Isla del sol

During my last day in Sorata I came down with some pretty bad sickness, maybe food poisoning. This put me out for a good 5 days, leaving me a bit underweight and weak. During that time I still managed to get back to Cochabamba, which took the best part of a day, where Colette was waiting to give me lots of sympathy and attention. Eventually we finished off our loose ends and were ready to leave the city where we'd stayed for a good 2 months. Once again we caught the bus to La Paz, where we stayed for a week, buying presents and shipping two huge parcels home. We stayed in a cheap little hostel near the 'witch market', where rows of stalls sell all your ceremonial needs; coca leaves, incense, colourful sweets, tiny figures and, of course, a selection of llama pheotuses in their various stages of development.


Then we headed to Copacabana, a small town on the shore of lake Titicaca. The journey involved the crossing of a narrow stretch of the lake using a coach 'ferry'. It's a nice place, if a little over done on the tourism front. It feels a bit like a seaside resort with the boats and endless blue of the vast lake; lago Titicaca is South America's largest lake and one of the world's highest navigable lakes, sitting on the border between Bolivia and Peru at 3812 m. We found a really nice room with a great view of the lake for only 15 bolivianos each per night, around a quid forty or so each.



After a couple of nights we caught a boat to the sacred Inca island of the sun - Isla del Sol. I've probably used the word 'stunning' one too many times in my writings on this blog, but I really can't find another word to adequately describe the beauty of the places I've been fortunate enough to visit on this trip. The island is stunningly beautiful. The rich colour of the deep blue water, the immense Illampu glacier on the horizon, the clear air and bright blue sky, and the lack of any paved roads or vehicles make it such a wonderfully tranquil place. The boat drops you off on the south side, which is pretty busy with tourists on half-day or day trips, but once you walk up the hill and over the peak people are few and far between and consist mainly of the scattered 800 or so Aymara or Quechua families which inhabit the island. Once again we found a lovely place to stay, with an awsome view of the distant Illampu. We'd wanted to camp on the island, which can be done safely for free, but in the end the low temperatures were enough to deter us.

Later in the evening we witnessed an impressive 'moon rise' and the reflected yellow light shone across the water and provided sufficient light for shadows. The next morning we woke up early for sunrise, which could be seen from the comfort of our bed once the curtains were opened. We set off for a walk to the northern end of the island. We wandered through the scenery of a time gone by, passing the brightly clothed locals as they walked their mixed heards of goats, sheep, llamas and pigs along the dusty paths. I'm not quite sure where they were taking the animals, but everywhere we went people were walking their flocks back and fourth, from children of no more than 8 years to women who looked impossibly old, whose weathered faces had endured a life's worth of the island's harsh climate. Donkeys and llamas grazed side by side on the sloped fields above us. Occasionally a walking bush would appear on the horizon and trundle towards us, eventually morphing into an old man or woman hunched over at a right-angle with a huge bundle of harvested bean stalks slung over their back. We passed quiet hamlets where children ran to greet us and people worked harvesting corn or ploughing the fields with a bull-drawn plough. And all without the sound of a single internal combustion engine! Perfect.

Colette became annoyed at my insistance on taking lots of photos of donkeys. She thinks I've developed an obsession. However, I'll be having the last laughs when I return home to jobless situation with an entrepreneurial trick up my sleeve; 'Donkeys of Bolivia' calender 2010 here I come. Only April, August and November left to capture.

We reached the north side and checked into another cute place at a bargain price. After a read and doze on the beach we walked to the Inca ruins right near the northern tip and watched another gorgeous sunset. This is the kind of place we could have stayed for a week. But we had reached the 89th day of our 90 day visa for Bolivia, so after getting up for a final sunrise, we reluctantly caught the boat back to Copacabana to get ready to cross the border to Peru.

A few days in Sorata (Soundtrack: the river)

After a sleepless night at sub-zero temperatures, we were glad to get into the tightly-packed mini bus and head back to La Paz. Once at the bus station, Colette took a coach back to Cochabamba to finish off her project whereas I'd decided to visit the small town of Sorata for a few days, as my project was pretty much wrapped up. I'd seen a photo of Sorata back in Tupiza, our first stop in Bolivia, and had wanted to visit ever since. It's a beautiful little town, nestled high in the Andes below the spectacular Illampu glacier.

The descent into the valley should have been a wonderful experience in itself, but the mini bus driver seemed to think he was some kind of ralley driver, tearing around the many blind bends along the winding road at a death-wish speed. He seemed intent on driving on the wrong side of the road around each bend which not only meant we couldn't see any oncoming traffic but we were also only inches away from plummeting down the sheer drop to our left. I seriously thought my time had come.

It was all made worth it when I checked into a gorgeous little place with a balcony over looking stunning views, where my bedroom window looked down into a lush valley (and a rustic sign pointing to the nearby reggae bar) from which came the steady sound of the river below.

I spent 3 days walking, reading and just kicking back enjoying the serenity of the place after so long in the city. In Sorata you can go on walks without having to pay or take a guide - a nice break from what I call the 'privatization of wandering'; where one can no longer just walk and enjoy the common land without having to organise it through a tour operator.

As I wondered along roads coated in orange dust I passed whole families up on the hillsides harvesting their corn. Here and there a teathered bull would lazily observe me as I passed and chickens and goats foraged at the roadside. Plumes of grey smoke could be seen rising from various points across the valley as farmers burnt the dry grass to make way for the new crop.

Here are some photos Sorata, a town where I would seriously consider retiring to one day.......

Summer Solstice 2009 - Aymara new year 5517

We'd decided to go and check out the summer solstice celebration on June 21st. Summer solstice here marks the new year for the Aymara people; a native ethnic group in the Andes and Altiplano regions of South America which have been around for as long as 2000 years. Roughly 2 million live in Bolivia, Peru and Chile.
The celebration takes place in the ancient pre-Inca ruins of Tiwanaku, near the south-eastern shore of Lake Titicaca. It's quite a journey from Cochabamba, so we decided to make a weekend of it, with a stop in Bolivia's capital La Paz. The bus journey was a standard 10 hourer, which took us through the barren, arrid Altiplano ( high plain) region where the Andes are at their widest point. Leaving Cochabamba the road carves through valleys of red clay and rock, and as it ascends the views get better and the drop on the right-hand side gets concerning. In fact we'd heard just a few days earlier that a bus had gone over the edge a week earlier. Once the road reaches the zenith the Altiplano begins. For hours on end we passed through the various parched shades of beige, light brown and sand, with small settlements scattered here and there made up of various adobe buildings with corragated iron roofs held in place by large rocks. It seems such a harsh environment in which to eck out a living, although I imagine the scenery is transformed during the rainy season. Like in most pueblitos of Bolivia, the walls of houses and buildings had huge political slogans scrawled over them in big block capitals, either in support of the first indigenous president Evo Morales, or for or against the new constitution which the MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) government has been given the task to create. The villages and towns of the Altiplano being indigenous, the messages were all 'EVO SI' or 'CONSTITUCION NUEVO-SI'.

Eventually the isolated towns became more and more frequent and impressive snow-capped mountains emerged to our right. And then, as the guide book and any travel literature written about La Paz descibes the amazing view of the city was revealed, with its impossible sprawl of buildings spilling down into the valley surrounded by hills overlooked by the mighty, snow capped Mt Illimani which towers at 6402 metres.

After a wonder around in the evening we spent the night in a lovely freezing dive of a hotel, with the mandatory ice cold shower to get us started in the morning, before catching a minibus to Tiwanaku. The mini buses are basically the little Nissan people carriers that are ubiquitos in South America and carry you anywhere around the town or city for a set price of about 20p and stop anywhere you wave them down.

We arrived in the late afternoon, and it was soon apparent that Solstice was a big event. The little streets of the village, which is close to the ruins, were lined with makeshift stalls selling hot food and drinks, the usual selection of brightly coloured hats, gloves and ponchos, and the occasional llama feotus. We'd been told that it would get cold, but as the sun made it's farewell we were content in the knowledge that we'd come prepared with extra socks, trousers, jumpers, hats and gloves.

The main square had been transformed into a festival with a decent sized stage set up complete with lights speaker stacks. Unfortunately, the whole place was plastered with the advertisements of the corporations who had sponsered the event - apparently this was the first year that solstice had gone corporate, and there had been a big push to make this year's sacred ritual celebration into some kind of mini Glastonbury.

We had a good night though. The first few groups on stage were traditional Aymara music, with about 15 people on stage in traditional dress with a variety of drums, crazy horns and panpipes. It wasn't long before I joined in with the big group of Bolivians dancing in front of us, all holding hands in a circle walking round in one direction and then 'Oy!', and then walk around in the other direction! It was good fun, and they all seemed happy and amused to have a few gringos get in on the act.
As the night went on, the temperature dropped and one local guy who had befriended us for the evening told me it would get as low as -15 degrees! Our multiple layers soon seemed inadequate.

Luckily, we had the power of the coca leaf to sustain us. The coca plant is an important part of indigenous culture in much of South America. The Aymara have grown and chewed coca leaves for centuries, and used its leaves in traditional medicine as well as in ritual offerings to the earth goddess Pachamamma and the sun god Inti. The leaves are very nourishing; rich in vitamins, protein and calcium and are used as a mild stimulant to overcome hunger, fatigue and thirst. Its also effective against the effects of altitude sickness. The active ingredient is the cocaine alkaloid, which of course is what is used to produce the drug cocaine. But the levels present in the leaves are insufficient to cause the effects and addiction associated with the drug cocaine. Various studies have shown that chewing or taking the leaf as a tea has only beneficial effects. The leaf here has the same place in Andean life as coffee in European life. It is used as a flavouring for Coca Cola, hence the name. Never the less, this leaf has been the source of much controversey since the US launched its 'war on drugs' back in the 80's. Mass US-backed erradication programmes have left thousands of Bolivia's poorest without work, and have played an important role in the rise in anti-American sentiment which eventually lead to the landslide election of Evo Morales in 2005 (he himself had been a 'cocalero' and an important leader of coca growing union which was part of a powerful movement of coca growers' unions, consisting of campesinos who are resisting the efforts of the erradication efforts). Despite the UN 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which lists the leaf alongside cocaine and heroin, and the ongoing demonisation of the plant and its growers, the US embassy promotes the consumption of coca tea to its citizens to minimize the impacts of altitude sickness!


At 5am, everyone gathered at the entrance to the ruins to que to enter. By this point we were pretty damn shattered and cold. We eventually got in, and gathered around the main part of the ruins - the gateway of the sun. Here, the Aymara shamens, wearing traditional multicoloured hats and garments performed various sacrifices to the pachamamma, including the burning of a gift of coca leaves, insense, copal and a llama pheotus. Apparantly, they also performed a 'wilacncha' or blood sacrifice where a llama was killed and it's blood (among the most important type of animal blood the Incas offered to the forces of the earth, mountain peaks and sky). Somehow, we seemed to miss this-probably due to the sheer volume of people between us and the alter. To our right thousands were gathered underneath a huge Wiphala flag - the colourful rainbow chequered flag that represents the indigenous people of the Andes.

As the sun began to rise above the horizon, the 40, 000 people present (made up mainly of Aymara and Quecha peoples, with a scattering of Europeans) lifted their palms to the sky to recieve the energy of the sun and welcome the new year and beginning of the new agricultural cycle.


It was a nice moment, although by that point it was tainted by the fact that we were so unbearably cold - we just wanted the sun high in the sky so we could be revived back to warm blooded mammal status. The whole night had been very interesting, but we both felt that it might have been a more authentic affair if we'd experienced it a few years ago, before the corporate tentacles had taken hold.

There were more rituals and dances planned throughout the day, but by this point we-d taken our fill, and were ready for the minibus back to the capital. Colette would take the bus back to Cochabamba, whereas I-d planned a little trip to a town called Soratafor a few days of walking, reading and relaxing in the hills.

Clandenstine shots from the streets of Bolivia (Soundtrack: Micheal Jackson, Micheal Jackson, Micheal Jackson)

For some time now I've wanted to take some pictures of the colourful people of Bolivia but the thing is, in general they don't take too kindly to haurds of gringos sticking cameras in their faces and snapping away everyday. So, we decided to do a little 'guerilla snapping' from our coach seats on a rewcent trip from Cochabamba to the capital La Paz. These shots are mainly from the streets of El Alto and La Paz.