Oruro

On my way to Uyuni to visit the Salar, I am taking the night bus , and will arrive at Uyuni tomorrow morning. I will try to go directly on a four day tour to the Salar, which will end up in San Pedro de Atacam in Chile, where I will propably make my next update.

Good news, my insurance actually paid for the costs of fixing my ipod. I still need to show some reciepts though to get paid for the stolen items in my backpack. And Abn Amor bank decided to cancel my credit card and send me a new one, although the current one is still valid for another 18 month, so now I am without a credit card, thank you Abn Amro, I still got my atm card though.

Copacabana bay

Taken from a close by hill, this hill is kind of a spiritual place, where people climb up and make prayers, there they also buy small models of houses or cars, combined with a blessing, they believe this way they will get a real car or house, apparently they are very superstitious people.

Copacabana, Isla del Sol and my birthday

I decided to go for a birthday "vacation" to Copacabana, I was expecting a very relaxed couple of days, but I already of felt that this was not going to be my most lucky day when I was stopped at a police check point on the way to Copacabana, it turned out that I only had a visa for 30 days, and I already spent 45 days in Bolivia, so I had to pay a fine of 10 Bol. Per day, and while I was solving the problem with the police the bus almost left with my bags, as we were tired of waiting for me.

Anyway I made to Copacabana and took a boat to the Isla del Sol, and located a nice hotel (Sol Imperial) to stay, the lady working there asked me to pay in advanced saying that she had too many trouble with Israelis, since I am aware of the reputation of Israelis abroad, I did not suspect much and paid the 20$ in advance after checking the room, there was no water in the shower, but the lady said she just needed to open a tap somewhere. But when I tried to take a shower but there was still no shower, the lady promised to fix the issue, but after waiting a while there was still no water . I decided to be cool about the whole affair, since I promised my companion Mauche that I will control my temper, and try take it easy during the vacation. But when I went to complain again to the lady, she was quite rude to me telling me that Israelis are always trouble, Mauge did not like that and decided that we should look for another place.

Anyway the lady refused to give us our money back and allow us to leave, and we refused to return the key without getting our many back, she insisted on us waiting until her husband comes back , things got heated up and I tried to force my way to the office, only for the lady to attack me, and then tried to steal one of our bags, we decided to get the police. Mauge was to stay there and I was to try and get the police , but exactly at that moment the husband showed up, the lady shouted something to him in Aymara and he attacked me and grabbed one of my bags, but I managed to retrieve the bag, and hand it over to Mauge, but the man took advantage of the moment and attacked me from behind, I fell on the ground and my sun glasses fell down, this was a new pair of expensive sun glasses that I just bought, loosing them would have been unpleasant, leaving them to those people was something I was not going to let happen. So I picked up the glasses and handed them to Mauge, and told her to leave with our stuff, mean while the man was grabbing me and hitting me from behind, I bit his hand to release my self, and managed to stand up, he tried to grab another time, I struggled with him overpowered him and threw him to the ground, he fell on the stairs of the front gate, he had an overwhelmed look on his face when I passed by him going out, I give him an intimidating look while leaving , so he would not think of trying to get up again.

There was no police on the Island so we decided to go back immediately to Copacabana, but the last normal boat had already left the Island, and we had to hire a private boat, we arrived back at Copacabana, but not without another deal which left a bad taste in our mouths, the boat driver decided to change the price after we arrived, and demanded 200 Bol. Instead of the 180 we agreed on back on the Island, after a short argument the guy insisted on keeping lying, so I just paid him 180 and walked away, he seemed to accept that he was not going to successfully bully me for another 20 Bol. , I was relieved since one fight a day was enough for me.

This the first fight that I got into in 15 years, since I was in high school, I ended up with a bruise on my forehead, a pain in my shoulder, and a couple scratches in my hand and knee. We went straight to the police and filed a report just in case, as I do not think the police is going to do anything about it. We managed to escape with all our stuff, but I lost 20$ I paid for the room .

Anyway I quite enjoyed the rest of my birthday vacation, as Copacabana is a very a beautiful and relaxed little town, with some nice restaurants, and amazing views on lake Titicaca. If you decide to visit Isla del Sol, I seriously recommend not staying at Hotel Sol Imperial, and generally take great care while doing any dealings with the people of the Island.

Potosí

The entrance to the "Case Real de la Moneda", where the Spanish turned the mined silver into coins, and shipped it Spain and other parts of their empire. The black slaves which were brought from Africa proved not so useful in the mines, because of the altitude and cold, and thus were eventually employed here to power the machinery for creating the coins. More than a million silver coins were made here. Now it has been turned into a museum.

The Devil, the miners believe that while God and Jesus may rule up there, the underground is the territory of the Devil, they make offers for the Devil, and ask him to bring them luck in finding a rich metal deposit. Any mention of God and Jesus inside the mines is considered to bring bad luck, so does women workers, as such there are no women working in the mines.

Some dynamite and other gifts for the miners, that way miners are very welcoming of tourists who stand in the way while they are working. Dynamite is actually completely legal in Bolivia, and sometimes kids buy it as kind of firework. After the tour in the deep tunnels of the mines of Cerro Rico, we had a demonstration of a dynamite use outside.

On the right is our guide Pedro, he comes from a familly of miners, and actually started working in the mines when he was ten, he eventually quit to start working for the Cuala Tours, a company run by ex miners. It was very fascinating to here about the mines , and the miners life from somebody who comes from such familly, the miners are very proud of their work, and the hard working conditions only strengthens the solidarity between them. He says the mining job pays better, but he likes his new job more, as he cares about his health, and he likes the gringas !

A couple of miners pushing a trolley with row minerals, probably weighing between 500 to 1000 KG, most of the work there is still manual, although some of the big groups have introduced machines. In 1952 the Bolivia nationalized it`s mining industry, and many of the miners today work for themselves, they are organized into cooperative groups, ranging in size from tens of miners, to smaller groups of a few miners, and there are miners who prefer to work on there own. The working conditions are bad very for their health, the most common health problem is lounge sickness, so what drives these people to keep working in these mines. The biggest reason is lack of other jobs, the second reason is that it is actually a well paying job for Bolivian standards, and there is always the chance of finding a rich deposit of metal that will make one rich. Some miners work in the mines because of tradition, as there father and grandfather did before them.

Cerro Rico , or the rich mountain, supplied Europe with it´s silver for 300 years. The Spanish mainly used slave work to mine the silver, and during these 300 years it is estimated that 9 million people died working in the mines, or in processing workshops, due to the hard working conditions or the poisonous materials used in the processing.
At the foots of Cerro Rico, the Spanish built the town of Potosi, in it´s peak 120,0000 people lived in the city, making it the second biggest city in the world at that time, after the decline of the mines though, most of the people left, and now the city is home to 30,000 inhabitants.

Waterfalls near Samaipata, great place to relax and have a cold shower. 

Cochabamba

In the last few days I vivited a couple of small quite towns, Chapare and Samaipata. I am back in Cochabamba now, but I will leave today to Sucre, and then Potosi to visit the infamous mines.

A recomendation if you do come to Cochabamba, do not stay at hostal Buenos Aires, very unpleasent people run the place, close by there is hotel Colon, for the same price I got a better room, and the owners and the staff are very friendly people.

And again for really good Sushi go to the Brasilian cafe, the cheff is a Brasilian of Japanese origin, and he went to Japan to study Japanese cooking, the cafe serves both Brazilian and Japanese food, but I have not tried any of the Brasilian dishes yet, since I keep ordering sushi everytime.

El fuerte a realy big rock near the town of Simaipata (meaning rest place in the heights), where pre Inca civilizations, and then Incas engraved all kind of things

Tanuri a small town in the Chapare national park, sitting on the bank of a river in the middle of a rain forest. Green, sunny and lively, and on the weekends, all the restaurats have outdoor grils, grilling fresh fish from the river.

Cochabamba

Marcilo my Paragliding instructor told me he was interested in Arabic food and cooking in general. So I agreed to cook for him , some of his friends and couple of other students. I made some kabab for the grill , a mixed salad, a yogurt and cucumber salad, Tahina and some rice. It was quite a success , 10 people in total joined the dinner, the food was very good, and we all eat until we were stuffed. It helped a lot that they got me all the ingredients I needed, as opposed to my previous cooking experience.

Staying Cochabamba for so long, I learned about the good places to eat and go out. For eating my favorite is this Brazilian/Japanese restaurant, which serves excellent Sushi. For going out, I went to Panchos last weekend, an elegant club, where during the night they play almost every kind of music : Latin, Salsa, Rock & Roll, Trans, 70s, 80s, Rock, etc.

Paragliding the end

I finished my Paragliding training today, in total I did 9 solo flights. I have a prefect record for take offs 9 successful takeoffs out of 9 attempts. Landings are a different story though, my first 4 landings were all in the landing area, and except for the first one they were generally smooth, in my third landing the radio did not work again, so I had to do it all on my own, but I still managed to land in the middle of the landing area, the instructor told me I did nothing wrong, except that the maneuver I used to approach the landing area was an advanced one, which he did not expect me to do. Anyway after this time, I always had two radios on my flights, just in case one did not work.

After my first 4 flights, two other Israeli students started there flights as well, since they were just starting they got the basic school wing which I was using, and I got a more advanced higher performance wing, which is faster and has a better gliding rate. In my first flight with this wing I was so scared, I was just waiting for the flight to end. But during the next flight, I was prepared for the more thrilling nature of this wing, and I was ready for its more wild movements, and eventually I started to like it more than the basic one. Though I did not manage to have even one smooth landing with it, I always landed very near the landing field, but every time I would either overshoot my landing by bit, or land short by a bit. The roughest landing I had was in my first flight with this wing, when I crashed straight into a big bush at the edge of the landing area. My last landing was interesting as well, I circled around the landing zone for several minutes at low altitudes, since the wing just refused to go down, every time I was descending a few meters, I got a lift and went back up again, eventually I went for it and managed to land.

Paragliding first solo flight

I did my first two solo flights today from a 600 meter hill. The first flight was supposed to be a very controlled one, I had a walky talky with me, and the idea was that the instructor would guide me through the whole flight, and all I have to do is follow his instructions precisely. The take off perfect, and it was captured on video, I am uploading this video now to my web storage : www.streamload.com/whendawi/pictures .

After I got in the air I realized that my walky talky was not working, it was completely silent, and I realized that I was completely on my own on my first flight. The first thing I had to deal was that I was heading into a mountain, so I broke to the right away from it, then I looked to see where the landing site was and I directed the wing towards it. I was quite tense during the flight, and there was some turbulence in the air that made the wing swing right and left. As I was approaching that landing site, I looked at the wind bag, and I approached the landing site from the direction opposite to the one the wind was coming from. As I got closer to the landing site , I could see the guy in charge of guiding me to land, and he shouted and signaled in his hand what I should do, at some point I wanted to turn left towards the landing site, but he kept saying I should still go more right, so I did what he said, but I ended up landing short of the landing site, I think if I had just followed my instincts I would have made it to the landing site, but anyway missing the landing spot is quite common in this sport, as the winds often change at the last minute. As the ground was getting closer, I felt that my legs were too tense, and I doubted whether they are going to respond to me when I touch down, anyway I realized I was going to land right into some bushes separating two fields, and I decided there is no point trying to run, so I just sat down and landing on my seat. I was generally ok , except for my troublesome right ankle, which hit the ground hard and was hurting, and the wing which was tangled in the bushes, and needed some work to be freed.

The second take off was very smooth again, the trip was a bit more turbulent than the first flight, and I was feeling quite tense again. But this time I was determined to run when touching down, so I starting taking some deep breaths, and preparing my self mentally for the task, as I approached the landing site the wind changed directions and I got orders to cross to the other side of the landing site, then turn around and land, which I did, and although I did not break correctly at the last second, I ran as I touched the ground and I had a very smooth landing, which I felt very satisfied about.

After that I told them I had enough for the day, so I got the task of driving the old Ford SUV down the mountain, while the three guys did their solo flights. Driving the car down was no less exciting and fun than the Paragliding, as the road was quite twisted and with very deep side cliffs.

In the air, my first flight, only lasted a few seconds. I made three of these short flights and they went quite well. The other student though had an exciting flight, a sudden change in the wing lifted him high and pushed him towards those trees in the back, and his wing got tangled in the electricity wires. But he landed safely and the wing was rescued with no damage as well. 

Taking off 

Getting ready for my first flight from a small hill 

Paragliding

I am doing this Paragliding training with this company called AndesExtremo in Cochabamba, they are a group of cool young guys who are into these challenge sports them selves, they do both paragliding and climbing.

In the first day we started by doing the tandem flight, I found the moment of takeoff to be the most exciting, after that I realized at what height I was and I was a bit nervous, the landing was a rough one, and I got a bruised knee , nothing serious, as it was already ok the next day. Generally you are at the mercy of the wind when landing, if there is wind you can land quite smoothly, if you doing it against the wind, but if the wind stops or changes direction in the last minute, well you will hit the ground with some speed, and you have to run very fast , or tumble over, which is what happened to me.

In the afternoon we had a theory class, after that I was invited to a climbing training session, which took place in an improvised climbing room they build in their basement. I did not do well, since I have not been to the gym for four month, and am not so fit in my upper body anymore. But some of these guys are very good, and the techniques they use to hop around the walls, are very cool to watch.

The second day we started my practical training, which was inflating the wing on a slight decline, which went well, and I managed to do it the third time. In the afternoon I had another training session, this time on flat ground , but with more wind. I needed more effort to inflate the wing, and I practiced controlling the wing while running, as the winds was changing direction all the time, and I had to respond to that and keep the wing facing the wind while still running. I was doing quite well, and my instructors told me I am ready for the next step.

Tomorrow I will do my first solo flights, which would be from a small hill, and I will be only a seven seconds in the air, after I master this small hill, I will move to the big one, a flight from 600 meters high!

Me in one of my training sessions on flat ground 

Andreas landing 

Andreas doing an interesting landing manuver 

The instructors doing their solo flights 

The instructors asistant setting up the wing for that tandem flight at the takeoff site