My Bolivia Journey – Dispelled Myths and New Discoveries @BolTurOficial

Bolivia is amazing.

Can I just make one thing clear before anything else is written?  I had my worries and doubts about safety there – prior to leaving Australia, I hadn’t gone further out of South East Asia, in tourist hotspots like Phuket and Bali.  On the first day of walking through La Paz, I tied the cord of my camera to my belt.  After a few days, this mental behavior died down.

I was met by warm, hospitable exchanges with every Boliviano I came across.  The best way somebody described it was “when you travel to certain places, you can see it in their eyes [that they don’t feel positive about you].  Here, that’s different.  You don’t feel that here.”  This notion rang true for the duration of my time there.

Now, of course you can read some wonderful guides on Bolivia here and here, but this one is a little different.  My wife and I spent 10 days in Copacabana, La Paz, Uyuni and Potosi.  It was a 4WD tour of the salt flats, sandwiched by brief stops on the highest lake in the world, in mountainous urban sprawl and humble mining surroundings.

We travelled across the border from Puno in Peru, moving around the Southern edge of Lake Titicaca.  The crossing process was not as arduous as it was for some travelers from the United States that were on our bus, feeling $160 lighter in the pocket.

We arrived in Copacabana in the early afternoon and had just missed the second boat over to Isla del Sol, so we decided that it was a write-off day as there was very little to do in the town itself.

A word of advice on anyone deciding to check out the nightlife there – my friends and I went for a few drinks after dinner, only to be met with a blackout of all the electricity through the whole town at 9:30. We waited it out for a few moments, only to see all the stores closing for the evening. We saw this as a sign that it wouldn’t be coming on soon; lo and behold the power returned 12 hours later.

After a 90-minute boat ride, we were met by an island within the lake that was easy on the eyes. Isla del Sol had a few ancient ruins on the island, some that were too difficult to access.

The main reason why we visited however was this picturesque view of the Andes (camera doesn’t do it justice).

Dinner should be determined by how breathless you find yourself…