Bolivia was the set for a sweet encounter, because my Eman joined me on the other side of the planet. After 2.5 months without seeing each other, it’s in Santa Cruz that we spent Christmas by 30 degrees (though cloudy). Emanuele enjoyed his first fruit juices, his first meals at the market. Never got sick, strong boy!

We spent twelve marvelous days together, starting with the disappointing discovery of Santa Cruz and its lack of charm, cultural interest and cleanliness. Then, we got on a bus for what was to be my worst (night) bus journey of the entire travel, Eman’s first in South America! It (or rather people in it) stank, it was dirty, it was hot, and when it started raining, our bags on the floor got wet. Oh there’s more: when the bus stopped for eating we had barely had time to start our meal that the bus almost left without us! On top of that, Bolivia being one of the poorest countries in the region, precarity is quite visible, hygiene is low and trash fields are quite common (except in really touristy areas, but even so).

Anyway, first stop of our Bolivian tour: Sucre the White City (to be pronounced “soo-cray”). It’s a really charming little city which, as its name allows guessing, is constituted of numerous buildings from colonial time. There’s even a rule that states that buildings in the center be repainted white each year. We spent a day made of craftwork and lama wool products shopping, discovery of an indigenous fabric museum, culinary enjoyment in a vegetarian restaurant, and visit of the former political core of the country reconverted into a history museum. You must know that, constitutionally, Sucre is the capital of the country. In fact, the political capital became La Paz when the main (executive and legislative) instances moved there in 1899, but the statute of capital of their city remains dear to Sucrenses notwithstanding.

After a few days of spontaneous but regular rain, the sun finally decided to show up. We arrived in Tupiza after another night bus journey, way less annoying this time. There, as planned, we met Adnan, a French friend that I got to know during my Machu Picchu excursion and who intended to do the same tour as us in the Sur Lipez, the Southern region of the country. What was awaiting us was really close to the most wonderful… We begun with an excellent breakfast at the market: pastel and api, thin fried dough shaped as a big dumpling stuffed with some cheese and with powder sugar sprinkled over accompanied by its thick drink made of red and yellow corn. After this, we went for a visit to the local canyon, worthy of American westerns (horse operas? what the hell do Americans call their cowboy movies? I have no idea ahah). A special tour because done in… mototaxi!

The day after, we left for a road trip in the region between Tupiza and Uyuni, desert area rich in moon-like landscapes and spectacular sights. A delight for the eyes that lasted four days and really enchanted us. It’s with a jeep that we crossed this special area of the Southern American continent, stopping on the way to enjoy the views. During lunches, a table was improvised with the trunk door and we ate on the ground. The first days, we saw red soil canyons and white mud monuments sculpted by wind and rain, as well as we enjoyed our first contact with our lama friends, that we’d happily have the chance the admire under different angles a great many times. The ochre lands bushy with dry ferns were arid and mountains with smooth curves cut the horizon line like dark teeth on a white sky. On the way, we could spot a beige fox and a long tailed rabbit running away, but also observe some Andean ostriches with round body and thin legs, and lots of vicuñas (vicugna, a cousin of the lama with the figure of a gazelle).

During the excursion, we were riding on the altiplano, or plateau in altitude, at roughly 4000m. We actually got quite higher as well with the jeep, up to 5000m. At some point, among the rocks and even some snow, we visited a “ghost village”, formerly a mining village and that was decimated by an epidemia. At 4850m, we saw a dry, white lake made of borium and not salt. Then, we could see a sort of lama migration, those hairy, twisted legged camelid (their nails make them belong to that family, and when they eat their jaw almost disarticulates, a bit like their cousins the camels). Behind the smoke cloud raised by our jeeps the figure of a volcano stood out on the background several times, and the changing contrasts of colors and shades and lights due to vegetation, clouds and different minerals the ground’s made up of was striking. That night, nature put up a sunset show with the backdrop of orange, pink and purple clouds, among the most beautiful thing I’ve admired during my travel I believe.

The day after, we begun with a sulfur smelling laguna visited by many flamingos walking elegantly at the surfance of the mirror water. Then, we kept on crossing the sand desert bordered with multicolor mountains to reach the Laguna Verde, bright green body of water at the foot of a volcano. The next stop was an area of volcanic activity whose symptoms were vapor and sulfur geysers as well as bubbling mud pits in an otherworldly landscape with yellowish, brown and ochre shades. By the way, talking about surreal sights, we finished the day with a stroll with lamas along the Laguna Colorada, an… orange lake!

On the third day, we entered the Eduardo Avaroa natural reserve of Andean fauna where, except for the desert and superb snow-capped mountains, we also saw a field of rocks among which one almost tree-shaped one due to the wheater. Then, it was another laguna, turquoise this time, at the foot of a mountain, mirroring sky and clouds, then yet another one, still serving as feeding site for flamingos that, this time, we saw really close up. Again, we ate in the wilderness, facing a spectacular mountainous landscape spotted with clouds, then we went see another lake, unexpectedly of: black color! (because of the algae it countains) Finally, when the rocks started being decorated with cactuses and when mountains seemed to float above the ground by optical effect due to the heat, we understood that we were nearing the last step of our trip: the Salar de Uyuni, the salt flats. That night, we slept in a hostel whose walls, ground and furniture were entirely made up of salt (we checked by licking!).

The last important step of our tour was therefore the Salar, and we woke up (very) early morning to first start to watch the stars then see the sunrise over the desert. Fail: it was too late for the stars and the sunrise was one of the most miserable of my life, completely concealed by clouds. But whatever: the place is unique and offers a wonderful view, spreading over kilometers and kilometers (10,000 square km), the level of the lake raising each year (actually, the layer of salt is thick from 2m to 20m, and below it is water!). We strolled a bit on Incahuasi, the cactus island, then rode some time on the salt, and finally went see the flag islet (next to which was also standing the giant Paris-Dakar statue, which I learnt now passes neither through Paris, nor through Dakar, but does take place in South America, and this year it passes through Uyuni (later on, in Argentina, my path crossed that of the Dakar again)). The magnificent tour ended up on a train and locomotive cemetery close to Uyuni, completely meaningless town but for its closeness to the Dakar. Concluding, I believe that we can say that this tour was great and unmissable!

We shared a lama pizza in a restaurant visited by the whole local Italian mafia, then greeted Adnan goodbye, promising to go see him play theater in Paris once we’ll be back! His path led him to Peru while we were heading back to Sucre. There, we visited a monastery whose terrace has a great view over the city roofs, then we walk in the sun to the local cemetery, giving the quiet impression of a garden or a little park. We finished the afternoon with a visit to the Treasure Museum, presenting a summary of the mining wealth and history of the country: gold, silver, gemstones of many types, geodes, Emanuele was in heaven! And I must say that even myself, lacking passion for what I call rocks, remained quite impressed by the little and big treasures that nature and chemistry can create.

We were slowly getting to the end of our holiday together, and we chose to stop in Samaipata on the way back to Santa Cruz. Chance made it so that we missed our bus, and that no more seats were available on the next and last trip of the day. Devastated because given Eman’s flight dates we couldn’t have stopped in Samaipata if we’d take the morrow bus, we bought tickets to spend the (night!) journey in the aisle, meaning sleeping on the ground (by the way we later realised the guy tried to overcharge these “seats” compared to the standard ticket, thank god we didn’t let him!). Great night ahead… In the end, we were lucky: there were free seats on the bus, their owner hadn’t showed up, and we could sleep seating – better this way, because given  the mountain road and how speedy our crazy driver was, we couldn’t have closed an eye!

Samaipata is a small, quiet and very cute village by a national park, that is known for being very close to Vallegrande, close to where Che Guevara was arrested and killed in 1967. It would unfortunately have required a few more days to go visit this place as well as the others where he spent his last days, so instead we went for a little walk in the woods. This area is special for its fens that are a few thousands years old, we enjoyed being back to a relative freshness (and some green!) after days in the desert. We really had a good time in Samaipata, could relax and walk to the market and among the beautiful craftwork stores. I love the esthetics of the Andes! Many items are covered in traditional, striped and multicolor fabric (aguaio), or tablecloths are made of it, it’s really special and very beautiful. We were sleeping in an extremely cute B&B, held by an adorable couple and their tiny kitten that definitely enchanted us.

To go back to Santa Cruz, we embarked on a minibus for six in which we were obviously seven to sit (makes you earn more and doesn’t matter if they’re packed at the back). And, for our last evening, my darling invited me to the classy restaurant of Santa Cruz, first on the review rankings: Chalet la Suisse (Cabin Switzerland, this is no joke). We savored the very traditional thin lama slices sided with spätzlis, as should be. Delightful! What was weird after all the poverty observed across the country was that the restaurant is clearly located in Santa Cruz’ wealthy area and that we were seating among clearly well-off people elegantly dressed to dine out (while we were dirty and unprepared in our shorts). Quite a contrast!

And there we were, time to part had gotten there again, and we said goodbye and see you in 2.5 months (a little less actually, 2 months and 10 days). It was really great to meet again, to share moments, to just be able to be together even without talking, to show Emanuele what I experience during this special period. And you know what? Although what I’m doing makes me very happy and I wouldn’t want it to stop, seeing my man again made me look forward to coming back.

I have a few comments about Bolivia for you. To start with, food was far from being as bad as predicted (someone told me that Chile is worse, with its hotdogs and mayo sauce, I’ll let you know): of course it’s often chicken and rice, but we could generally find nice little restaurants where we ate well, and the times we ate local it was honestly not that horrible – just nothing special. Then, on the topic of infrastructure, I found it quite crazy how the state of roads varies depending on a factor I’m having a hard time accepting: the presence or not of an oil company needing to transport its raw material. When I took a bus to cross the country from North to South in order to enter Argentina, I traveled a distance equivalent to what we had done in two nights (Santa Cruz-Sucre-Tupiza) in… one night, thus about half the time (and also the money). All this because it’s in nobody’s interest to improve the quality of that road even though it’s more touristy, the government being too busy filling up its pockets to invest in its citizens’ quality of life. It’s private, thus companies, that take care of correct roads where they need them. Unacceptable and depressing… On another topic, here are a few stats that I found very interesting and surprising: I saw an international ranking on equality between men and women, and whereas Peru is amongst the least egalitarian countries in the world, in 73rd position out of 109 (right before China and Indonesia and right after Greece), Bolivia is the most egalitarian of all countries I have visited or will visit, in 21st position (short before Spain and the US, and short after the UK and Belgium) and having greatly improved its score between 2015 and 2016.

Moreover, we met quite a few Westerners who had come to settle down in Bolivia (generally for love), among which a Swiss from Schwyz. I don’t believe I have seen black people, except for Afro-American tourists, most of the population is indigenous or descendants of Spaniards (there are 36 indigenous populations in Bolivia), and generally Bolivians are fat and short (more than in other countries, and the weight is probably due in part to poverty – a lack of education and low prices on soda, since the whole country seems to be sponsored by Coca-Cola!). In Bolivia, just like in Peru, I often saw youngsters dancing on public squares and parks at night, traditional dances sometimes slightly modernised, and apparently they are (already) getting ready for Carnival, I find it great! And, finally, on the day I was exiting the country I could spot in 5 minutes three inscriptions or graffitis that were quite representative of the country: a storefront whose name was “karaoke disco Obama” (globalisation, influence of the Western world in the country), the Che’s face on a bus door (a part of the country’s history and its anchoring in regional realities, communism and guerillas), and an incentive to vote for Evo Morales to favor the country’s development and education (the first indigenous Bolivian president, of the Aymara ethnic community, reelected in 2014 after two 4-year mandates since 2006 – some love him because he represents a sort of change, his opponents lament the corruption that, as always, plagued his regime and decredibilised “Evo” as representant of the people).

As for Bolivian history, since as always I like to give you the context, the country was, also, liberated by Simon Bolivar (it’s the most Southern country he liberated if I’m not mistaken, and by the way the country was named after him). The fight for independence started in 1809 and the country was proclaimed free in 1821. In between a myriad local characters fought heroically, among which (and it’s rare enough to be mentioned) an indigenous woman, Juana Azurduy, having successively lost all her kids, husbands and companions and who was recognised as an important element of the fight – Bolivar apparently specified that it’s after her that the country should be named, but surprisinglyyyy  nobody seems to have taken note of that comment. Later on in history, one important fact is that the country lost its access to the sea to Chile (it still hopes and claims to get it back).

Next steps: since I’ve left Bolivia I crossed the North of Argentina in a week and I got to the North of Chile, next I’ll go down to Patagonia and spend a little less than a month there, it’ll be wild and fantastic!

I finally managed to update all my pictures online!

For those of Bolivia and the places I talked about in this article: click here!

For those of Peru where we see the Amazonia, a temple in the desert and wonderful mountains in Huaraz: click here!

And for those of Peru where we see Cusco, the Salkantay trek and Machu Picchu: click here!