Bolivia's Streets | Bolivia
- giuliandy
- Jun 18, 2018
- 5 min read
The streets of Bolivia
Potosi, Sucre, La Paz & The Death Road
Potosi:
Directly after the amzing Salar the Uyuni tour we hopped onto a bus and drove 3 hours towards Potosi. Potosi is known for its silver mining activity on the "Cerro Rico" (Rich Mountain) which was started back in 1545 by the Incas. Potosi is located at arround 4000 m and, through the intense mining, it became one of the most populated city in the world in the early 17 hundreds.The colonial buildings of Potosi are world heritage and so it was just lovely to walk arround.
One of the major tourist attraction is a silver mine tour. Before you actually enter the mines the guides take you to a market were you can buy real dynamite (most likely the only place in the world were tourist can buy dynamite). The dynamite will be later given with some other little items like Coca leaves, water, sweeets etc. to the miners as a present. After working many years in the mining industy and knowing also the safety level of such mines, plus the fact that children are still working in this particualar mine, we decided not going on such a tour as it just didn´t feel so ethical to me and Giulia.
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Sucre:
Sucre was by far my (Giulias) favourite city in Bolivia, a very European style city with a super nice vibe. The further you went up the more old style monastries & convents you would find; to some extent it reminded me of some of these small alleys in Siena and some other small cities in Tuscany.
We stayed in a nice room inside an old white colonial building and had breakfast every morning in the garden with the sun shining on us. The first night we discovered a western style bar/restaurant (Joy ride), where not only I had the best double quinoa burger but we found out they offered free salsa classes the next day: there it was, my dream of dancing Salsa in South America was finally becoming true. We took the days really easy and strolled around the city and had delicious and cheap food all the time. The salsa night was so crowded it was impossible not to step on somebody´s foot. Andy would think elsewise but I thought I was not too bad. I think the class was overall about 1 hour and right after that the room turned into the kind of disco you go to when your cool friend turns 16.
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La Paz:
We took a fligt to La Paz and we were still travelling with Stephanie and Clare and it was nice to have their company, I love Irish humour too. In La Paz we all stayed in Sopocachi area in this really cold hostel with the most eccentric owner: Sergio.
Sergio was some kind of chef or at least he really liked cooking cause the kitchen of the hostel was the best kitchen I´ve ever seen in a hostel. A huge and very wide cutting station, nice hobs and even an oven and a separate grill for BBQs. The kitchen was also very well equipped with loads of spices; we had a nice cooking evening there!
The day after our arrival we followed Sergio´s advice and started exploring the city by taking the cable cars which literally fly all over La Paz & suburbs. I was quite amazed as these were really new and nice looking cable cars but rather inexpensive as they are pretty much the main mean of transport for locals in La Paz. I can´t even remeber how many lines we took in the end but it took us about 2 hours to complete the tour. We got off the line and walked towards the center and ended up at an italian restaurant (Berlusca) where I ate the best rigatoni al Pesto since of the whole travel. I believe the owner was italian and the pasta we had was really quite authentic.
Happy and well fed we then walked over to the witch market which is basically the "souvenir market" in La Paz and we all (minus maybe Stephanie ahha) had fun testing our negotiating skills. I found that in Bolivia, and in general in South America, they don´t really negotiate as much as in Asia. Coming from China where locals negotiate on 20c for a piece of fruit, I guess we were perceived as quite aggressive by the locals. So much that one guy from a shop literally sent me to hell, "Va al diablo" the day after because I was negotating too much (I didn´t have the feeling but it must have been like that). Can´t disclose what we bought as some of you will get some of it so…it is a surprise! The day after Andy went to bike the Death Road and it was probably the most miserable weather they´ve ever seen in La Paz.
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The Death Road:
Known as the most dangerous road in the world the "Death Road" is winding down near La Paz from from 4670m La Cumbre Mountain to 1200m in Coroico. The path starts in rocky terrain and ends in a jungle, windy gravel road with big boulders.
Since 2007 the death road was replaced by another new road due to the danger of the original path. The Road is officially closed for vehicles - but some trucks are still driving in order to avoid any taxes imposed on the products they are transporting. Nowadays the road is the EL Dorado for Mountain Bikers and many travel companies offer a whole package to "SURVIVE THE DEATH ROAD" by bycycle.
I booked the tour directly with Sergio (he was just too funny) and got picked up around 7 am. Surprisingly, besides the driver and the guide, it was just me a and a young Danish girl (who by the way never really rode a downhill bike in her life) in the group, but she turned out to be pretty good - the blood of Danish Dynamite. The weahter was miserable, La Paz has normally 0 rain days in June, but we were so "lucky" we had big snowfall, rain and clouds and of course it was freezing cold.
On top of the mountain I had to tell our driver to slow down as the street was covered in mushy snow and I somehow had the feeling, that the car didnt even have any winter tires on. We started a bit lower as usuall cause of the snowfall to start a bit lower at around 4100m. From there onwards it was just wet wet and wet. Unfortunately it was just so rainy and foggy the whole day, that we even didnt see the real beauty or less say "danger" of the road........... maybe thats why I survived.
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