As we leave Bolivia a few final light thoughts and observations. As per usual to be read with a healthy dose of scepticism.

Llamas not Lamas

How did I manage to get through two countries and consistently manage to spell Llama incorrectly. Good grief. 🙄🙄😂

Let me distract you from my ineptitude with some cute pics

Vicuña

So I had never heard of Vicuñas before. Relatives of llamas and alpacas. But a slimmer and more lithe version. They are not usually domesticated. Their down is highly prized and used to be only used for royalty as they can only be shorn once ever three years.

Rheas

So again, who knew? Not me anyway. But there is a a South American flightless bird related to the Emu and Ostrich. We saw a few on our last day and they looked out of place. But no, they are a native species and are apparently seen in petting zoos around the world. Here’s a google pic.

Yareta

Take a look at this gorgeous green moss. Doesn’t look like a tuft that you’d just like to sit on…I certainly did. But that would be a mistake.

Rather than be soft this is a very hard hard spiky plant. Almost like a cactus and holy hell it stings related to a bromelid. we saw llamas eating them , god help their poor lips is all I can say.

Quinoa

We saw this growing a lot. At very high altitude and often right next door to the salt flats. It’s used extensively, on soups, breads salads. I love it. But I’m also over it. Very hardy and apparently very salt resistant.

Borax

This white substance appears to be in abundance in Bolivia 🇧🇴. Used as a pesticide, cleaning product, component of glass, food additive and alkaliser. In the pink lakes it appears as reefs of Borax and we saw it being mined further down the valley.

Pacific war.

When we were near the border there was definitely some tension between the Chileans and the Bolivians. Turns out in the pacific war that ran from 1879 to 1884 Bolivia ended up ceding their coastal territory to devastating effect. The chileans also took a good chunk of Peru. I suspect they all still resent it

Local politics

You may have read in one of my earlier blogs about the protest action we encountered in La Paz. Well that has significantly escalated in the past week and unbeknownst to us , we were one day ahead of a series of road blockades that have paralysed the country. Intrepid have cancelled all their tours, and are in process of rescuing stranded groups. Combined with several petrol shortages which I suspect are related to the events in Venezuela. And many cars are now completely off the road. We saw huge lines at the gas station yesterday, but these were queues to prepay for the next shipment due in the next few days. So getting to the border this morning was tinged with some urgency. We left early got a van to transport us all, ( with spare fuel in the back). And hoofed it to the border not sure if we would encounter queues. The border crossing was very quiet and we got over in a flash. So much so we had 4 hours to kill once we crossed the border before our next bus.

I’m using that time to write this. Looking forward to a sleep tonight. Hope you’re enjoying the blog. Leave a comment or like if you are so I know who is reading.

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