Isla Del Sol, Lake Titicaca, Bolivia - Day 76

Our last stop in Bolivia was the beautiful Lake Titicaca. The lake is considered the worlds largest high altitude lake which sits at 12,500 ft in elevation, covers 3,200 sq miles, and is up to 900 ft deep. After spending a night in the small town of Copacabana on the lake's shore we took a 2 hour boat ride across the lake to a large island in the center of the lake named Isla Del Sol, or Island of the Sun. It was believed by the Inca civilization that this island was the birthplace of the sun.

The island has several Inca ruins and small towns throughout the island but there are no roads, and therefore no cars on the island. We spent the day hiking a great trail across the island which covered 7 miles along a high ridge with awesome views.

Panoramic view of Lake Titicaca and the town of Copacabana

Hiking on Isla del Sol

The Chincana ruins on Isla del Sol

Parque Nacional Madidi, Rurrenabaque, Bolivia - Day 69-72

It was time to head to the Amazon Rainforest. We flew north to the small riverfront town of Rurrenabaque, the gateway to Parque Nacional Madidi. Parque Nacional Madidi is the 2nd largest park in Bolivia, and is home to more protected species than an other park in the world. We opted to take the 45 min flight rather than the 24 hr bus ride, that is 24 hours if the road doesn't wash out. Traveling by bus between La Paz and Rurren is one of the most dangerous routes in Bolivia. Rurrenabaque is a nice small town with fruit trees and hammocks everywhere. Everyone in the town, and we mean everyone, drives a motorcycle, and their favorite pastime is doing laps around the plaza.

Because it's illegal to trek in the jungle unguided, and as we later found out, quite dangerous to do alone, we joined a 4-day tour with a company called Mashaquipe. All the guides are from small indigenous jungle communities and possess a wealth of knowledge about the flora and fauna of the rainforest.

Loading up on our long boat to head to the jungle.

This contraption is used by the indigenous people to extract sugarcane juice.

Mmm! Freshly squeezed (by us) pure sugarcane juice with a squirt of lime was delicious! Just 2 sugarcane stalks produced a 1/2 gallon of juice!

Chocolate fruit! We didn't realize how strange-looking cacao fruit is. It, along with many other tasty fruits that we had never seen before, grow wild throughout the jungle. It was great to have a guide show us which fruits we could eat.

Trekking through the jungle to our campsite. The trees that look like teepees are called Walking Palms, and their above-ground roots enable them to move up to 8 inches per year along the ground in search of sun and nutrients.

Everything in the Amazon must have a great deal of self-defense in order to survive, including this Devil Tree.

Our jungle campsite. It's too hot to sleep in a tent and the mosquitoes, spiders, snakes, and sand flies are viscous, so sleeping in a mosquito net is a must. The tarp above not only protected us against rain, but also against the constant fruit and branches falling from high above.

Their are so many different species of ants. These army ants are some of the least harmful. Kris found out the hard way how painful fire ants can be. We are so relieved we were not bit by a Bullet Ant, which are at least an inch long and causes tremendous pain accompanied by a fever for 24 hours.

Red Macaws are very common and their funny sounding squawks can be heard throughout the jungle. They, like all the other animals, are very difficult to see through the dense vegetation.

Tucan

Fresh jaguar tracks right next to camp! We never saw one, but we are sure they saw us. Jaguars are the 3rd largest cat in the world after tigers and lions.

We saw many tarantulas on our night hike. This one was the size of a hand fully spread out.

Red Howler Monkeys. Again, very difficult to get a clear close-up picture. Howler monkeys howls can be heard up to 3 miles away as they call out their territories for the day, and they sound like monsters.

We learned that armadillos are very blind and not intelligent. We found 3 of them that didn't even realize they were next to us. They act like they are drunk, constantly bumping into each other and falling over. It's very funny to watch.

Using banana tree leaves as umbrellas during our early morning hike in the rain

We built this raft from trees and rope to float down the river back to the lodge.

Floating down the river on our raft. It was great to get away from the bugs while we were on the water! We even went through some small rapids and everyone stayed on the raft!

Swinging on vines. Our guide showed us a different type of vine, called Cat's Nail Vine, that retains rainwater on the inside. We cut a section off and drank fresh water from it!

Kris shooting indigenous arrows used to hunt ground animals. The arrows are made of an extremely hard wood. Shortly after this, Kris hit the white sign to the right of the photo with a arrow and broke their sign...ops.

The thatched-roof building we slept in by the lodge

La Paz, Bolivia - Day 65-67

After the salt flats, we headed to La Paz to do some mountain biking. Our opinion of La Paz isn't very positive. The city is overcrowded and although there are nicer areas of town, it more or less seems like a dump. They even have a river that runs through downtown, but they built overtop of it, so it is no longer visible. The river is filled with so much human waste, animal carcasses, and chemicals, that it runs orange and red with lots of foam on the top...and there are no laws against dumping in it! That being said, the surrounding mountainsides are beautiful.

Downtown La Paz. Reminds us of Rio's favelas. (Too cloudy to see the mountains)

Before the ride at the top of the mountain. (This used to be a ski resort, but they no longer receive enough snowfall, so it has closed) Our epic mountain bike ride started at 17,300 ft! We descended ~14,000 ft down to lush green valleys sitting at 3,500 ft! That's not even physically possible in The States!

Suited up! The cheesy gear was actually nice since we didn't bring enough clothes to get wet or ruin.

Off-trail riding; trying to find some llama trails.

At the bottom!

 

Salar de Uyuni salt flat tour, Bolivia - Day 61-64

A group of us loaded up in 2 Toyota Land Cruisers and headed out to the high altitude desert for a 4-day tour of the Altiplano and Uyuni salt flats. We spent these next 4 days on 4WD roads at elevations between 12,000-16,000 ft.

DAY 1: Tupiza-San Pablo de Lipez

El Sillar rock formations along the drive.

Town of San Pablo de Lipez where we spent the 1st night at 14,000 ft.

Day 2: San Pablo de Lipez-Laguna Colorada

Llamas grazing.

The minerals in Laguna Colorada give it its red color. Thousands of flamingoes feed off of micro organisms that thrive in these lakes. Altitude: 14,500 ft.

These bubbling geysers of mud and steam sit at the highest point of the tour, at 16,000 ft.

Day 3: Laguna Colorada-edge of the Salar

Arbol de Piedra; one of the many crazy rock formations in the middle of the desert.

A giant Yareta, a plant used to fuel fires and as a medicine. These bright green plants look very odd in this brown landscape.

Llama tagging party! We were invited to have a celebratory drink with the campesinos who were spending the day marking their herd of llamas with colorful tassels in their ears and around their necks. It was very fun dancing with them!

On the last night, we stayed in this hotel made entirely of salt, even the furniture.

Day 4: Salar de Uyuni

We woke up at 4:15 to drive out to the salt flat before sunrise.

Isla Pescador is an island that sits in the middle of the salt flat. Many years ago, this area was a giant lake and the island was a coral reef, but now, 30 ft tall and 1,000 yr old cacti grow on the coral.

Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat on earth, sitting at 12,000 ft, encompassing an area of 4,674 sq miles and averaging a depth of 100 ft.

Tiny Bella. Because of the white flat lighting and lack of depth perception, taking funny photos is a very popular thing to do here, we tried...

Tiny Kris... Taking these photos takes A LOT of coordination and patience.

Tiny Kris and Bella.

Giant Ken doll!