather than taking the diagonal to the shore, we drove to the center of the salt flat, to a tiny island called the Isla Incahuasi. This island was covered by thousands of cacti. Some were small, but other got up to 12m high (roughly 1200 years old). From the island, we drove south toward a tiny town (2 houses) from where out of pure luck, we found a guide capable of bringing us to cavern with a few mommies. He explained us how they were found, and a little about the ancient culture of the region. After the mommies came an ancient underwater cave exploration. Dried for millions of years, the cave was obviously easy to explore, but none the less interesting. I may have visited a lot of caves through my travels, but this one is most certainly unique. Rather than having stalactite and stalagmite, this one was covered by a never before seen (by my eyes) rock formation. The entire room looked like a ruin full of spider web made of rock.

Right next to the entrance of the cave was a trail heading to the top of a ridge giving a beautiful overview of the greatest of the salt flats. But this overview wasn’t easy to reach. The first part of it was a climb along a steep cliff, with not much room for mistake. Once out of this nerve-raking climb, the entered a section of the mountain which used to be below sea level (thousands of years ago), and as everyone who snorkeled knows, coral aren’t soft, but very sharp, especially once fossilised, so if by bad luck you were to grab one of the rock, you would fell instant regret. Finally, once out of the ancient sea, we got unto an extremely windy cacti field, obviously, no place for mistake. The way up wasn’t so bad, but as we climbed back down, these painful features suddenly began to show their true selves. No all being able to endure the lack of oxygen from the altitude, our group got separated. My mom and my aunt decided to turn back down before the rest of the group, but once back at the steep cliff, they lost track of the path. Not knowing how to climb back down, they through themselves into a sheet cliff that even I wouldn’t have tried. My mom went first and as she was about halfway down, I showed up. Puzzled, I asked them why they were taking such a path, and with a scared tone, they replied they couldn’t find the way down. Thankfully for my aunt, who was still at the very top of that crazy path, I knew where to go, and showed her the way. But for my mom, it was too late; the way down was the only way out. My aunt and I contoured the cliff and as we go to the bottom of the cliff, I saw no sign of my mom. For a split second, I got quite scared, what if she had fallen while going down? I called her, and to my relief, I heard her from down the trail; safe and sound.

Once everybody back on solid ground, we got back in the car and drove back through the salt flat. Still having a few hours of light, we made a small detour by Uyuni. We visited a museum and took the opportunity to wash our salt covered car.

The next day, we didn’t have any plans, but to drive to Sucre, about 6h worth of driving. We climb up and over countless mountain ranges, up until Potosi appeared. We stopped for lunch, got lost in town, and after countless directions all different from one another, we got back on the road toward Sucre. Once more, we climbed over a few mountain ranges, but this time, we lost altitude after each one. Being at only 2’800m, it felt got to be able to breathe again. Climbing three steps wasn’t a task anymore. Sucre was sort of a free day for us as we had didn’t have any long distance drive for 24h. The only driving we had to do was heading to the Cal Orck’s Dino Tracks. These dino tracks were discovered by a local cement factory that accidently exposed a huge kilometer long wall that with erosion started to expose tracks. With now oven 12’000 dinosaur steps, this is the biggest dinosaur track fossil in the world. I’ll rarely say this, but thanks to this factory which destroyed half of a mountain, we got to discover a unique site of pure interest for the dinosaur lovers.

The fossilized footprint of an old predator

After a guided tour of the tracks, we got back in downtown Sucre for a long afternoon walk. The city was indeed beautiful, and filled with Spanish architecture. As for the streets, it was a perfect moment for my parents, uncle and aunt to discover the life of Bolivia. Up to that point, we had visited a lot great landscape, but never have we stopped to explore the local lifestyle.

After a day off, it was time to get back on the road, and it wasn’t going to be an easy one. We had for 10h of driving, and that is not counting the hundreds of kilometers of road construction and their “desvios” labyrinth, lack of indication and direction, landslide blocking the road, etc. The day wasn’t of pure joy as it was ratherly stressful, being constantly lost, but still, we manage to have a great moment in the small town of Ocuri. This lost town showed up at around noon. Not having any food, we decided to stop. I assume they weren’t used to see tourists as the entire town stop to look at the gringos. We grab a small plate of food from one of the street food stands, and all lined up next to the church to eat our plates. Some kids had fun passing as close as possible to the gringos, while other were scared of the funny looking white people. As for the grow up, they were all staring, and even taking pictures of us, while we were eating.

Having reach Oruro at night, we didn’t have much driving to do for our next destination: Valle de la Luna, a little east of La Paz. To our amazement, we managed to bypass La Paz through very remote roads, without GPS and without getting lost. Being quite close to our final destination of the day, and having time (for once), we decided to go for an hour walk along the lunar landscape in constant erosion, and look around the artisanal shop from the park.

From there, we needed to find la Valle de las Animas, but as I looked up on my computer that morning, this wasn’t going to be easy. We asked the local security and not sure, he pointed in a certain direction. Wanting to know for sure, we asked a taxi driver for indication, and without any hesitation, he pointed the other way. Following the direction given with confidence, we started driving south. We needed to go east. We drove for a little while, but things weren’t adding up. We stopped and asked someone else. This time, the guy seemed to know what he was saying. He told us to backtrack up to the Valle de la Luna, and from there contour the mountains; and so we did. This time, though, I had my computer with me. I may not have had internet access, but as Google Earth safes all the map you “download”, I had part of a detailed map to my disposal. It may sound great, but didn’t have much battery for the ride. Thankfully, with the help Google Earth, we found our way to the valley in no time.

Bolivia has so much to over that even La Paz has nice formations

After being pulled over for control by a local police who showed us exactly where was our hotel, we decided to head to a small town within the mountain. But, due to very bad road condition, following the edge of decent cliffs, we decided to park our car and go for a small walk to an overlook, overlooking part of the Valle de las Animas. Back at the hotel, we were told the Jacuzzi was open. We grabbed our bathing suit, and we went for a swim. As I entered this bubbly warm water giving massages, I instantly thought of all the time I was either cold, our sweating, all the nights I had slept on rocky terrain or on solid concrete, and just the thought of the contrast between my normal way of travelling and this small vacation made me laugh. From pure discomfort to absolute luxury. But this wasn’t going to last for ever as this was my second to last night with my parents, thus, of comfort, the road and the adventure wasn’t too far off.

For my last day with my parents, we tackled the Palca Canyon. As we got to the entrance of the canyon, we noticed a road crossing it. Knowing there was another road at the other hand, we thought of crossing it by wheel, but very rapidly decided not to. Instead, we’ve put on our boots, and walked the 2km to reach the main feature of the canyon, a huge monolith. This monolith had being built by the two rivers intersecting which had eroded the rock around it.

What a nice way to start my last day with my parents

Once our excursion finished, we headed for our last destination: the Valle de las Animas (the Valley of the Spirits). Despite being a gorgeous valley in the middle of La Paz suburbs, this incredible valley, which has eroded leaving hundreds of pointy towers along its shore, is touristic, thus not well indicated. We had to fight against the unorganised street system of La Paz, until I saw a small dirt road heading inside the valley. Once on site, we all went our ways; my dad climbed a trail to have an overall view, my mom and my aunt decided to stay within the valley, whereas my uncle and I decided to head between these pinnacles. After a small trek inside those gentle giants, I called my aunt and my mom for them to witness the inner beauty of it, followed by my dad a few minutes later. As for me, I decided to head for the overview that my dad had explored a few minutes before. What a view!

I don't know why no one knows about this place, but it is in La Paz, and it is gorgeous

That was it; the end of my parents visit, the end of comfort. We drove back to La Paz, got lost a few time due to the extremely badly indicated street, but eventually, we found our hotel. We gave the car back to the renting company, and had our last meal together. At 5am, my parents woke up, we share our final goodbye, and they left for the airport. I was now alone… for the next year or so, I’ll be alone. But at least, on the road, I’m always with new friends, and surrounding with beautiful nature, I always feel good. I guess I’ll have to wait a few days to see if the departure of my parents is has hard as people say, or if I’ll manage to focus on what I have.

As for me, despite being alone, and back in action, I still needed to get my visa for Paraguay. The problem with that was that it was now Sunday, and Monday was a holiday, meaning I was stuck for another 3 days in La Paz. The end of the vacation was over, but the adventure could begin.

On April 3rd, I finally got the chance to take care of my visa. The ambassador told me he needed 24h to take care of it. I knew now I could leave for Paraguay, but I still needed to do something. The Uyuni desert (south the well-known Salar the Uyuni) had being on my must see list of South America. In fact, it was the main reason why I chose to head down there. So, when I learned I couldn’t head there with my parents, it really bummed me down, and not sure hitchhiking in such a remote area was a good idea, I had only one option in front on me: go on a guided tour. And so, I booked a guided tour leaving later the next day, from La Paz. This sounded perfect, as I would get my visa in the afternoon, just before leaving for Uyuni; no extra time wasted in La Paz. But as usually, things didn’t go to plan. When I got to the embassy the next day, the ambassador told me there had being a problem with their system, and that he couldn’t make my visa for the day. This wouldn’t have being so bad if I hadn’t already paid for my tour leaving a few hours from then. In panic, I ran back to the tour’s agency, and asked if I could move my tour. It wasn’t too much of a problem, but for the bus to Uyuni, that sure was a problem. At four, like told by the ambassador, I got back to the embassy, and despite having to do an extra hour of work, the ambassador managed to get me my visa. Oufff! I don’t have to change my plans. And so, I hopped on the night bus to Uyuni. Finally, I’m back on the road!!!

PHOTOS