Friendly Bolivia!!!

If there is one thing that pops into my mind about the last weeks, it is that the Bolivian people are friendly people. Although we don´t understand each other often because of my lack of Spanish, I always get the biggest smiles of beautifull happy people. They seem genuinely more happy than a lot of other people, although they have absolutely less material things in life.
The second thing is altitude sickness. Knock on wood, but I was really worried about getting it because I heard so many horror stories, but the only thing I´ve experienced is a ´high´ feeling while waiting at the Bolivian border at 3600 metres and a light head ache the next morning at the same height. In the meantime we´ve been to more than 5000 metres and no worries...thanks to the coca leaves probably!!

Sara and I have been discovering Bolivia in a steady paste. We started of in the South, at Uyuni. We did a trip to the Salt Lakes, the impressive vulcanoes, their colourfull lagoons, the flamingo´s and that was an amazing start. The scenery was stunning, the people in the villages were shy but lovely and the people in our tourgroup (yes, the only way to get around...) were hilarous. Not to forget our excellent tour guide. So we were very lucky all together.

Next stop was Potosi; one of Bolivians most important miners towns. There we took a look deep down. An old miner told us about the ins and outs of the mines, he showed us the rituals and took us down to the fourth level which meant crawling on our hands and knees in pitch darkness...Absolutely irresponsible of course (yes, dad, I know!), but very impressive and interesting. Life expectanty of an average miner; 45 years...

After that we headed to Sucre, one of Bolivians most beautiful cities. Well, that´s what they say. Sara and I have our doubts. Maybe it had to do with the fact that everything was closed on Sunday (so all the amazing musea, the stunning cathedrals etcetc were shut) so don´t be culturally active in Bolivia on a Sunday. Or maybe it had to do with the fact that both sara´s stomach and mine decided to go on strike. Who knows, but we were happy to go to La Paz!!

La Paz was relaxed. My stomach was playing up badly but stomach expert as I am after China and Cambodia, I decided wisely that my body was not coping on its own (yes, Guusje, I am learning!!). So after having three days of medication, my food stays in for longer than an hour. Thank God for the miracle-powder (whatever it was...)
Anyway, La Paz. Since we used coca leaves while being at a high altitude, Sara and I wanted to know more about it and after the interesting visit to the coca museum we have decided that we better not chew too much anymore...we didn´t really realise the leaves are the basics for cocaine...Ignorant or stupid, or just plain Dutch?

And how could we not mountainbike in La Paz. Sara raced the famous ´Death Road´ as a true maniac (ok ok, a very experienced maniac) and I followed her ofcourse, but in a more Maaike-paste. Absolutely loved it, I can truly recommend it!

We left Bolivia via the magnificent Lake Titicaca to arrive safely in Peru where the people are less friendly (10 points for the Bolivians!) but we found the most generous hostel owner who makes up for the grumpy Peruvians we met so far. The next 2 weeks are full of outdoor activities, but more about that in 2 weeks!

Sorry no pictures, but I hope Sara is willing to be a guestwriter in 2 weeks time when she is back in the Netherlands!