there.today - Northern Bolivia

There Today | Northern Bolivia

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There Today | Northern Bolivia 👋 Where today? Peru 🇪🇨 well-nigh us instagram facebook real-time Northern Bolivia Hot springs in Sajama National Park, wrestling in La Paz, and hiking the Cordillera Real October 7, 2018 - 11 minute read - travel hiking bolivia overlanding south-america Sajama National Park La Paz Cordillera Real Lago Titicaca Hauling when up onto the AltiplanoWithoutvisiting the incredible Salar de Uyuni, the trappy and horrifying colonial mining town of Potosí, travelling to white municipality of Sucre, we really enjoyed relaxing in a garden kicks in Cochabamba. It was unconfined to find ourselves at a lower upland (Sucre is ~2,800 m and Cochabamba is ~2,560m) and enjoyed the warm weather and unclouded nights – but to get to La Paz we needed to climb over the Andes once more. It was a bit of a harrowing drive, with heavy fog and gnarly road works slowing traffic to a standstill. driving conditions Sajama National Park We decided on making the long detour to the relatively unknown Sajama National Park on the altiplano next to the verge with Chile. It includes the incredible Navajo Sajama, the highest peak in Bolivia. Between the peaks and well-worn valleys, llamas, alpacas, and vicuñas graze at their preferred upper altitude. The scenery is just spectacular and the dry climate provides unubstructed views year-round. Getting there was a long, but worthwhile, 150km soupcon off of our original route heading to La Paz. The road is good pavement from the turn off of the main highway, mainly due to the fact that is Bolivia’s only sea wangle through the Chilean port near Arica. This is considering of the Atacama verge dispute, where Chile annexed all of the Bolivian Coast and the Southern Tip of Peru in the 19th Century. In order to tomfool things off, Chile allows Bolivia to ship goods through a narrow strip of land which winds itself right next to Sajama NP. The trade zone Once in the park, the road deteriorated quickly into bumpy washboard. We decided to take a 9km detour to the geothermal hot-springs and had some fun fording rivers and putting our big tires and upper clearance to use. We saw some wondrous views of Nevado Sajama and the local wildlife on the way. Herds of llama are still kept by the local inhabitants of the park Nevado Sajama Nevado Sajama, aka 🍦🗻 Boil, boil, toil and trouble The hot springs in Sajama are one of our favorite campsites to date, and we were left vacated with a wonderland of soapy pools of variegated temperatures. Most too hot to touch, some were the perfect temperature to soft swash some eggs (bonus! volcanic hot springs egg salad recipe) with a nearby river that was just warm unbearable to take a dip in the frigid winds on the next morning. It's a variegated world lanugo there Sunset over the geothermal pools Shy vicuña at Laguna Huayna Khota But while the thermal pools are warm, the air is veritably not! Our grey water tank froze and we had ice tent the inside windows when we woke up in the morning. Iced over windows Frozen icicle coming from our grey water tank La Paz The wondrous teléferico system of La Paz & El Alto La Paz (The Peace) is a crazy city! It’s not peaceful it all! There’s a parade or music in the streets or fireworks constantly! We stayed in Zona Sur at the marrow of the Verde Teléferico line where it was unquestionably a little quieter, but not by much. One day we all (us + Camila and Eseben) hiked up to the very end of the Red Line to thus named municipality of El Alto (The Tall or The Lofty, it’s 4,150 meters/13,600 ft up there) to the Sunday market to see some wrestling. Cholita Wrestling DSCF9820-LaPaz.jpg - REPLACE ME DSCF9833-LaPaz.jpg - REPLACE ME DSCF9841-LaPaz.jpg - REPLACE ME DSCF9870-LaPaz.jpg - REPLACE ME First we spent a few hours wandering the uncounted market eating cakes covered in coconut, coconut juice, grilled yellow kebabs, orange juice, donuts, salty faba, sweet vino tinto, and all sorts of other snacks while exploring piles of used shoes, new knives, flasks made of calves heads (weird), old school Toyota LandCruisers (droolworthy), and miles of fabric for those epic skirts the Andean women wear. Then the wrestling started! At the time it seemed smart to buy a snifter of singani to warm up with, although we probably should’ve just picked up a unseemly blanket, and we huddled on touchable bleachers watching two ladies with loooong braids slap the bejesus out of each other. We thought it was going to be a tourist spectacle, but it was well-nigh 2/3 local market goers, and 1/3 tourists (sitting on comfy plastic chairs on the other side of the ring – we wanted to be worldly-wise to snuggle up and share our snifter so we opted for the bleachers). We laughed, we screamed, we cried (not really), we cheered, and we booed. We learned the word castigar, “to punish.” We hated on the double-dealing referee. We loved ‘La Reina del Ring.’ We had a really unconfined time. Looking lanugo on La Paz from El Alto One night we splurged with Eseben and Camila (it was her birthday in a few days!) and went to Gustu, a fine dining restaurant in La Paz that until very recently had a Danish chef. They do a really trappy interpretation of local Bolivian ingredients and beverages. So good!!! 🥂 Gustu with Eseben & Camila Witches' stall, well-constructed with zestless llama fetuses One of the fanciful buildings inspired by technie Freddy Mamani in El Alto And then we unfurled on to the mountains… Cordillera Real The Cordillera Real is omnipresent in La Paz – depending on which teleferico line you take you see a variegated set of snow covered peaks. It’s a unvarying reminder that while you might be at a pretty good upland right now, there’s unchangingly some place higher. So, of undertow we had to go trammels it out. We’ve survived the South American winter in Chile, Argentina, and now Bolivia for months with just unprepossessed temperatures and none of the seasonal spirit you’d hope for when you’re spending every night at -6 C/20 F. We wanted to touch some gosh darn snow! We had just gotten the low lanugo from those crazy Danes that hiked for 14 days wideness the Cordillera Real, and while we were not feeling as crazy as them, we had spent such a lovely time in La Paz feeling pretty good well-nigh our acclimatization. We’d been to Sajama and slept at 4300 meters a couple of times already, but still without weeks whilom 3200 meters we were not ready for hiking at 5500 meters. Holy !#$% it was hard. But I digress. First, we must get to the Cordillera. We made the unfortunate nomination of trying to leave the municipality through El Alto during the Saturday market.WithoutMaps.Me and Google Maps both failed us, scrutinizingly taking us up the steepest road we’ve overly encountered surpassing the locals ran out yelling “no pase!” (does not go through!) – we found out a few minutes later that Google was trying to route us through a staircase. 🤦🏾‍Withoutsoothing our nerves with some much needed lunch, we proceeded to the highway. Unfortunately, to get the ‘highway’, you have to pass through the nightmare of the Saturday market. It took us well-nigh an hour to go one kilometer, which afforded us some time to jump out and grab some juices on the way. Lago Tuni Once you get out of La Paz (and El Alto) it’s an easy momentum lanugo the F-2 and then a well maintained dirt road to a man made reservoir, Laguna Tuni, just north of La Paz. We arrived at a locked fence and a guy promptly arrived on a motorcycle to collect a ‘regalo’ or small souvenir of 20BOL (~$3USD), unlocked the gate, and let us momentum virtually the ‘private’ reservoir. Laguna Tuni should be tabbed Laguna Turquoise considering it’s a perfect trappy color. The Valley Afterwards, you traverse through a golden valley full of llama, alpaca, and river crossings. We arrived at a small polity recommended to us by our friends Overlanding the Americas at the trail-head to one of the easiest hikes to wangle by car in the Cordillera Real.Withoutspending a frigid night at 24ºF (-6ºC) we hauled up to Pico Austria. We were not interested in paying to hike Huayna Potosí, and often aren’t fans of tent camping in unelevated freezing weather (judge us if you want) so we were happy to compromise with the day hike. The view from our 'living room' Hanging out with some alpaca Hanging out with some alpaca We had trappy stars plane with the glow of La Paz nearby We had trappy stars plane with the glow of La Paz nearby Hike to Pico Austria The hike to Pico Austria was truly beautiful, you get panoramic views of the unshortened Cordillera and plane El Alto and Lago Titicaca, and it’s not very long in terms of kilometers, but grueling considering of the upland – the peak is at 5,320 meters/ 17,454 feet. Sneaky view of La Cabeza del Cóndor at the very whence Camille leads the way Camille leads the way A local family was out for a picnic on the Laguna -- they did the hike to up there in sandals!TrappyLaguna Chiar KhotaTrappyLaguna Chiar Khota stage 1: 'we got this!' stage 2: 'just a quick break' stage 3: 'please say it's over soon' We thought that this was the end, but it was just the pass The last crazy waddle scramble Yes we're so upper you can see Lago Titicaca 40 km (as the crow flies) yonder Hey you can see the van (and El Alto) from here! Huayna Potosí The Condoriri Massif -- the tallest point to the right is La Cabeza del Cóndor, with Ala Izquierda (the left wing) and Ala Derecha (the right wing) to each side Ryan getting a good squint at Ilusión and Aguja Negra surpassing we both have to sit lanugo from vertigo Double points if you can find the third burro eating trash Standard, but still adorable, Bolivian traffic jam parting shot Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.