Bolivia Adventure Part one

Made it to Bolivia! After a nice walk across the boarder and a short ride in the back of an suv packed with 9 people I made it to tupiza. This part of Bolivia is very similar in landscape to that of northern Argentina so I loved it! After relaxing and teaching for three days in Tupiza, I packed up and started out on a crazy adventure.

I was signed up for a jeep tour that would take me around to all these amazing sights and it did not disappoint.

Day one

Began the day meeting the other people in my group, three French, and Italian and our Bolivian guide. We threw our bags on top of the suv and got in. The first day was full of so many stops at beautiful lakes and views. The main point of this day was travel and to reach high altitude. The way to cope with altitude sickness is by putting coca leaves on your cheek. I’ve been doing this and nothing has happened. Until one of the French had coca leaves coated in lemon, sounds good but for some reason I was allergic. I put them in my cheek and before I knew it that whole side of my face and tongue had gone numb, I began to panic (to myself) but all I could think was I’m going to have a bad allergic reaction in the middle of no where with strangers. I quickly spit it out and took an allergy pill, and before I knew it I could feel my face again. I’ll be sticking to plain coca leaves from now on. We were truly off roading on this adventure as we were on grave and mud roads with no clear path. Half of these were on mountains where I looked out one window and saw rock and the other side I saw cliff! To say I was anxious is an understatement , because it started to hail and rain on these mud roads. For those that know me you know I get stressed in a vehicle in a storm with someone I know so to have a random person driving I was scared. But alas it was all good and we made it to each destination. It was a full day of emotion for me squished in the back row for ten hours! The highlights of the day were seeing llamas and being able to get close to see them and the decoration they have on them. We also stopped at this old mining town that is now referred to as a ghost town, it was super cool to see but sad because the reason no one is there is because the citizens became slaves to the Europeans and had to leave their town. Bolivia is a very famous mining country and we drove past many mines and heard many stories. With this tour all meals and accommodation are included, for lunch we pulled into a small village and enjoyed a lentil stu. For our accommodation night one we once again pulled up to what seems like an abandoned village and went into this brick house that had a dorm with five single beds, we played cards ate dinner and went to bed. It was a long, exhausting, beautiful day. Peak elevation reached 4900m.

Day two

The day began at 630am because it once again was packed with activities. We went to see some amazing lakes of all colours! These are the highest lakes in the world and it’s incredible to see all the life that’s around with wildlife and plants. The landscape is so diverse, in the same valley you can look one way and see Rocky Mountains covered in snow, then turn your head and see mountains with so many colours you can’t count, then again you turn and see volcanos. It feels like another planet. Once against the day was spent off roading driving through rivers and one roads that aren’t roads. It’s just our group around for as far as the eye can see. We ended the morning by going to thermal hot springs. It is very cold at this altitude so the warm water was much needed. The view was incredible. We then continued on to see geysers. The country uses the power generated from these natural geysers to produce electricity and it was amazing to see them. I felt like I was on Mars. We then headed to our last stop Laguna colourada. It was amazing, the lake itself was a beautiful shade of pink and full of flamingos. I don’t know why I never knew where flamingos were from but I didn’t expect them to live in the high mountains of Bolivia, the lake and birds blended into one, it was so amazing. We ended the day by heading to our next dorm room which was similar to the first, five single beds in a room, no shower (after soaking in hot springs and walking through dust) and power that only came on for two hours in the evening. We once again played cards and ate dinner then had an early night again.