Quick update so peeps don't think we got lost in the Jungle!
We are back in La Paz after a week in Rurre including two days in the rainforest. The boat trip there and back was fun but the Jungle itself was..... shall we say, underwhelming.


We had a 2.5 hour boat trip up the river to a pretty basic camp in the rainforest close to the river. There were two other people on the trip, an English guy who perpetuated the "whinging Pom" stereotype and an Australian guy who was travelling with him.
We went for a few walks through the rainforest. Sweated lots. Didn't see many animals apart from a cheeky spider-monkey who came into the dining room and stole some food and a Tarantula!

We were supposed to stay two nights but we were so dirty and sweaty, the water wasn't working in the toilets or shower and the bedroom was really dusty from the dirt floor so we decided one night was enough. In the morning before going back to town we went further up the river and walked 20 minutes to a cliff face with Macaw nesting holes. Then walking back to the boat we had to stop and be really quiet to not attract the attention of a group of white-lipped peccaries (Pigs). Luckily they didn't have any piglets with them so weren't agressive.

Back in Rurre we checked into the only hotel in town with a swimming pool and lazed around reading until our flight back to La Paz.

Heading off tonight to Uyuni in Southern Bolivia on an overnight bus to do a 3 day trip across the "world's largest" saltflat and then hotfooting it to Chile so not sure when the next update will be possible.
Sarah wants everyone to know that we will be on the salt flats for her Birthday and therefore uncontactable for Birthday wishes.

The Amazon part of Bolivia is 300km north of La Paz with the town of Rurrenabaque the main stop off point for tours etc. It’s a bumpy 16+ hour bus trip on appalling roads so we decided to fly both ways. Apparently almost everyone who goes there by bus returns by air the bus is that bad!
Took a taxi 20 minutes to the airport back up on the Altiplano. The airport is quite small for an international airport. Apart from a couple of regional airlines I think only Lufthansa flies direct to Europe.
Our plane to Rurrenabaque was quite small. Only 18 seats or so and everyone had a window seat. The aisle was narrow and not high enough to stand up in so quite tricky for some of the taller passengers to get to their seats.
The flight over the Andes was too cloudy to see any scenery and after a little turbulence over some ridges the 45 minutes flight was over quickly as we approached the landing strip. I could see the strip ahead through the cockpit and it was a bit unnerving to see a distant field of grass with a little brown strip running along it and the difficulty the pilot was having in keeping it in line with the plane!
We landed safely and had to wait for the bus with the next load of passengers to arrive. The plane couldn’t land at Rurrenabaque because the Landing strip was too muddy so we landed at Reyes, 20 km away.
After an hour waiting for the plane to leave for the return trip to La Paz they finally loaded us on a bus to Rurrenabaque and after a 20 minute detour into Reyes to pick up some cold drinks for the driver and airport staff we bumped our way towards Rurre for a dusty hour.
After the high altitude of the last couple of weeks, the lowlands were very hot and humid. Felt like 40 degrees with 100% Humidity. We found a hostel with a fan and after dinner settled in for a sweltering night.

I had the idea that Rurrenabaque was pretty much a “tourist town” but apart from every third shop selling tours to the Jungle or the Pampas (wetlands) there wasn’t a lot of typical tourist infrastructure. (Picture to the left is a friendly fellow we met in an Internet Cafe.) We practiced our Spanish enquiring about Jungle tours as 4 of the 5 operators we asked at didn’t speak any English at all. The Pampas are apparently where it’s at to see wildlife but the Mosquitos are really bad, it’s a 3 hour drive on the road we had arrived on from Reyes to get there and you spend most of the time on the boat so we had decided to do a Jungle tour. Found an operator who would arrange one for us but insisted that 2 days wasn’t enough time and a 3 day tour was needed. We had a week until the return flight to La Paz so we agreed on this and will be leaving Saturday morning.

Checked out of the hostel and had some breakfast in town. Had a couple of hours to kill before getting the bus so had a wander along the shore of the lake. Lots of garbage but it’s quite pretty along the shoreline.

Bus trip was about 4 hours broken by a ferry trip across part of the lake. The passengers all went in little motor boats but the bus was put on a tiny barge which looked worryingly top heavy.
It got to the other side without capsizing though and we continued our journey.
Leaving Copacabana we had travelled over some high mountains but now we were back on the flat Altiplano which continued with incredible snow topped mountains in the not so far distance until we reached the outlying suburbs of La Paz.
La Paz itself is down off the Altiplano so it was quite spectacular when the road suddenly plunged down the side of a previously unseen valley to reveal the city below.

We stayed a couple of nights in Laz Paz. We both were feeling a little sick (I think our breakfast juice in Copacabana might have been mixed with tap-water) so didn’t see much of the city yet. We were staying near the “Witches Market” which was a street with stalls selling all kinds of herbal remedies and potions and trinkets including dried Llama fetuses which are supposedly good luck.
There are also many Guitar shops and we bought one for Sarah as she has been missing playing. (It’s her Birthday on the 18th) It’s a little smaller than full sized and weighs almost nothing so shouldn’t be too inconvenient to carry.

Another early rise and we headed off across the island. The return boat was at 1.30pm and we had an 8 kilometre walk to the north end of the island and then return to the village of Cha’llapampa for the boat.
A kilometre along the path we came to another ticket booth and a man tried to sell us two tickets each. One for visiting the Temple of The Sun ruins (10Bs) which we were planning to walk to and another (5Bs) which I think was for the north part of the island but was covered by the ruin ticket anyway. I think he was just trying to rip us off so we paid for the ruin tickets and were on our way.
The walk was quite easy for the most part but had a few steep bits up hills. We were attacked by some kind of Plover at one stage.
After a couple of hours we reached the northern end of the island and explored the Chincana ruins which were quite interesting. Lots of little rooms and tunnels running between them.
Nearby was Titicaca Rock/Rock of the Puma which according to Inca mythology is the birthplace of the Sun God Viracocha and the first Incas Manco Capac and Mama Huaca. I expected the rock to be carved or something but it was simply a small overhang. On the walk back to Ch’allapamapa we stopped at the ‘ruins’ of The Temple of the Sun which was a nice high peak with views of the sunrise and sunset over the lake but no ruins! Not sure what happened there, they are marked on all the maps and they don’t mention that there is no actual ruins to see. The Spanish were pretty keen on destroying any kind of sun-worshiping temples as being blasphemous so they might have had a go at this one.
We arrived at Ch’allapampa with a couple of hours to kill before the boat left. The town was not as nice as Yumani as it was at lake level, built on and around an isthmus and was very sandy and hot. The beaches were not that clean with weed and pigs all over although the water did look inviting. A few backpackers were sunbaking in bikinis while waiting for the boat. We had some lunch and enquired about boat tickets. There were two boats leaving at 1.30pm and both would be stopping at the south end for an hour before returning to Copacabana via the crappy fake floating islands at 5pm! We didn’t fancy taking that long to get back and sitting around doing nothing for an extra hour on the boat. Luckily we found another boat operator who was charging the same fee (20Bs) for a direct trip which would only take 2 hours. We got back to Copacabana at 3.40pm feeling quite tired but happy with our achievement having walked 13km yesterday and another 12 today. On the way back to our hostel we stopped at a ticket agent and picked up bus tickets for Las Paz leaving 1.30pm tomorrow.
We gave Copacabana Coffee House another chance that evening ordering a couple of hot chocolates. They had strange names on the menu and I did check with the waitress that they were chocolat calientes (hot chocolate) before I ordered but mine turned up as an Iced Chocolate with mostly chocolate icecream and Sarah’s was a luke-warm chocolate drink made with what tasted like cooking chocolate. Such a shame because the first coffee we got there was quite good.

Isla Del Sol (Island of the Sun)

Woke up early and packed our bags to head for Isla Del Sol. We were able to leave our Packs at the hostel so just had day packs for the walk. You can take boats direct from Copacabana but we thought it would be more fun to walk 17 km along the lake shore to Yampupata and get a boat across from there.
We arrived at Copacabana Coffee House for our morning Coffee at 7.40am to find the guy who told us they opened at 7am mopping the front tiles. We went to walk inside and he yelled at us to not walk on the tiles. “Are you open?” We asked. “10 minutes” he replied. So we went elsewhere for our Coffee.

The walk out of town was initially through paddocks along the lakeside and through a couple of villages before climbing inland through Eucalyptus forest. We collected a small dog a couple of km from town who we named Foxy because he was fairly slinky when he ran. After crossing a fairly high ridge (*puff puff*) we descended back to the lake and passed another village with some fake Islas Flotantes, floating reed islands like are found on the Peru side of Lake Titicaca. However, people don’t live like that in Bolivia so these were the Disney version purely as a tourist trap. I think most of the boats coming back from Isla Del Sol stop there and we were harassed by three separate people from the village to come and see them.
Walking on having gone about 13 km we were greeted by Hilario Paye who features in Lonely Planet and is described as “a colourful character who will happily take you on a ride on his puma-headed reed boat, or for a trip in his motorboat”. Along with a couple of American backpackers who were there, we opted for the motorboat to Isla Del Sol option. Foxy, who had followed us for the last 10km sadly sat on the end of the dock as we pulled out. The boat was quite small and although enclosed there was only glass in 2 of the 6 windows so we got a little splashed on the half hour trip to the island.
Arriving at a small dock on the south end of the island we alighted and waved goodbye to Hilario hoping he would make it home ok as his outboard motor had stopped 3 times in the last 10 minutes.
A small boy hit us up for 5 Bolivianos ($1 AUD) each as we left the dock which is a fee for visiting the South End of the Island. We passed some uninspiring Inca Ruins which we barely glanced at as we were keen to get to accommodation and find somewhere for lunch. It was another couple of kilometres walk up the hill and along the ridge to Yumani which is the largest town on the island. It is quite high on the hillside and top of the ridge so most places have a great view out over the lake. We chose a place just over the ridge which had an uninterrupted view all the way back to Peru. We checked in and went to a nearby restaurant for lunch. Two small boys who were playing inside when we arrived came over after a few minutes and took our order. Was amusing to watch them fetch our large beer out of the fridge and discuss the best way to open it. We were wondering if they were going to cook our meals as well but they fetched mum from across the road for that.
Following a welcome afternoon nap we climbed the nearby hill (4068m) to watch the sunset. There was a small group of people doing the same thing along with a local woman armed with a Llama which she was pestering people to take photos of. (for a fee of course) When she didn’t have willing customers she started dragging the poor Llama into the background as people lined up their photo shots.
The sunset was magnificent and we watched the last of it from the hostel balcony.

We were happy to not have to set the alarm clock so woke up quite a bit later than planned at 11am. Guess we will be staying a second night at this hostel!
Had a walk around town and got some breakfast and a Coffee at Copacabana Coffee House. Great Coffee but lousy service. We asked what time they opened (7am) so we could come back early the next morning.
There is a prominent hill on the north side of town which has a great view from the top so we went for a climb. The hill is only 166 metres high but when the town is at 3800m it still takes a while to slowly gasp your way to the top!
The views were fantastic. We were overlooking the whole town and across Titicaca lake and had a good view of Isla Del Sol where we are planning to go tomorrow.
Going up the hill we passed lots of large crosses and the top of the hill is covered in little shrines where people can make offerings and further along the hill is a large number of stalls selling minature vehicles, cars, houses and money which you can purchase to take a little way down the hill with the beer, flower petals, confetti etc you purchased from the other stalls to pray that these items will come to you in the following year. We bought 1 Million Dollars! In a little case for Sarah’s brother Beau who collects notes from around the world. I wanted to go and bless it with the beer spraying pilgrims but Sarah wouldn’t let me. Sorry Beau.


Bolivia Facebook album link

Got picked up at the hostel at 9am by mini bus for a tour to the floating islands of Lake Titicaca. It was a fairly short boat ride out on the lake to a huge area of reeds with the community of Uros which was made up of many islands made from reed mats with from 5 to 40 families living on each with a total of about 1200 people. We stopped on one of the islands and were given a display of how the islands were made and then the stalls came out and the women offered weavings and jewellery for many times the amount they would have sold for on the mainland. This particular island was quite small with 5 families. It smelled like rotting reeds and was quite squishy in parts where the reeds were level with the water-line. Quite amazing to see how they have lived that way for generations. There were some modern things like I saw a few solar panels on some of the islands and larger islands had buildings with corrugated iron roofs. Some painted yellow to better fit in with the thatched huts. We stopped on the main island on the way back and they had a restaurant, general store and even a “hotel”, three very basic rooms you could pay a ridiculous amount to stay the night in. (The insects would eat you alive!)

Back in town we had time for lunch before catching a bus to Bolivia. It was a three hour trip to Copacabana (no, not the one from the song…) on the Bolivian side of the lake. We filled in our customs forms for Bolivia and listened to the lone American on the bus whinge loudly about how she didn’t know she needed a Visa for Bolivia and how unfair it was she had to pay $135USD for it when no one told her and would she have time to get it at the border etc etc. The USA started making it hard for Bolivians to get US Visas a year or so ago because the Bolivian Government wasn’t doing enough to stop farmers growing Coca. So the Bolivians simply reciprocated and US citizens have to jump through the same hoops coming to Bolivia.

At the border we hopped off the bus and took our bags through the police station to get the police cards we were given on arriving stamped that we were leaving Peru, then next door to the customs to get our passports stamped as leaving Peru. After a 300 metre walk up a hill across the border we then needed to wait for half an hour for the sole officer processing all the incoming and outgoing people. Only took a second for him to stamp the passports when we got to the desk. Didn’t even look at our passport photos, just the Peru exit stamp and our transit card.

Outside we once again hopped on the bus for a short trip to Copacabana where we found a Hostel up a dark street in the rain. (After consulting our trusty Lonely Planet of course.)


Peru Photo Album link