Bolivia: The Strange and the Beautiful

"We travel initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the world whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more." -Pico Iyer

During our nearly 7 months of travel, we have witnessed some pretty strange things. Bolivia was no exception. It is a country full of beautiful varied landscapes, friendly people and weird stuff. I wouldn't say that Bolivia was any more weird than other places we have visited, we just managed to photograph the craziness this time. I am going to try to convey to you the wonderful mix of strange and beautiful things we saw during our journeys through Bolivia.

On our very first night in Bolivia, we were in a restaurant that had a television turned to the evening news. This is the newscaster. Nice hat! She's not being funny. Let me explain...

Many (not all) Bolivian women still embrace the traditional dress. This means that they wear skirts, tights, shawls and use a colorful woven blanket for carrying their goods and children on their backs. Many women wear their hair in two long braids. A hat is also a must to protect their faces from the sun's rays. For whatever reason, the bowler hat became very popular with Bolivian women. Even if it is raining outside, they put their hats in a plastic bag and prop the bagged hat on their heads. The traditional dress is definitely beautiful and makes you feel like you are in a place very different from home.

The strange part about this is that the women ALWAYS dress this way, even if they are paving a sidewalk or mopping floors in a bus terminal. Behold these women, unloading from the pickup truck with their shovels for a long day's work. Note that not all of the women are in the traditional dress, but the fact that any of them are is a bit odd.

Our first stop after the wonderful salt flat tour was Potosi, the famous mining town. We opted out of doing the mine tour but this photo below shows the beautiful mineral rich hill that looms over Potosi and helped make Spain very rich. Miners still mine for tin there.

The beautiful church in Potosi is pictured below. After a couple of nights in Potosi, we were ready to move on to Sucre.

But first we had to get to the bus station. This is where the strange comes in. Potosi isn't that big of a city. It's not a major transport hub either. However, in January, they opened this enormous bus terminal that is far bigger than the one in La Paz. It is beautiful, shiny and new. And a bit out of place.

It's a beautiful terminal and has great acoustics. We know this because every bus company employs the same tactic of shouting out the destinations their buses serve. The city name Oruro sounds pretty cool as it echoes off of the terminal walls. Strange stuff.

The uneventful bus ride took us to the beautiful city of Sucre. Almost all of the buildings in the city center have been painted the traditional colonial white. It made me feel like we were in Andalucia, Spain, where there are many white villages.

Sucre was warmer than Potosi so we enjoyed walking up to this lovely mirador (overlook) a few times.

Here is the view. It is a beautiful setting for a beautiful city.

But that doesn't mean Sucre doesn't have weird stuff. Check out their mini Eiffel Tower! We climbed it along with a bunch of teenagers.

Our hostel was across from the market so we also checked that out. Anyone hungry for potatoes?

On our last day in Sucre, there was a bike race between Potosi and Sucre. It was exciting to watch them sprint toward the finish line!

The winners got big checks. Fun!

After Sucre, we took a night bus to La Paz, where once again we saw strange and beautiful things. Here is a shot of Plaza Murillo.

We felt lucky because the first day we were there, we saw a marching band on the main street and decided to follow them. We ended up at this amazing band competition/cultural festival. It was a great welcome to the city.

There was lots of music, dancing and delicious street food!

Our hostel in La Paz was located just around the corner from the famous Witches' Market where you can buy anything you need to cast your spells. Llama fetuses are buried under houses for good luck. Appealing. Those are real, people!

We also witnessed this strange scene outside of our hostel: someone transporting what looks like a whole lot of quilt batting on the top of a taxi. Since it wasn't fastened, it fell into the street and blocked traffic.

Speaking of blocking traffic, the city of La Paz has come up with a creative way to keep drivers in line. In the downtown area, people dressed like zebras stand in the sidewalks to make sure drivers obey traffic and to keep pedestrians safe. It was absurd but seemed to work. My theory is that you can't get angry with a zebra telling you to back out of the crosswalk.

At a nearby market, we spotted this incredibly cute baby alpaca. I want one!

At this same market, we enjoyed delicious, freshly squeezed grapefruit juice.

We also took a walk to a wonderful overlook of the city.

This is a shot of Illimani, the beautiful snowcapped mountain peak that looms over the city.

At the overlook, there was a park with this slightly strange giant sized chess board. There were also bleachers for spectators.

After La Paz, we headed to Rurrenabaque for a wonderful tour of the Amazon River Basin. That will be a whole other post though. After the tour, we took a bus to the incredibly relaxing town of Coroico. We could have biked along the famous "Death Road", the most dangerous road in the world, in order to arrive. We opted for just enjoying the incredible views from the safety of our hostel terrace. It was a great place to chill out for a few days. Our place even had a pool.

Nothing strange here, except for the first time ever on our trip, we opted not to hike when given the option. Sometimes, it's necessary to just sit back, relax and enjoy where you are!