Lake Titicaca

Leaving La Paz on the bus to Copacobana which lies on the shores of Lake Titicaca, there was a small boat interlude as we took a little motorboat the coach also got floated across..

Bus crossing to Copacobana

 From Copa we took another boat across for a day trip to Isla del Sol for a bit of an inca trail warm up, walking at 4,000m from the North to South end of the island.

View from North end of Isla del Sol

Inca ruins on Isla del Sol

Isla del Sol

Isla del Sol

Mask in Coca museum, Puno

From Copa across the boarder and into Peru, we stopped in Puno visiting the surprisingly interesting Coca museum which combined a room dedicated to the humble coca leaf and carnival costumes.

This was also the opportunity to taste some peruvian delicacies, including alpaca and guinea pig

Guinea pig (head)

A day trip to the floating islands,

Uros floating islands

Uros - the ´120´ year old women

including meeting a women with an alleged age of 120










and rowing a reed boat (39) completed our tour of Lake Titicaca.

Reed boat

on the reed boat

The reeds are used for pretty much everything, from the island, the houses, the boats and they can even be eaten, of course we had to have a little taste.

Eating reeds on Uros

In the afternoon a visit to the pre-Incan funerary towers at Sillustani

Funerary tower at Sillustani

Funerary towers at Sillustani

Funerary towers at Sillustani

Downhill in La Paz

Imagine you run a bus company in Bolivia on the 18 hour route between Rurrenabaque and La Paz. You discover that the road is shut Monday to Saturday between the hours of 0600 - 1600. Do you 

a) schedule the bus one hour earlier than usual to ensure you are on the road before it shuts, or

b) run it at the usual times and arrive at the closed road at 0700 hours   

Of course it was my joy to be stopped on the side of the road for 9 hours and thus spend just 2.5hours of a 29 hour journey travelling in daylight - so much for the stunning views, but I guess I didn't need to see just how close to the edge we got.  Just to complete my day of fun on departing the bus at 6am in La Paz I had my camera, i-pod and phone stolen and got to spend the next few hrs in police stations.

But the show must go on, so armed with a new camera and a new friend - Stephan arrived from a 24hr flight from London that morning - we went out to, or more accurately up to the Cholita wrestling show at approx. 4,000m.  We are struggling to climb steps and these guys are throwing themselves around for our entertainment

Cholitas wrestling

WWF it ain't

The next day was time for a bit of adventure, cycling the death road.  In 2006 this was the officially named the world's most dangerous road, Top Gear did a Bolivia special featuring it and a chap from NZ spotted a good opportunity for a bike tour.  Today the traffic all uses the new road, so it's actually pretty safe (unless you fall off the left hand side of your bike).  Virtually all downhill, there's little pedalling involved, just a bit of steering and braking. 

Valley view nr death road

coach that didn't make it up the road

the world's 'most dangerous' road

view from the road

 Starting at 4,200m with a 22km warm up on the tarmac roads, the 'road' itself is 32km of dirt road going down to the tropical warmth of  800m and lunch at a monkey sanctuary

monkey at the monkey sanctuary

not a monkey at the monkey sanctuary

Wildlife in the Pampas

Having finished my time at jacj cuisi with a ride into town on the back of a pickup truck (37), litterally sitting on the rubbish - luckily there was a straw mattress in there.

pickup into Rurre

It was time to venture into the Pampas in search of wildlife, 3 hours out of Rurre we boarded our our little wooden motor boats (38) in which we were to spend many hours over the next 3 days.

the pampas gang on board with Kiki

We had a pretty amazing & lucky time from the toucan flying past, caiman in the camp & spotted at night, and finding an anaconda just after we'd given up trekking through swampland for 2 hours.

turtles

cormorant

anaconda

black caiman

 
We spent an afternoon fishing for piranhas, although I can't claim to have contributed to our evening meal.

dinner (piranha)

caiman

capuchin monkey

owl outside the dinning hut

The most amazing thing though had to be the playful pink dolphins who swam around us & played with each other, the guide was so happy he wanted copies of some photos for his sister.

pink dolphins

pink dolphin

sunset from the camp

We also had plenty of mosquitos to keep us company, particularly at sunrise & sunset, but worth braving them to get some photos.

sunrise in the pampas

sunrise in the pampas

Jacj Cuisi

A few photos of life in camp

the main dorm & emergency transport

new swing

the new clinic

laying cement

mixing cement

best dinner of all time from chefs Brendan & Simon - pizza, chips & garlic bread

everyone wants to know about the toilets

view from my bed (through the mosquito net)

up close in the squatter

Rurrenabaque

an amazing woodstack & new roof

machete time

clearing the land

River Beni

Inti Wara Yassi

on the tarmac at Rurrenabaque

Finally made it to the jungle & my volunteer project. After an overnight bus to La Paz I took the easy option of a small plane (35),
 I'm counting this since it only had 21 seats and I could see the pilot the whole way - a bit different from the cross Atlantic monsters. The bus that collected us from the tarmac went into the small town of Rurrenabaque, there's no terminal, just the airline office in town.

Next up a little boat (36) across the river, a wait for a collective taxi and an hour or so later I arrived at camp.

boat from Rurre to San Buenaventura

birds in  jacj cuisi

Sunset at Jacj Cuisi

Jacj Cuisi is the most recent and most ambitious project of the 3 sites in Bolivia. At the present time there are 4 pumas but once the quarantine & clinic buildings are complete there will be the facilities to rehabilitate monkeys & ultimately release them to Baldi National park which virtually boarders our land.

Facilities are pretty good, with water tapped from the stream we have fresh drinking water & bananas amongst the fruit & veg grown on site.

Lishou the puma

breakfast waiting to be picked

one of may butterflies

You can read much more about the park at  http://www.intiwarayassi.org/ donate if you want to, or even better, go volunteer there.

Of course if you don't like animals you can still sponsor me for my Raleigh expedition working on both community & environmental projects in Borneo.

http://www.justgiving.com/Simon-Ottner