Well , that’s what we thought for a while – diesel turned up later in the day and we now have a nice full main tank.  1GBP per litre official tourist price.

The race is on.

We were just having jam and bread rolls for breakfast in our room as we heard the sounds of something like a small brass band and cheering this morning.  Turned out there was some kind of sports event going on with races being run around the town square.  After that the town was really quiet for the rest of the day, with many of the small shops closed and our day was spent chatting with other tourists and learning the skill of patience with the sloth-like internet connection.  No chance of a Skype call from here methinks!  No more news about the strike or when diesel will be available.

sharp in Achacachi

Who’d believe it?  We left Sorata again this morning, not long after breakfast.  Our plan was to find an ATM and replenish our cash as we need to buy diesel.  We were told that the nearest ATM was in Achacachi, so we headed there first.  We had been through the town a few days ago, and stopped to buy some provisions, but today it was completely full of people with a bustling Sunday market.  We enjoyed wandering around the stalls, crammed with bags of spices, dried herbs, fresh fruit and vegetables, unusual ironmongery, even a man sharpening knives on a foot operated grinding wheel.  Everywhere was the colourful hustle and bustle of the indigenous people who come to market to sell their wares, sometimes just a handful of vegetables, and sometimes cartloads of cloth, hats and artisanal crafts.

What we didn’t find was an ATM though.  Despite being Sunday there was a bank open but they couldn’t take foreign cards in exchange for cash and we were told we would have to go to the capital city of La Paz to find the nearest ATM.

To get to La Paz it is necessary to pass through the former suburb El Alto, which is now an enormous town in its own right.  As we entered El Alto we spied a couple of ATM’s and relieved them of some of their cash.  Decision time.  Continue into La Paz and find a backpacker’s place, or return the way we came.  Neither option was really on our original itinerary, but neither of us fancied spending any time in La Paz so we turned around.  This way we could go back to Plan A, drive the Cordilleras Real.  But first we still needed diesel.  With cash in our pockets we stopped at the first garage.  No diesel.  The second garage.  No diesel.  Third garage.  No diesel until Tuesday.  Fourth garage.  Closed.  Fifth garage – by now back at Sorata – we learned there is a transport strike of some kind tomorrow and they don’t know when they will get diesel next. 

We had supper in a café where we watched the TV and gathered that the strike will last until Tuesday.  At the same time there appear to have been ‘social protests’ going on in La Paz for the last week, so maybe being stuck in Sorata is not a bad thing after all.

After a planned few days in Sorata we headed out, we thought, for the scenic route around the mountains.  As with all these things we had a different adventure to the one we anticipated.   We checked before leaving town by asking directions and set off.  The road was bumpier and more ‘off road’ than the map indicated so we took a GPS reading – our position didn’t match the position of the road on the map.  Then we came across a fork in the road with a sign for the Gold Road off to the left.  Now we knew for sure we were following what appeared to be a track that would be a short cut.  Well, now we are here, we thought, we might as well take the Gold Road.  We’d read a bit about it in the guide book, how it was pre-Colombian and was used to carry the gold from the gold mines in this region.  Left fork it was then.

Up until now the scenery had been stunning, as we switched back and forth around the hairpin bends, some of which required a three point turn.  The Gold Road didn’t disappoint and we continued to switch our way around the mountain scenery.  For the most part we were driving between elevations 3,800m and 4,800m, the ground either side of the dry and dusty track, often covered in shale, was barren, grazed by the occasional llama.

Until we had taken the turning for the Gold Road we had seen many other cars on the road, mostly old Toyota 4×4’s.  Since taking the Gold Road this number had dwindled to around none.

As we revved our way up the tight hairpins, often grinding to a halt due to the steepness and tightness of the turns, we could smell the faint odour of hot water.  Reaching a flat straight stretch of road Paul got out, raised the bonnet (hood) and checked for problems.  Here in the wilderness of the dusty mountain roads he realised that his temporary repair way back in the desert of Peru had finally come to the end of its life.  The top engine hose was leaking slightly from the original split.  I sat in the passenger seat and did some knitting while Paul set to and replaced the old hose with the new one we had bought in Huaraz.  Of course, nothing is ever as simple as it sounds.  The new hose was of equal diameter throughout its length.  The old one significantly smaller one end than the other to take account of the different spigots it had to fit onto.  Paul created another of his work-arounds and merged the two hoses to create one hose.  Half an hour later we were off again.  It was this minor ‘breakdown’ that brought it to our attention that we had been largely on our own on the road for some time.  We wondered why.  It was not to be long before we found out!

About an hour later we came across a small settlement in the hills – Campiemento Ingenio.  We passed through the settlement, oddly, we noted, with a raised road barrier at the entrance.  The road became decidedly rougher.  We passed evidence of current mining operations, such as ore trucks standing on tracks.  And then the road came to an end.  We were in effect in the mine at the end of the road!!  Three workmen approached us – they seemed a little antagonistic but Paul charmed them with his basic Spanish and we learned we were indeed in a tin mine!!!  From here the road could only be passed by mule, horse or on foot and we were advised to turn around.  It seemed like a good idea so we did!

There seemed little choice but to head back to Sorata, which we reached a couple of hours after darkness fell, following a tiring trip back over the winding hills in the dark, surrounded by swirling clouds – with me reading ‘hairpin bend next’ from the Sat Nav most of the way.

The hostel were surprised to see us back but happy to let us have a room for the night.

We woke to views of Lake Titicaca, Huatajata being on the shores of the lake on the Bolivian side.  However we woke late, our body clocks not yet having adjusted to the loss of an hour since entering Bolivia.

Back on the road we are still impressed with the quality of the tarmac, something we were told not to expect in Bolivia.  One of the fascinating things about crossing borders is seeing how much is the same and what is different in what is just a few miles of space.  Here the houses seem better constructed, using more evenly produced bricks that fit tighter together, and often built in a style more reminiscent of what we would expect to see in England.  Like Peru away from the cities, we stand out clearly as foreigners.  The vast majority of the people in these rural areas wear the clothes and styles of the many indigenous tribes here.  At one point today we found the road ahead of us blocked by a large lorry set up for later entertainment, while men and women in bright and glittery traditional costumes danced and played music through the streets.  We were not sure of the celebration but alcohol was clearly being consumed in considerable quantities and we’re not sure we would have made sense of any explanations!

Men and women walk along the road carrying heavy loads on their backs, often of herbs and other local produce, taking it home or to market.  People are out with their livestock, often only a half a dozen sheep or a handful of cows, often in mixed groups with their donkey or horse grazing alongside cattle and sheep in small numbers.  At one point we stopped just off the road to make a cup of tea and some lunch with ingredients we had bought in a village along the way.  Lots of vehicles tooted their horns as they passed, their drivers and passengers waving at us.  Another similarity to Peru.  Yet in our personal interactions we have found people are often more shy than in Peru.  So far shopkeepers have also seemed less friendly or helpful.  We hope that will change.  As in Peru (and Ecuador) the standard Almuerzo or lunch is again cooked in advance with the rice and potatoes both served cold, while the meat is cooked to order and added hot to the plate.  Here the decorative addition of a small salad tends to be missing.  In the towns and villages there is usually a market where stallholders sell a range of goods, but also just as many who are selling a handful of beans, or a couple of bowls of tomatoes, presumably their own produce and either more than they need for their own family or being sold to buy other produce.

After passing through these small towns and villages we were back out on the rural roads again when we came to a fork in the road and a diversion sign.  Left on the good tarmac or right along the dirt track diversion to Sorata.  We chose right.  An hour later, with Landy very muddy and dusty from the road, we found the small but beautiful town of Sorata.  The large traditional town square dominates, with the Catholic church and a selection of shops and cafes surrounding it.  Roads lead off each corner, with stalls selling all manner of goods from the pavement.  In the square itself the fountain is full of water and working, the peeing cherubim for all to admire.

We will be here for a couple of days.  Paul is preparing some documents relating to some work he is planning in a couple of months time and we need to make the most of the facilities while we can find them.  In the meantime I will enjoy spending some time walking around town, shopping in the market for food as we need it and ‘window’ shopping everything else that we don’t have room for on the truck!  Tonight I have already enjoyed sampling the street food of beef kebab and cold potatoes, which Paul declined in favour of a hamburger!!  Humppphhh.

We have spent a few days in Puno exploring the town a little and taking walks down to nearby Lake Titicaca.  For the third time in a week we bumped into James and Kate, both from London but have been backpacking in the Americas for the last year.  We first met them in Casona National Park in Costa Rica eight months ago.  It’s a small world really!!

Still, with our final preparations made for our border crossing into Bolivia it was time to move on again.    We have loved Peru and will be sorry to leave but our temporary import for Landy expires on Tuesday and we don’t want him to get into trouble.

Heading south from Puno we followed the winding road that led us around the edge of Lake Titicaca.  The shifting scenery gave us views of both the mountains and the lake that shone Mediterranean blue in the sun.  We could not help but be captivated by the beauty and vastness of this huge lake so high in this mountainous region – we are still at around 3,500m (12,000 feet).

Before reaching the end of the lake we turned left towards Yunguyo, which would take us through the border crossing that is on a peninsula in the lake itself.

The border crossing was fairly quiet.  Leaving Peru took 10 minutes while Landy’s temporary import document was taken and our passports stamped out of the country.  A quick drive across the bridge that makes up no-man’s land and we were at the Bolivian customs.  First job, as usual, was to get Landy’s paperwork done.  It took a while to find someone on duty to do the paperwork but within half an hour Landy had his 90 day temporary import into Bolivia.  On to immigration to see if we would be allowed in with him and ten minutes later we were cleared through too. 

Final stop was a visit to the office of the tourist police before we could pass through the gates and out on to the Bolivian roads.  Here we encountered our first ‘problem’.  We don’t have ‘international insurance’, we should go back to Puno or Lima to get this or we cannot drive in Bolivia – with much miming about the risk of a right hand drive car to children and animals and the need to drive ‘tranquilo’.  Paul called their bluff and said OK, we’d go back to Puno, and got up to leave, which was met with indications to sit down again.  Where could we get this insurance, did they sell it at the border?  No, the alternative would be to drive to La Paz, 120 miles away.   Hmmmm.  That means entering Bolivia first and driving without insurance.  However the police came up with an idea.  They could authorise our permit to enter Bolivia for the sum of 10 Peruvian Soles.  We didn’t have any Peruvian Soles, we’d already changed all our cash into Boliviars.  OK, they could do it for 15 Boliviars.  I proffered a 20 Boliviar note, which did not elicit any change or receipt, and our documents were stamped, we were reminded to be ‘tranquilo’, hands were shaken and we were waved on our way.  £2.00 bribe paid.  Without it they would have stopped us as we drove away from the border and fined us for driving without insurance instead, even though there was nowhere and no way to buy insurance at the border.

In crossing the border into Bolivia we have shunted east on the map a little and lost an hour on the clock.  The roads were good quality tarmac (unlike we had been led to believe) and we were soon at the end of the peninsula and in the middle of Lake Titicaca, at the back of a queue of traffic entering San Pablo Tequina.  Looking down to our right we could see a flotilla of small barges ferrying two cars at a time back and forth across the kilometre gap between the land.  As dusk fell we inched our way forward in the queue, until, with darkness fallen, we reached the dockside.  We were pointed towards a barge being held against the quay by a man hanging onto a thick rope.  Paul drove forward, on to the barge as far as he could.  The barge stayed in place.  Another car pulled up behind us.  The man jumped on board and pushed us away from the quay with a long wooden pole.  Once out floating on the water he started up a small outboard motor that strained with all its might as the barge moved out into the deeper waters.  The street lights of western San Pablo Tequina shone out across the water in front of us, as the shoreline slowly receded.  Feeling the rocking motion of a ship was surreal while sitting in a car, but it only lasted about 15 minutes before the engine was cut and the barge manoeuvred onto the quay with the long wooden pole, we reversed back off the barge and were relieved of 50 of our new Boliviars (about £5, which we strongly suspect was a tourist price), and off on our way again.

The eastern side of the small town of San Pablo Tequina did not feel like the kind of place where we wanted to stay the night so we headed deeper inland from the lake.  Although we like to camp as much as we can, not least because we have our own roof tent, we have developed a policy of staying in a hostel the first night in a country.  Often it is late, especially when border crossings have been long winded, and it gives us a chance to get our bearings if we find a small town with a local hotel or hostel.  It wasn’t long then before we reached the moderately sized town of Huatajata, where once again we found ourselves staying in a place called Pachamama, very different from the warm friendly backpacker’s atmosphere of Hostel Pachamama in Cobanaconde!  A strong pine bed greeted us, with a foam mattress where the middle was about a third of the thickness of the edges!!  The heavy blankets and hot water were welcomed though.

So, for now, night night from our first night in Bolivia!!  Tomorrow we start to find out more about this new country on our itinerary.

Fast forward almost 50 years, and here I am travelling through countries where people appear to be poor, and I’m still being asked not to be kind to them by offering sweets to children and other small gifts to adult villagers.  Only this time, someone takes the time to explain, and it’s soon crystal clear why this simple generosity is destroying communities which have recently begun welcoming travellers.

Indigenous populations in central and south America may appear poor in relative terms, but in the main, they live happily and healthily, and produce enough from subsistence farming and trading to cover their families needs.  They are as comfortable with their lifestyle as we are with ours.

Although motivated by kindness, when we give children sweets or small toys, we introduce into their diet a level of sugar that they are unaccustomed to, and raise expectations that parents cannot fulfil once we have moved on.  Very rapidly tooth decay begins to show up where none existed before, and in rural areas, dental treatment is either unavailable or not affordable, so teeth have to be left to decay, or are further damaged in unqualified dentistry.

Giving gifts, however small, to children or adults unwittingly encourages dependency on tourist handouts and begins to undermine the culture and work ethic in these areas.  Before long, visitors are becoming irritated by the begging and persistent asking for handouts that they themselves encouraged with misguided generosity.

If we really do want to help out, we should perhaps take time to show interest and talk to a local about their life and ours.  Share a little of what we enjoy most about travelling in their country, and explain some aspects of life in our own country.  Play a game with the children – noughts and crosses is always well received – and maybe teach a few words of your own language to those who show an interest (and many will).

In short give something of ourself, rather than something of short term value that may upset the rhythm or balance of rural life, and take away only the stunning photographs that  we will likely get as a result of making real contact with the community.

Perhaps the best way to donate if we really feel the need, is to take some pens or notebooks to the local school, or donate a couple of footballs to the youth group.

In the distance we could see the snow covered peak of a volcano, while on the other side of the road to where we were parked a local farmer was letting his herd of about 100 alpaca out to graze.  It was quite magical sitting in the warming sunshine in this almost barren land.

We enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and second cup of tea, when one of the park wardens came by and asked to check our permission to camp.  Oops.  We had not passed through Arequipe, where permissions are issued, but there was no problem.  The main reason permits are required is so campers can be made aware that they are in a national reserve and to respect the environment, which we were doing anyway.

Soon after we were back on the main road, passing through Juliaca and on to Puno where we will be for a couple of days while we make final preparations for crossing the border into Bolivia.

Well, today I found myself taking that medicine myself.

Being so far from home, I was feeling particularly anxious about the treatment my mum had been given in her dealings with the NHS after a recent fall resulted in a snapped tendon in her shoulder.  Recounting her tale, it sounded for all the world like she had been the victim of poor doctoring, and a system that values speed and efficiency over patient care.  I was fuming that my mum should be treated this way, so I ranted on Facebook (how I hate it when people do that, don’t you?), and threw in a few vitriolic comments about how shabby my country’s values and ethics had become.

A few empathic and intelligent folks sympathised, and one or two joined the assault group, nay-saying our National Health Service, and recounting similarly distressing experiences of their own.   After a long outpouring of my contempt for poor nursing standards, shabby surgery, and general lack of patient care throughout the NHS I expected to feel a lot better, but of course I didn’t.  In fact, I felt even worse.

It took a suitably assertive, confident and eloquent FB friend to remind me that sweeping generalisations and focusing on the negative deny us the vitality and precision needed to actually address shortcomings and wrongdoings in the world around us, and that whingeing – especially on Facebook, changes nor achieves nothing, except perhaps increasing our negative experience.

Thankfully I still have enough emotional maturity to recognise when I’m being a prat, and can hold my hand up and acknowledge it, but nonetheless, it was a waste of two hours of my day, my life, and my power.  Far better perhaps to resolve to put my time and effort into doing something to make my mum’s life a bit easier, and to ensure she gets the best medical care possible.

Just as we were setting off this morning an older woman approached us.  We thought she was asking us for a lift somewhere, this being a pretty common occurrence, however it turned out she only wanted to know if we were going to Cruz del Condor and if so would we take a large plastic bowl to a woman who sells food there.  Apparently she had borrowed the bowl and was wanting to return it to the owner.  We agreed, although a little bemused as we were unsure quite how we would identify the owner of the bowl.  We had the name of the owner of the bowl and a photo of the woman whose errand we were running.

Cruz del Condor is a small overlook where it is possible to see condors flying really close between around 7.00 and 10.00 every morning.  A number of local woman set up stalls selling souvenirs and food there and it turned out to be fairly easy to find the food stalls and the owner of the bowl.  She and her friends seemed a little bemused that a couple of gringos should turn up with her bowl.  Meanwhile we were bemused by the trust placed in complete and utter strangers.

Back on course we headed on through Chivay.  There was more evidence along this part of the route of the pre-Inca terraces that cover the green hillsides.  We stopped for a while along the roadside to cook up a couple of alpaca steaks we had bought in Cabanaconde before we left, along with some more chips.  Just as well we stopped when we did as soon after the road climbed higher again, the vegetation completely disappeared to be replaced by bare rocks.  Either side of the road there were ‘fields’ of cairns, all more or less the same height and made of maybe half a dozen stones each.

Unexpectedly we found ourselves right up at 4,900 metres again, the same height as the pass over the Cordilleras Blanca we crossed a week or so ago.  This time there was no snow and the temperature was still at around 3C.   Anticipating it might get a bit cold overnight we decided we weren’t too keen on camping at this height and headed down a little before taking a small side turning where we found some flat ground to set up camp for the night.