South America Part 1 - Bolivia

It was almost exactly five years ago that I went to South America, but it still remains one of my favorite places in the world! Below is a summary of my trip. If you ever get the chance to go I highly recommend it!

I started my trip in the administrative capital of Bolivia, La Paz. If you ever go, let me warn you, you will need at least two days to get over the change in altitude. I thought that I would be immune to this because Calgary is relatively high up, but at about three times the altitude of Calgary, you will notice the difference (especially after two days of traveling to get there). Not only will you notice the lack of oxygen, but you will also have extreme culture shock. The entire city is very hilly and foggy so it is easy to get disoriented. As well, you will look like a tourist no matter what you do because the people here even look different. On my journey around town, everyone was extremely nice to me though, so you don't need to worry.

At the top of my hotel after being awake for over 24 hours

The main square where they play foosball 

From there I visited Salar de Uyuni, or the salt flats. I want to go back to Bolivia just to see this again because it is so amazing, trust me, it will blow your mind. The salt flat are the largest in the world, and provide salt to all of Bolivia. We took a tour of where they process the salt, we stayed in a hotel made entirely of salt (even the beds) and we toured the island in the middle of the salt flats. If you go, you will feel like you've landed on another planet. Not only is the space surreal, but the combination of the altitude and the music that you will listen to in your 4x4 makes you feel like you're dreaming.

Sealing the packages of salt

In the rainy season, the water covered flats reflect the sky

The chemical makeup of the salt forms these natural hexagons

The hallway of the salt hotel

Hiking the Incahuasi Island

You can take some pretty cool photos because everything is white

From there I don't remember much because I was suffering from altitude sickness. A couple of interesting facts are that Viagra will help cure/prevent altitude sickness, and the 5 Boliviano coin is made in Canada!

The drive from Potosi to Sucre looked very much like a drive through the Okanagan, but once you get to Sucre you realize you're no where near Canada. Sucre is the constitutional capital of Bolivia. All of the buildings here are painted white and it is a very pretty city.

From there we flew over the mountains to the much warmer Santa Cruz. We stopped here and in Corumba for one night each on our way to the Pantanal, and we were all blasted with a massive heat wave!

Caimans

An anteater

Pirana fishing... you can feel them trying to bite you!

A Monkey

The Pantanal is super cool, if you can get past the bird-sized mosquitoes that is! This is the world's largest wet land and home to hundreds of different creatures. During the day you can see toucans, storks and too many other birds to name. Plus you can get uncomfortably close to a caiman (like an alligator) and see an anteater or a capybara (the worlds largest rodent). Then at night you can hear the howler monkeys screaming as you walk back to your room by the light of the fireflies. You can also go piraña fishing! Did you know that they pant like a dog when taken out of water?

From here we went on the the beautiful Bonita. We found this natural swimming hole and had a blast here!

                             

(To be continued in " South America Part 2 - Brazil")