Podcasts, travel blog & video - Thailand, Spain, Latin America & India

Rurrenabaque…the beautiful Bolivian lowland and jungle

April 15, 2010May 7, 2009 by Tina

Rurrenabaque to me was like arriving in heaven. After spending several month freezing in the beautiful south of Peru and La Paz, the hot lowland was a very welcome change.

This friendly frontier town is probably Bolivia’s most beautiful lowland settlement (elevation 105 m). It is a small city, which enables you to walk all over the city by foot in no time at all. Most of the buildings are two story buildings which makes the city very comfortable.

The town has become a great travellers hub with many restaurants, cheap (good) guesthouses, hammocks, travel agencies and swimming pools. I absolutely loved it.

Most travellers head up the Rio Beni to visit the surrounding jungle in Madidi National Park and the savanna-like grasslands (pampas). I highly recommend both the city and the tours. It was a wonderful experience for me.

Podcast: Bolivia

September 7, 2019May 6, 2009 by Thomas

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In this Podcast from Bolivia I head from Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca (birthplace of the Incas) to La Paz, the capital (and highest capital city in the world), where I go on a mountain biking trip down the most dangerous road in the world – the Death road. Finally, I head to Potosi (highest city in the world), then onto the Salar de Uyuni salt flats in the south of Bolivia

Photos of the Salar de Uyuni salt flats

Salar de Uyuni tour, Bolivia

92 photos

Links

Video of Salar de Uyuni salt flats
Photos of Potosi
Photos of the Death Road trip

Video: Salar de Uyuni tour, Bolivia

May 6, 2009May 5, 2009 by Thomas

This video is a ten minute edit of some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen – starting with the Salar de Uyuni (the world’s largest and highest salt flats) in Southern Bolivia. Salar de Uyuni is roughly 25 times the size of the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. All the video scenes were shot on a 3 day/two night tour from Uyuni and at altitudes of between 3,650 metres and 4,500 metres.

Links

View my Salar de Uyuni photo slideshow here

Thanks to Joshua Knight for providing the song ‘Further’. Please visit his MySpace site at www.myspace.com/joshuaknightmusic

Listen to my Podcast from Bolivia here

Death-road by bus from La Paz to Rurrenabaque

April 13, 2010May 5, 2009 by Tina

Taking the bus from La Paz to Rurrenabaque is NOT for the faint-hearted. The majority of travellers who take the bus there – decides to fly back. The picture above might explain to you why that is.

The journey takes about 18 hours and the first 4-5 hours are done on a very small dirt road onto which only one normal vehicle fits. However, buses drive there all the time and it gets really “funny” when these buses meet a truck or another bus and have to pass each other.

On the picture you can see how much space there is…well hardly enough for ONE vehicle. Then imagine two next to each other and a mountain drop on the outside of about 300 meters. That’s the reality.

On top of that you drive at night. I am a believer in destiny – so I just went to sleep. But the girls I travelled with didn’t close an eye and perhaps with good reason. The passengers on the other bus driving down there at the same time as ours, was woken up at 2am with their bus hanging over the edge of the mountain. They had to get out and pull. Needless to say that they couldn’t sleep the rest of that night.

The trip is beautiful and cheap though and I did actually decide to take the bus both ways…you have to be a believer 🙂

Photos of the Salar de Uyuni tour in Bolivia

May 6, 2009May 4, 2009 by Thomas

I’ve decided to give the photos for my three day Salar de Uyuni (salt flats) tour in Bolivia their own post. A selection is below, and the rest are available through my Flickr photography account. These Bolivian landscapes were the most breathtaking I have ever seen. You can view a slideshow of these photos here.

Links

Listen to my Podcast from Bolivia here
Video: Salar de Uyuni tour, Bolivia

Potosi, Bolivia

June 9, 2010May 3, 2009 by Thomas

It is claimed Potosi is the highest city in the world at 4,090 m (13,420 feet). It lies beneath the Cerro de Potosi "” sometimes referred to as the Cerro Rico (“rich mountain”) "” a mountain popularly conceived of as being made entirely of silver ore, which has always dominated the city.

The Spanish founded Potosi in 1545, then set about plundering the wealth of Cerro Rico using slave labour. Hundreds of thousands of people are thought to have died as much from the altitude and cold as from the harsh conditions inside the mines. Potosi soon produced fabulous wealth, becoming one of the largest cities in the Americas and the world with a population exceeding 200,000 people.

Potosi is now a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site. I spent a couple of nights here, struggling for breath due to the altitude, and wondering around the town’s 2,000 colonial buildings, and a couple of the museums including the old mint.

I didn’t go in the mine, I was too scared.

Links

More photos of Potosi

La Paz tourist attraction: Pachamama fight

April 20, 2010May 2, 2009 by Tina

While residing in La Paz I came across a very funny and peculiar tourist attraction: Pachamama fighting.

Pachamama fighting is literally pachamamas fighting…usually not with each other . Most of the time one woman fight (hitting, boxing, kicking, biting) with one man, but sometimes they team up – two women against two men.

Most of the time the fights are “pretended” fights – meaning they pretend to hit and be hurt, but when we were there – one guy kept hitting a woman in the head with a wooden box and she started bleeding…honestly, it was nasty.
However, the funniest part of the fights is actually the reaction of the audience and being part of the audience. The audience scream and throw things after the fighters…like orange peel, tomatoes, bread…very funny 🙂

The fights are held in a specially designated hall outside of La Paz (about 20 minutes drive from the centre). There is a square “boxing” stage in the middle, 3 meters of free space and then seats for the audience. The audience consists of both locals (mostly) and tourists.

You can buy an organised tour from La Paz which includes bus, entrance ticket, popcorn and a small pachamama doll. I would definitely recommend it – just remember the tomatoes 🙂