BOLIVIA - THE ANDES di Axel Kaiser

I met Ana at Buenos Aires airport, she had been to see her family in the south of Brasil. From there we flew to Sucre (Bolivia) via Santa Cruz.

We land at 2800 a.s.l. I feel a little dizzy, mainly for the long trip and the Jet lag. We take, to celebrate our meeting after 2 month we don't see each other, a very nice Hotel situated in an old Colonial building with the rooms located around a beautiful gardened yard.

We stay 2 days in Sucre to acclimatize and rest. This town is very easygoing with it whitewashed 2 storey buildings from the colonial era. This town, once the capital, still retains some important institutions, like the federal court, and has a important university. The church of San Francisco is one of the richest ornated church in whole south America with it magnificent golden altar.

We buy a lot of food because we don't know what kind of supplies will be available along the route, quite useless as you can find basic supplies in every village. It takes me several hours to prepare the bikes, which came here boxed as they have the S&S coupling system, and the gear.

We start early in the morning. The first 30km are easy mostly downhill down to 2000 a.s.l. Then we have to climb up to the Sierras, this is the plateau that stretches from Bolivia into Peru, delimited by two mountain ranges to the east and to the west.

The climb up to 3200 meters is very hard, almost on top Ana has a flat tire, immediately a pickup stops to ask if we need help and offers us a lift to Betanzos. We accept, mostly because tomorrow is Sunday and we won't miss the Sunday market, which is one of the biggest and most colorful in this area.

The lodging is very basic, we hoped in a shower but we have to wait to arrive to Potosi. We prepare some salad on our own, mainly because the Hotel locked very dirty and we wanted to avoid, if possible, to be sick in this first days. I take always care about food in the first days in foreign countries until my stomach doesn-t adapt.

Next morning, while Ana still sleeps, I go to take some picture of the people arriving from the mountains with their goods. The people are very nice and I take the opportunity to improve my Spanish. When Ana wakes up we go for breakfast on the main Plaza where several vendors have set up their foodstalls. Here we meet a Brazilian nun who lives their for many years.

pagina  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |         >> pag. seguente