I decided to take the Amazsonas plane from La Paz to Rurrenabaque instead of the 20 hour bus through winding treacherous roads!It was only a 40 minute flight and a very nice one at that - with great views of the mountains around La Paz along the way.At the airport I met Alicia, an American, & Phil, her British boyfriend and stayed at the Hostal Oriental with them & booked a pampas tour w/ them through Fluvial tours.It was hard to get used to the heat afte...

On the way to the pre-Columbian archaeological site, Tiwanaku we drove through the city of el Alto (1.2 million) which used to be part of La Paz (2 million) but became separate.The Tiwanaku culture lasted 2700 years - the longest in South America !The site has been declared a Unesco site and they will still be working on excavation there for years to come.We saw the local people working on the excavation of the Kantatallita pyramid but weren't allowed to take pi...

This was a very difficult 3 day exercise in insanity!A guide that I had met in Chile encouraged me to climb a mountain in Bolivia since it was fairly cheap and easy here, all things considered.Of course I had never even been above 3000m above sea level until this trip, but I guess you have to try sometime so I did!The first day I got equipment, and drove w/ 2 Germans & an Aussie (yes I was the only girl) to a lodge at 4700m.From there we walked to a glacier t...

My first day in La Paz I took a double decker bus city tour that took us up to a mountain w/ a beautiful view of the city.They told us that there had been about 175 presidents in 175 years - one only lasted 6 hours!There was also 1 president in jail.After the tour we went to the grocery store and I finally found and bought peanut butter for almost $6!!! ?I had some great Mexican food for dinner which I had been craving and then saw a Miss Cholita pageant!!It was ...

Ben, Ainsley & I took the early bus to Potosi having to deal w/ a lady w/ a baby & 2 kids that only bought one seat for all of them.One of the kids was screaming and it was a big mess - welcome to South America !They finally quieted down and we made it to Potosi , the tallest city in the world - over 4000m ASL.We took the famous mine tour although it was really sad.We learned about their use of dynamite and coca leaves, straight alcohol, and really strong...