Bolivian Roundup

So, we have left Bolivia now and are about to embark on the Peruvian part of the trip. We have allocated more time to Peru since it appears that there is more to see. Time will tell whether that was the correct thing to do. At his point, We thought we'd like to pull together a few thoughts and images from along the way.

We have been at altitude for a month now, most of it well over 3000m. We seemed to acclimatise quite well possibly due to having planned a gradual ascent. However, it is still obvious that the air is thin. It is weird that the act of breathing becomes a conscious and significant part of the day's activities. It is no longer something you can just forget about and let happen in the background. For example, it is not possible to chew food for a long time or take a long drink, there has to be a pause for breath. Similarly, tying both shoe laces in one go doesn't work! Add the humidity of hot water and you could go hypoxic in the shower!

Again, being at altitude, we expected the air to be crystal clear but, in common with many other places, the pollution in the towns and cities is terrible. It seems even worse as there is so little oxygen to begin with.

Bolivian people are extremely friendly and keen to chat. They always want to know about your home country. Very few speak any English so having some Spanish was definitely a real bonus. We felt very safe here.

Bolivia is an easy country to be in. This is partly because it is pretty cheap for us, but also because the locals seem to value punctuality which is something we certainly did not expect from a South American country. They are proud that Bolivian time is not like Peruvian time! Of course, having said that, there have been frequent travel disruptions which can be frustrating, but it is all treated with reasonably good humour and we never witnessed any unpleasantness.

The food is delicious in Bolivia, they have every kind of fruit and veg' that you can think of and loads of others too, but the people don't seem to have any teeth even though there is a dentist on every corner!

There is a strange fusion of religions here which is evident in every church and in everyday life. The indigenous people worshipped Pachamama, mother earth, along with other gods and goddesses, then along came the Christians to try to convert them. As a result the two have mixed so for example when people have a drink of alcohol they always put a drop on the ground for Pachamama too, and the car blessings we mentioned were all offered up to Pachamama before the priest arrived. The churches are always full of people praying to the Christian faith as well as Pachamama who is represented in all the colonial religious art as the Virgin Mary in a triangular dress. Hedging their bets!!

There are tons of stray dogs here, they seem friendly enough and there is a rabies vaccination programme in progress, but it's difficult to see why they don't just spend the money on getting rid of the dogs instead, the barking at night can be horrendous, and of course there are no responsible owners to clean up after them!!

So here is an assortment of images that did not make it into the preceding postings for various reasons. No captions, just a brief review of what we saw in Bolivia some even featuring us!