Christian Jessen » Bolivia
Isla del Sol in Lake Titicaca, Copacabana
Lake Titicaca is among the highest navigable lakes in the world, with its altitude of 3820 meter above sea level. It’s a huge lake that’s more than 230 km long, 97 km wide and has a lot of amazing history. The Incas believe that their first emperor rose from the Titicaca rock (Rock of the Puma), and the legend says that the sun was born here. In addition to all this, the Isla del Sol and Lake Titicaca in general, is a very beautiful place, surrounded by the mountains in this crazy high altitude.
(more…)
The Death Road, La Paz
Road going under waterfalls
The road going down from La Cumbre to Coroico near La Paz is rumored to be “The Death Roadâ€, because of the dangerous conditions, narrow road and not less than 3345 meters of vertical descent. Though the road isn’t as dangerous anymore, because they build a new highway, and closed “The Death Road†for traffic, so now it is pretty much just bikers and the buses following the bikes going down the road.
(more…)
Carnival in Oruro, la Diablada
Carnival show in Oruro
This weekend was the big carnival in Oruro, la Diablada, one of the biggest carnivals in the world. We left Sucre Thursday night, and got to the apartment we were staying in at Friday morning. Since it was impossible to book a hostel (we tried several times, but each time they cancelled our booking), we found a guy who rented a floor in a big house with no furniture. We had to sleep on the floor, but at carnival it doesn’t really matter, as you don’t expect to get much sleep anyway. It was only 50 boliviano per night, compared to hotels charging between 60 and 100 dollars per night, with minimum 3 nights.
Learning Spanish in Sucre, Bolivia
I’m not really doing that much here in Sucre, besides learning Spanish at Academia Latinoamericana de Español. It feels like I’ve learned a lot in a week, but there is still very much to learn. It’s very hard to speak Spanish, and explain things, because of my very little vocabulary. I’m learning so many new words every day, but it is so hard to remember them all, and to construct sentences when you don’t remember half of the words. I can understand a lot more Spanish than, but it’s still difficult when they speak so fast.
(more…)
Salar de Uyuni to Sucre
To get from San Pedro de Aatacama to Sucre, I took a 3-day trip over Salar de Uyuni, end up in the small town of Uyuni. The trip was really amazing, and Salar de Uyuni is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. We went with a bus from San Pedro to the Bolivian border, which is just a little house in the middle of nowhere. From the Bolivian border, the trip started with 4WD Toyota Land Cruisers – a car I really got a great respect from on the trip. In my car there were 3 Brazilians, a man from France, and guy from Spain, our local driver Juan and me. The car had a stereo where you could connect your IPod, so most of the trip we were listening to soft rock like Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Pepper and a lot of other music in that genre. It was really great, and gave the trip a special feeling. (more…)
