El Cemetario de Trenes

Due to a road blockade, we spend a couple more days in La Paz than anticipated. We muster up all the warmth we can, before finally taking a bus to Oruro where we can catch the night train, Wara Wara del Sur, to Uyuni. We´d heard many stories about the "wind chill factor" in Uyuni and Jen is particularly unsettled about the whole thing....







Uyuni is a crazy train town. It´s the hub for passage not only to north and south Bolivia, but also onward to Chile. That said...there´s not much else going on. It really resembles a very very cold and dusty ghost town straight out of a Leone western, only instead of tumbleweeds, there are plastic bags flying across the horizon.





There´s not much to do here. What restaurants we can find sometimes won´t even serve us. Most people just use Uyuni as a base to visit La Salar (the world´s largest salt flat), and people in Uyuni aren´t particularly friendly to outsiders.



What they *DO* have is a great collection on old decaying steam engines and cargo trains on the edge of town called "El Cemetario de Trenes." It is frankly one of the loveliest things I´ve seen. Even through the paralyzingly cold winds, I was in heaven. We shot lots of super 8 film too, of course.








More to come on the Salt Flats. Oh my, we are so very behind.

La Paz y La Lucha Libre

On our way south, we stop over in the capital of La Paz. We spend our few days here suffering from a variety of mysterious illnesses and discover the joy of owning a hot water bottle. And...I know it´s a silly detail, but we really loved the brightly painted collectivo buses.

Activities were regrettebly few in La Paz. However, we did happen to take a stroll on a national holiday and see a military band play in the square. Jen was particularily fond of the vocalist´s version of "Silencio." It became a kind of theme song for the rest of Bolivia.

But clearly, looking back on our time in La Paz, what stands out is the visit to nearby suburb of El Alto and seeing Lucha Libre.

This is very much like a hybrid of American and Mexican wrestling. It´s all about drama...and ,although it was all obviously fake, the floor work was really impressive, loved the costumes, and it featured "The Flying Cholitas!"



In Bolivia, a Cholita is a women who lives in the city but continues to wear indigenous clothing. They really are everywhere, usually wearing the big flowing dress, braids, and bowler hats. So, being so ubiquitous, of course they´d have cholita wrestlers too.


One of the best things about watching the cholitas wrestling was watching all the other cholitas in the crowd rooting for them. The crowd got pretty crazy and there was a constant stream of tomatoes and orange peels being tossed at the ring.

My favorite was Yolanda La Amorosa, but Super Payaso was pretty impressive too.

Beginning Bolivia - July 5th

We make it to the other side and into Bolivia relatively easy. Just a stroll across the border and a whole lotta line waiting.

We are stay a couple nights in border town Copacabana, a lovely little town right on Lake Titicaca.

Our room has heat, a great restaurant and hammocks to use by day. We are heaven.
The next day we take a ferry to Isla del Sol, supposed birthplace of Manco Inca (the 1st Inca) and his sister-bride.

We take a ferry (packed with gringos) to the northern tip of the island.

Then manage to loose the crowd and find a lovely and remote trail to the the south.

It´s not exactly a straight shot, but totally worth it as the views are amazing.

We leave the next day, but manage to have enough time to visit the church and witness the Saturday baptisms.

In Copacabana, not only are people baptized, but anything that moves.

It is customary that if someone buys a new car, for instance, that they take it here for a proper Christening.

Onward to Puno - July 2nd

The first American Transit casualty is the train from Cusco to Puno. We arrived to the station with tickets in hand only to find out the ¨tracks were broken." We later learn that this suspicously vague description means that the tracks have been shut down by a blockade of protesting teachers. We get our money back and I weep a little bit on the inside for my train to Puno.

We were more than ready to get out of Cusco, but all the passages to Puno are sold out. We resolve ourselves to take an expensive tourist bus that leaves the next morning. Oh, if we could only go back in time and book another bus. The trip was bad enough in itself: it was chalk full of upscale tourists (mostly Scandanavians, oddly enough) and what we didn´t realize was that the ticket included (not optional) a "tour" of sights on the way. Basically, this meant getting off and on the bus to buy trinkets, take pictures, and eat a buffet lunch.

After lunch, the bus takes a bumpy turn and the bus guide tells us that due to the teacher´s strike and blockade, the main route to Puno is inaccessable; we´ll have to take the mountain dirt roads instead. Now Jen and I had already thought that this bus tour seemed right out of the film Babel, but what happened next confirmed it. An angry and obviously terrified middle-age tourist rushed to the front screaming "this isn´t what I paid for!" and "stop this bus!"
He accussed the driver of just wanting to get out of paying to road tolls and said tha the roads were not safe for families. The bus pulled over and there was a tribunal as to whether to turn back a drive 4 hours to Cusco or forge on. Fortunately, the driver decided to ignore the tourist and we made it to Puno at midnight, a 9 hour trip passed over a lovely 16 hours.

In Puno, we got a room that was cleaned with a generous amount of carpet cleaner and tried to put the trip behind us. We happened upon a wedding with a great brass band.

Then we took in an impressive protest by SUTEP, the local teacher´s union. Things were getting better.