After spending time in touristy and pricy Peru, I now arrived in Copacabana (far from the hottest spot north of Havana) on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. Bolivia is the poorest country

in the region and hence also the cheapest. I had therefore planned to do a few activities here that can also be done in several of the neighbouring countries.

Copacabana is a tiny town without major attractions, but it is the jumping off point for seeing the islands on the Bolivian side of the lake. As we arrived the entire city was cut off from electricity, a fitting welcome to Bolivia.

I met 3 travelers on the bus from Puno that I would end up traveling with for a while. We all signed up for a day on the lake to visit La Isla del Sol, a major site in Inca history and according to Inca lore, the place where the sun and moon were born, at the Rock of the Puma (Titicaca).

The island itself is a rocky, barren island covered in Inca terrasing. It has some unremarcable ruins, and the famous rock of the Puma, which, if you really want it to, looks like a puma.

From Copa we headed on to the de facto (but not constitutional) capital of the country, La Paz – the highest capital in the world at 3897 meters.

We got a pretty decent hotel in the centre for $ 2.50 a night and I started a legendary shopping spree that I had planned, the highligt of which was approximately 150 DVD movies making their way towards Norway by boat at the moment, disguised as CDs with photos, to hopefully make their way past Norwegian customs.

From La Paz we went on day trips to the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), a weird formation of what looked like hardenend mud officially called badlands with a view of the Devils tooth,

and to the major ruin site in Bolivia, the pre-Incan capital of Tiahuanacu, still beeing excavated when we visited the site.

We also went to a nearby museum, where it for some reason was forbidden to take photographs. After some conspiratorical waiwing and a quick round of bargaining I was however allowed to take this picture

after bribing the guard with about 60 cents. We also visited a very interesting coca museum in the city.

One of the things Id been looking forward to the most was also a day trip away from La Paz, mountainbiking down the worlds most dangerous road – The Deat Road.

This 69 kilometer stretch of road

starts at a freezing 4700 meters and descends along a narrow dirt road flanked by 400 meter high cliffs

to a tropical 330 meters. Famed for having around 300 deaths a year, the road is now only used for biking, and has seen 11 bikers die in the 10 years the mountainbiking tours have been available.

We got into our fancy gear and went down the first part of paved road in heavy snow – freezing. We then continued on to the actual Death Road, made of gravel. It was a very foggy day and we couldnt see the bottom of the canyon below us. I for some reason felt quite confident after a while on the bike and decided to try to stay close on the guide´s tail. He told me we were doing maksimum speeds of around 55-60 km/h and after having just passed another tour group the amazing thing happended – my back brake went out!

For a few moments as I tried braking in vain I really dont know what went through my head except amazement. Luckily, I was on a straight stretch of road and was able to slowly stop using my front brake. I dont even want to think about what could have happened if that brake had gone out in an outside curve. The guide replaced the brake, I got my confidence back and finished the road, at one point not making an inside curve and doing about 20 meters down in a narrow ditch. Truly one of the most excilarating experiences of my life.

We then went to a nearby hotel to recuperate, and amazingly, an American guy named Randy got electrocuted in the shower and knocked to the ground, the entire shower exploding and falling off the wall. Jessica from Guernsey and I then left our group to spend a night in Coroico, from where we would head on to the Amazon the next day. The time for accidents was not over on this day however, as Jessicas backpack fell off the roof of the car going to Coroica, never to be found again.

The next morning we embarked on what is apparently known as on of the top 5 worst bus rides in the world, and rightly so.

18 hours, in a crappy Bolivian bus going on dirt roads – a part of it the actual Death Road – is not a pleasant experience. I didnt sleep a second, and our bus also broke down for a couple of hours.

We arrived in Rurrenabaqe in the Amazon,

a tiny frontier town that lives exclusively from arranging jungle and pampas tours, at 4 in the morning and I signed up for a 2 day jungle tour the next day.

We went up the river

for a few hours before arriving at a smal camp site, with some basic accomodation.

We then went on a walk in the jungle where our guide explained all the medicinal qualities of the various plants – really nature´s own farmacy. We saw some amazing parrots, fire and leaf cutter ants, poisonous spiders, termites, a walking tree!, colorfull butterflies

and Tarzan vines.

We then went for a swim in the river,

before going on a two hour walk at night. As we were following a shallow river we detected the tracks of a tapir and followed these. A little further up the river we amazingly encountered one of the most elusive animals of the jungle – the jaguar! We first saw it about 30 meters up river, its eyes glowing from the light from our torches. It then disappeared, and reappeared about 15 meters from us, where it watched us for about one minute, occasionally growling, before suddenly disappearing again. We all felt truly lucky, beeing among the very few people to see a jaguar in the wild.

As I got back to Rurre, I signed up for a rafting trip. To be fair to the agency, it never said white water rafting, and had nothing in common with what is normally considered rafting. I went alone with a guide, and spent the day padling down the slow river

before visiting the guide´s family and getting a tour of their small farm.

I then decided that I would fly back to La Paz. One time on that bus was enough and I arrived at the smallest air port I have ever seen, pretty much a grassy field with a small house.

I then boarded the 14-seater plane for a bumpy 45 minute flight back to La Paz.

Having done my usual amount of planning, I didnt bring shoes, socks, pants or long sleeves on the jungle tour (because the jungle is hot). What I didnt think of is the fact that the jungle also has a few bugs, actually an enormous amount of bugs that all found the one person not wearing shoes or long sleeves. This, combined with swimming in an amazonian river resulted in some seriously swollen and infected feet, that I was told could potentially lead to blood poisoning. I therefore went to the doctor and got a shot that nummed my right butt cheek for about 12 hours and had to spend a few days resting in La Paz, before I was ready to do a mountain climb.

I went on a double bender during the weekend and was seriously hung over on the Sunday when I signed up to climb Huayana Potosi the next day.

I would meet up with 3 Israeli guys at the high camp (at 5200 meters), who had spent an extra day getting used to the altitude and trying out ice climbing for the first time.

The climb from base camp to high camp

was easy enough and tok about 2,5 hours. We would then spend about 12 hours there to aclimatise before heading for the summit

at around one o´clock in the morning. Sleeping was not easy, and strong winds meant our departure was delaied for an hour. The weather really cleared up though and we got ready to go for the summit under a beatifull star lit sky. As we got into our climbing gear

I again had some problems with my equipment, my head light didnt work, and there was no spare. Not to worry, this is Bolivia and no one´s really concerned with safety measures so it was decided that I would go without a light, but I would be in the middle of a rope line of three people, with the person in front and behind me supposedly lighting up my path.

This worked satisfactoraly, and we started on our very steady and slow walk – each step taking maybe 3-4 seconds – to the summit, that would last about 6 hours. One of the Israeli guys had problems with the altitude and had to return to high camp after about 20 minutes. The rest of us continued towards the summit, in freezing cold in what is one of the hardest things I have ever done. As we were approaching the top the sun was rising and we had a beatifull view of the surrounding mountains.

The top of Huayana Potosi is covered by a glazier

and we crossed several crevaces on our way.

The final 200 meter elevation to the summit is a 70 degree wall of ice and snow – my first taste of ice climbing.

At this altitude the oxygen level is about half of what it is at sea level, and the effect this has on your body when doing physical exercise is amazing. While climbing up this final wall, which I seriously thought I would never see the end of, we needed to rest with every 2-3 steps.

We finally reached the summit

at 6088 meters (24 feet short of the magical 20.000 feet barrier) and could enjoy the view and our wonderfull feeling of accomplishment for about 10 minutes, before going for the descent – which actually looked terrifying from the top.

Exhausted, we stumbled down the mountain, falling over several times and reached the high camp about 11 hours after leaving it. I was thinking at the time that Ill never climb another high mountain again, but a real nice room, a bathtub and a bottle of Jack Daniels later, I was feeling pretty good about myself and was thinking about climbing more mountains.

I was now gonna leave La Paz for Potosi. With 20 minutes till my 12 hour night bus was to leave, as I went to get my backpack, I felt a rumbling that is not uncommon in Bolivia. I then sat down and started singing a song to myself.

Should I stay or should I go now?

Should I stay or should I go now?

Diarrhea let me know now!

Should I stay or should I go now?

Diarrhea let me know…

$20 bus ticket says you go!

So I left La Paz for Potosi, the highest city in the world at 4090 meters. Potosi was at one time the richest city in the world and in the 17th century bigger than New York and Paris. Its wealth stemmed from the nearby Cerro Rico

(Rich Mountain) which contains enormous amounts of minerals and is still actively mined today.

During 4 centuries of mining around 8 million people have died from working in the mines which contain large visible quanteties of asbestos and cyanide. The average life expectancy for a miner today is around 15 years from they start working, and there are currently around 15.000 miners, 2000 of whom are kids from 10-12 years of age.

Unlike most mine tours which take you on a museum-like tour, the Potosi tour brings you into the actual working enviroment of the mines, and this is no doubt one of the harshest working environments in the world, having been manned by slaves for centuries.

We changed into our mining gear and went shopping for gifts for the miners – coca leaves, 96% alcohol, soft drinks and dynamite! In Potosi, everyone can by as much dynamite as they want from small street vendors. This can have dramatic effects as our guide told us, as some 18 year-old English guys blew up a hostel in Uyuni a few months ago.

We went for a look at the midevil looking refinery plant

which spews enormous amounts of toxic waste into a nearby river and then went into the mine. Terribly hot and humid, dusty and cramped, we had to crawl on our hands and knees as we descended for several kilometers and 40 meters down into the earth. It was seriously unpleasant and I was really happy to get out after around two hours down there, I cant even imagine what it must be like to work down there. When we got out we decided to blow up some dynamite for fun, and holding a homemade bomb with a lit fuse sure is a lot of fun.

Sticking with Bolivian security measures our guide thought he would have some fun with us. The girls in our group would go with the guide through an easy tunnel, while the guys would go alone through another more difficult tunnel. We got the directions; straight, over the barrier, down the 7 meter shaft, left etc. We managed the part that required no thinking, but at the first choice of right/left we took a wrong turn and were met 50 meter down the tunnel by a running and screaming miner which meant a 1000 kilo trolley of rocks was heading our way fast.

We quickly turned around and made a run for it and managed to find a hiding space to let the trolley pass, and also caught up with our guide who was frantically looking for us.

I then hopped on another crappy bus, this time getting a seat next to the driver and arrived in Uyuni 10 hours later at 4 in the morning. The door bell at the hotel wasnt working so I started pounding on the door and ended up waking up half the hotel. I then slept for a few hours before signing up for a 3 day tour of the Uyuni salt flats.

The Uyuni area really has some of the most spectacular scenery Ive ever seen. The colors created by the rich mineral deposits really makes it look like a scene from another planet.

We went to the worlds biggest salt flats,

some amazing lagoons filled with flamingos,

hot springs and geysirs,

and I had my first taste of llama.

There was really no way to do these scenes justice with my camera.

The last night our group of 15 were enjoying some Bolivian wine, when alot of portuguese/Spanish songs were sung. Someone then had the idea that everyone should contribute with something from their country, and me beeing the only solo person from a country I was expected to give a recital of some classic Norwegian music.

I proceeded to explain the lyrics, in my best Spanish, and then stood up and did the first verse alone. Amazingly the entire table picked up on the lyrics after one recital and joined in for the second verse (identical). The song I chose goes as follows:

Oel, oel og mere oel (sung very slowly)

Oel, oel, oel, oel, oel, oel, oel, oel, oel, (sung very fast)

This translates roughly as

Beer, beer and more beer…

Beer etc…

The norwegian pronounciaton of this song is apparently quite funny to non-Norwegian speakers, and Norwegian music is now held in high regard by people from Portugal, Brazil, Spain, Holland and England.

The salt flats tour then ended in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile – in every sense a whole different country.

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