La Paz and Isla Del Sol Lake Titicaca

After the Salt Flats we went to La Paz and then to Isla Del Sol on Lago Titicaca. We hung out for a week in La Paz and got into a nice routine of going to the market in the morning for breakfast and  enjoying the city.

The night view of the city from our friends house on the outskirts.

Plaza San Francisco

La Paz street art of a shoe shiner. The shoe shiners wear  masks to hide thier identity. A lot of times they                          are university students or merchants  trying to make some extra money but dont want to be seen by people they know. 

These are Llama fetuses in the witches Market. Some people bury them in the foundation of their house for good luck.  The witches market had lots of other potions as well, mainly  for matters of love.

Cholita street art.

 

This is the market that we would get breakfast at every morning. We would start with an egg and avocado sandwich then get these giant Maracuya (Passion Fruit) drinks. It  was amazing.

This is our juice lady!

On to Lake Titicaca! 

Our bus being taken across part of the lake on the sketchiest ferry I have ever seen.

This is Copacabana, we stayed here for a night before going to Isla Del Sol.  A beautiful town on Lake Titicaca.

More nice street art.

We got some heavy rains while in Copacabana.

My favorite mattress yet, this is a tent that is stuffed with grass!

Headed to the island!

Isla Del Sol in the distance.

Local woman rowing near the island.

Local women walking on the trail system that goes across the island.   Its amazing how much the carry on their backs, long distances, in these blankets at 13,000 feet.

We hiked on a trail that was on a ridge, we got awesome 360 views.

Our hostel had a great view and was less than $10 a night!

Leaving the island the next morning.

Copacabana in the distance.

Copacabana has many trout restaurants, so we took full advantage.  Our stomaches paid the price later.

SALT FLATS and MORE!

One of our best decisions yet was to go on this 3 day tour of Bolivia's  highland area. Everyday you felt like you were on a different planet. We spent the first day at the world's largest salt flat. The second day we went to desolate mineral colored lakes occupied only by flamingos and the third day we went to the Dali Desert and we were surrounded by geysers and hot springs! The sights were so amazing, we took way too many pictures and decided to dedicate a whole blog to it.

Woo hoo! Stoked to be here!!

The texture of the salt was amazing. Driving across the salt could be dangerous in areas because sometimes the layer of salt was only a few inches thick and the lake below was 300' deep. 

We had some fun messing around with the pictures due to the deceiving caused by the endless salt flats.

My little doll of Patrick.

How I feel sometimes... (jk)

Amatuer photography. We were just learning how to make the pictures. If you look close at Patrick you can tell he is just standing behind me. (It was harder with 2 people)

Ahhhhh!

AHHHH!!! Not the Beard! Please don't eat me!

After hours of driving on the salt flats we reached this random cactus island. The cactus are older then a 1000 years. It seemed so out of place in our salt world.

Leaving the salt for some regular dirt.

Beautiful sunset our first night.

The second day we headed out for some lakes in the remote highlands of Bolivia. The only towns here are based on quinoa and llamas. Obviously the only way to know which llamas are yours, is to decorate them with lots of bows.

This volcano is half in Bolivia and half in Chile. You can see it is still active.

We were constantly surrounded by distant volcanoes all of of which are dormant.

Our first lake, surrounded by borax and full of Flamingos.

The lake was so calm the reflection was almost perfect, almost.

It was odd seeing all these flamingos out here. We were constantly between 12,000 to 16,000 feet.

There are few animals that can survive out here: flamingos, Vicanus (these llama relatives) and...

this odd squirrel, rabbit, Chinese sage mixture. The whiskers cracked me up the most, it gave this animal the funniest personification of a wise old Chinese man.

This area is extremely mineral rich and it created the most dramatic colors in the mountains and lakes.

Laguna Colorada! What Planet are we on? It was surrounded by white borax hills, crazy mountains, and it was so red!

We slept at the lake the 2nd night and our guide was worried about us since it got cold and we were at 14000ft. We convinced him we were fine and played some drinking games to convince ourselves we were fine. We slept great but in the morning the whole tent was frozen from our condensation.

We got up early that morning to make it to the geysers before sunrise. They were nice and warm!

Sunrise over the geysers.

Welcome to Mars?!?

Our transportation through these different planets.

Hot Springs time!

These llamas were crossing over the hot spring field in front of us all morning. It was so scenic!

Enjoying the view!

I literally could not stop taking pictures.

Heading off to the Dali Desert.

This desert had a different name but then Dali got popular and painted a picture with the same colors  and shapes as this desert. Since then it has been called the Dali Desert.

Our tour group (minus 1).

More desert!

Our last sight seeing spot was in the valley of rocks. Crazy rocks everywhere. Can you tell what these ones look like?
(Puma and llama)

Everyone comes up to our friend Adam and tells him he looks like Jesus Cristo. After seeing this bus picture we fully understood all the comments.