| Bolivia is one of only two countries in South America that is land locked and doesn't share a border with the oceans. What makes Bolivia one of the most unique countries in the western hemisphere is that it has the highest concentration of Native Americans than any other country. Over 60% of Bolivia's population are 100% Native American and maintain most of their traditional cultures. Bolivia also shares with Peru one of the highest lakes in the world, lake Titicaca which sits over 3,000 meters or 10,000 feet. With deep cultural roots and a diverse country sharing rainforest, deserts and high altitude mountains, Bolivia is a unique place among its neighbors in South America. |
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| After spending almost a month in Chile and Argentina, I arrived to the capital of Bolivia La Paz, and what a culture shock! Chile and Argentina, both the population and the cities themselves could pass for Europe, but I found myself thinking I'm back in South America after arrived to Bolivia. Above are photos of the highest capital in the world, with parts between 3,000 and 4,000 meters. On the left is the lower and downtown area, on the right is a mural of La Paz. |
| I found La Paz to be a very strange city. I can't exactly say what is strange about it, but maybe its the combination of all the natives and local cultures that make this place so different than others. On the left is a street known as the witches way, where women sell souvenirs, mummified animals, and other goods. Also in this area are lots of restaurants, internet cafes, and other stores such as the one selling the native guitars on the upper right. |
| The portion of La Paz located at the higher altitudes is known as the poor areas. The surrounding photos are all from the upper parts of La Paz. There are markets and main streets with lots of shops that look much better than the photos I took, but its definitely the lower class area of the city. Once I was taking a taxi and when we passed through this area the driver pulled over and stopped for no reason. I waited and after a minute I asked what was wrong and he then went into convulsions and slumped over with blood and mucus running out of his mouth. I seriously thought the guy had died and ran out of the car trying to get help. No one knew the phone number for the ambulance so finally some other man drove the car to the hospital where it turned out the guy had a stroke. After several hours he ended up being okay and was able to talk again, but that was one of the nastiest things I have ever seen. |
| With La Paz being the highest capital in the world, it's common sense that outside the capital are more high altitude mountains. Some of Bolivia's mountains top 21,000 feet or over 6,500 meters, offering some serious mountain climbing. Above on the left is a photo of some of their mountains in 5,000 meter range. On the right is a llama, known for living upper elevations of the Andes. |
| In altitudes above 3,500 meters, its never really gets too hot, but can definitely get cold. Coping with the cool weather is done by wearing several layers of traditional quilts, and the natives also chew on coca leaves or drink coca tea to help with the effects of the high altitude. |
| Lake Titicaca sits on the western border of Bolivia along with Peru. This is considered to be the highest lake in the world at 12,500 feet. Other lakes in the world are higher but they are too small to support commercial ships. In Titicaca, dozens of commercials ships use the lake for trade, to transfer passengers, and others use it for recreation. |
| There are a few small towns here and there along Lake Titicaca. Above on the left is a small town where you can find ferries to transport cars back and forth across a small part of the lake. On the right are some kids fishing. |
| The natives of Bolivia navigated the waters by creating a unique boat made out of straw. Since trees are not common at these altitudes, the tall grass was all they had to work with. This tradition is still done today by some, above are two photos of these boats, one up for display, and the other on the right about to be set into the lake for the first time. |
| Bolivia's largest settlement in Lake Titicaca is called Copacabana, located near the border of Peru. Copacabana has a population of only 6,000 people, but has many attractions that make it a popular tourist destination. Above are two photos from Copacabana, one showing the entire town, and on the right some natives paying respect to a cross. |
| For such a small town, Copacabana has one of the largest and oldest basilicas in Bolivia. The basilica was created in the 1500s, and remains sacred both to Catholics and to natives because the church was built near the location of one of their sacred temples. |
| On top of one of the small mountains next to Copacabana is a large catholic shrine that also offers some great vantage points, where is where I took the photo of Copacabana itself. On the left is the shrine from a distance, on the right is a photo of the top after I hiked up to it. Not so easy at over 12,500 feet! |
| I'm not sure if this is a weekly event or some special celebration, but when I arrived to Copacabana there was a small festival going on with people dancing in the streets and playing music. I arrived on a Saturday so I figure its something they might do every weekend, but it was fun to watch. |
| Both of the photos above are from different parts of La Paz, but not too far from each other. The large building on the left acts as the parliment building for the Bolivian government. The colonial buildings on the right are along one of La Paz's main streets, where you can find places to shop and restaurants and bars. |
| Some parts of La Paz look pretty sketchy, and the city is considered to have crime. I had no problems and didn't hear of any other tourists I ran into having problems in La Paz but its always good to keep your guard up. The guy on the left looks pretty evil and there are a lot of his kind walking around but they actually are only shoe polishers! I went down another dark alley once and right in the middle was a super nice restaurant seen on the upper right. |
| Also in the Lake Titicaca area is a large ruin known as Tiwanacu. Tiwanacu is actually a culture that was pre-Inca, and the first known civilization in Bolivia and other surrounding countries. This area in Bolivia is considered to be the Tiwanacu capital, and large statues, temples and other ruins are found here. On the left is one of the main entrances to their capital, on the right are faces of different local cultures the Tiwanacu were thought to control. |
| Above are more ruins from Tiwanacu. The large door on the left is known as the Gateway to the Sun, with the god of action, Viracocha carved at the top. On the right is a large statue still standing after over a thousand years. |
| The statue on the left is the largest known state remaining of the Tiwanacu. The mummy is also from the same culture, and along with the statue it is now located inside a museum. No photos allowed! I had to sneak these ones in. |
| One of the most popular places to travel to in Bolivia is a town called Uyuni. Uyuni itself isn't very interesting, but because there are so many popular attractions near by there are plenty of places to eat and stay. |
| I'm not sure what the occasion was but when I passed through Uyuni there seemed to be a gathering of every kid in town out in one of the streets. There were some speakers set up and it looked like they might do a little parade or something, but I had to take off before I could see what it was all about. |
| The main attraction near Uyuni is the large salt pan that is the result of a dried out lake, now the largest salt pan in the world. On the left you can see that it looks like it goes on forever, on the right in the distance where you can see some mountains, there are also mirages. Those floating islands are actually more mountains in front of the larger mountain in the background, but because of the mirage you can't see the bottom of them. |
| The salt pans are also a major industry for hard working Bolivians. Every day Bolivians put in long hours mining salt which is used for many things in the country. On the left are salt mounds created by workers who shovel them into piles. If you stomp your heel into the ground, you'll find it's wet below the first layer of salt, so the mounds help the water drain and let the salt dry. Later it's packed into the trucks and then taken to the factory such as the one on the lower left. There its dried out some more, treated with iodine and hand packed into bags like the worker below. Because the process isn't with modern technology and mostly by hand, the salt can't be exported to other countries. |
| Some of the salt mined is used for construction, and is treated in a similar way like adobe bricks made from mud. These photos are from a hotel which is primarily made of salt. The walls, clock, and floor are all from salt bricks. |
| The tour I did through the salt pans and other areas was a road trip with a 4x4 jeep. An interesting stop in the salt pans is the Inca island which raises up to 80 meters above the surrounding terrain. The island gets its name because of Incas who were trying to hide from the Spanish conquerors and took refuge in the island. They were later captured and killed anyway, but the island was later named in honor of them. |
| The Inca island is covered with giant cactus and is a dry desert. The large cacti you see on the right are actually of different sexes, the one of the left is female, and the one on the right is male. |
| Outside of the salt pans in another part of southern Bolivia, I was lucky to get a local tour at night of some ancient cemetery. I didn't really understand what I was going to see, but this was one of the most interesting parts of my trip to the country. First we came to some very strange coral formations in the desert. The guy with me said that this used to be underwater so they formed ages ago. The upper right block is actually hollow and he told me to look inside. |
| I looked inside the hole in the coral and on the left is what I saw. The dozens of strange coral formations were turned into tombs and all had skeletons inside of them. On the right is another skeleton from another coral formation, while most had only one some of them had 2 skeletons in one hole. I was told these skeletons were from after the Tiwanacu times but before the Inca. They were put into the coral formations and the holes were covered with clay which eventually eroded away. This place was only discovered a few decades ago, and initially all the tombs were broken into to search for treasure. I'd assume that they were buried here after they died, but look at the first skeleton on the upper left. He has is back against the wall, knees to his chest with one arm around them and a hand on his right knee. There is no way dropping a body in a hole is going to land like that, so either he was propped in the position or was buried alive and sat like that until he finally died. |
| Back to the rest of southern Bolivia: we passed through a desert known as the Dali desert which is very close to the border of Chile. It was named after Salvador Dali's paintings which some though resembled this area. |
| Other parts of the desert are rocky with huge formations of moss. The moss formation on the right has nothing to give you perspective but if I stood next to it would be almost as tall as me. I saw some lizards and other species of birds here but missed getting any decent photos of them. |
| On the left is a photo of me in the Bolivian desert, still very close to the border of Chile. The altitude at this point was over 4,000 meters, or over 13,000 feet. Some people have altitude problems at this height, but coming from Aconcagua the altitude wasn't much to me. I did however get either a nasty stomach virus or curse from the skeletons that I took photos from the night before. Today I was able to take some photos of wildlife though, like the fox on the left and a picuna on the right. There are also large herds of llamas around here, and some type of Andean bear. I'm not sure exactly at what altitude the bear lives at, because the desert is so dry and lifeless I wouldn't know what a bear would live off of in this area. |
| At 4,300 meters you will find several lagoons, some of them fresh water which is how most of the wildlife can survive in this otherwise dry desert. The water is supplied by melting snow that comes of some of the higher altitude mountains. The water on the left is able to support life, but the green lagoon on the right is made of copper and arsenic, so it is deadly to people and all animals. It does provide some great scenery. |
| This lagoon above is called the red lagoon, or laguna colorada in Bolivia. The red here is made from a type of algae and lots of flamigoes live in the lake eating off of it. |
| The flamingoes on the left were pretty far away so I didn't get any good or clear shots, but they are the ones living in the red lagoon. I saw other flamingoes in some of the other lagoons as well. The bird on the right was actually along a river at a lower altitude, I'm not sure what species it is but it was pretty large. |
| The southern part of Bolivia has so many amazing things, but to top it off it even has geysers and thermal springs of a variety of different minerals. Most of this area is steaming and smells strongly of sulfur. You can find boiling mud, pools of oil or liquid red iron which is lava seen in the photo on the right. |
| The bolder on the left was a photo I took during sunrise as steam vents from the ground behind it. The area didn't always smell so good because of the sulfur but it was definitely scenic, especially in the early morning. Another favorite spot for tourists in this area is the hot springs that you can actually swim in. The hot springs are an easy way to warm up if you're willing to jump in. Outside its freezing temperatures, but the springs are like a jacuzzi. |
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