When I say I can’t believe how time is flying, I really mean it – it’s more than just a glib turn of phrase for me at the moment. Having spent just under a week in Bolivia, I’m now on my way to Arequipa in Peru. Here I’ll spend two weeks volunteering with ‘Traveller Not Tourist’ – an organisation that works with orphans and kids on the street in this socially divided sounded Peruvian city. I’ve had a fair bit of contact with the organisation via e-mail, and I fixed up my work ‘contract’ with them ages ago back in the UK. It still feels like a bit of a step into the unknown, though. I’m not sure entirely what I’ll be doing, but I know that I’ll be staying with other volunteers in shared accommodation. I think that will be good for me as I’ve been feeling a bit lonesome of late, and I am keen to be based somewhere for more than just a couple of days, hopefully finding some company that will feel more than just fleeting. Without wanting to sound too pious, it will also be nice to actually ‘do’ something for a community in this part of the world. Having spent so many months feeling like I’m racing through this continent, cramming my booty bag full of treasures in terms of the experiences I’ve had, the people I’ve met, and the things I’ve seen, it only seems right that I should now give something back.
The last few days in Copacabana left me feeling a bit empty and unsettled. It’s strange that, after all this time, and now so near to the ‘finish line’, I find myself getting the old homesickness pangs again – longing to see my old friends, to relax in easy, established company, and to not have a perpetually soggy wash-bag in my backpack (when I got to Copacabana my shower-gel and toothpaste had leaked everywhere – oh well, at least all my stuff now smells of honey, almonds and mint!)! In the end I wasn’t that sorry to move on from La Paz, as my final night there, which I spent in various backpackers’ bars, made me feel like I could just as easily have been back home in Hoxton (as mentioned, I do miss London, but I don’t really want it to follow me round the world in the form of lairy Brits on the p*ss having drinking and vindaloo eating contests). When I got to Copacabana late on Saturday night it seemed quieter, although still with an evident tourist infrastructure (Copacabana is the main stop off point for people wanting to travel to the islands on Lake Titicaca, and it also attracts many pilgrims from all around Bolivia during certain religious fiestas as they, yep, come to see a famous statue of the Virgen in the cathedral here). A bed in a basic but perfectly clean and passable guest house cost me 20 bolivianos (about £2), as did a set menu meal in a cosy restaurant across the street, and I found myself wondering how I would spend my money here with everything being so cheap. I actually tried some Bolivian wine that night, as it was cold and misty and I fancied a warming glass of ‘vino tinto’. I was pleasantly surprised – it wasn’t bad at all.
The next morning it was a relatively early start for me as I took the 8.30am ferry to the ‘Isla Del Sol’ – an island on Lake Titicaca with much significance in the Andean world as being where the Inca dynasty started, and where the sun and moon were supposed to have been created. I had read that it was worth spending the night on the island in order to fully appreciate its atmosphere, and also that there were some really rewarding hikes there. Arriving there, though, I hadn’t realised that it was such a breath-takingly steep climb up from the boat disembarkation point to Yumani - the village where most of the island’s accommodation is situated (altitude sickness hasn’t hit me badly yet, I don’t think, but I’ve had a few nosebleeds and spent most of Sunday feeling kind of nauseous and short of breath). I therefore succumbed to letting a local kid help me with my backpack for a couple of bolivianos and, unsurprisingly, he led me to the first ‘hospedaje’ on the track, evidently run by one of his mates or relatives. Here I paid what I later found out was a total rip-off for the island – 50 bolivianos – for a pretty grotty room, but it had a great view, and meant I didn’t have to struggle so far with my stuff the next day to get back on the return boat to Copacabana.
Later in the day when I fell in with some much shrewder travellers, who were all staying together in a much nicer place for much less, I felt like a bit of a mug, and had a bit of a travellers ‘identity crisis’! Had I turned soft, and have I become lazy, I asked myself? It’s true that travellers fatigue is setting in for me a bit now, and I’m becoming much less structured in my planning, budgeting and researching than I was at the start of my journey. It seems ridiculous worrying about being ripped off for a couple of quid, especially when I had that rant about the posh boy in the internet café the other day, but, for me, my insecurities weren’t about the money, they were more about my travelling credentials and my travelling ‘outlook’ - me asking myself ‘what kind of traveller am I?’. At the other extreme from the flighty young things who just come here to take drugs and party, not caring too much about the costs, Bolivia seems to attract some very serious-minded and super-organised ‘skinflint’ travellers, who suss out the lay of the land a lot better and balk at spending a boliviano more than they have to.
The people I ended up hanging out with on Sunday afternoon and evening were more part of this latter group and, although they weren’t mean-spirited at all (indeed they invited me to join them for dinner and insisted on shouting me a beer), their shock and barely disguised disapproval that I had paid over three times what they were paying for the first room I saw, left me feeling like a bit of a flaky, fluffy-minded fool. So many times on this trip I’ve felt like I’m back at school, or university, or on my first day in a new workplace - skirting around the different ‘tribes’ of people, trying to figure out which one I belong in, while seeking out those social cues as to how I should behave and ‘be’. And, as per usual, nothing ever quite ‘fits’ or feels right! It’s a fruitless endeavour, though, I’ve come to realise – all this trying to be completely ‘one type’ of person (or one type of traveller). I’ve come to recognise that I’m quite whimsical and that it’s best for me to just act according to how I’m feeling. So, if it feels good to have a local kid help me with my bag and to give him 50p (and that was a good feeling), or to splash out on the odd hotel room, or nice coffee at breakfast-time, so be it. I know I’ll have my other single-mindedly frugal days where I’ll break my back carrying the bag myself, where I’ll crash with ‘interesting’ Couchsurfers, or stay in bug-crawling hostels, and where I’ll live on peanut butter and crackers. I don’t think either extreme makes you any more or less of a traveller – it just depends on your circumstances, and I have really valued experiencing both the ‘high life’ and the ‘low life’ during this trip. I guess I’m lucky in that I do have the means to buy myself a bit more comfort from time to time, what with the income I’ve got coming in from renting my flat. However, being on my own does put me at a disadvantage fairly frequently – I can’t always leave my bags with a friend or partner while I go and suss out what the best deal in town is, and I’ve always got to be watching my own back. Sometimes it is just good to pay your way out of trouble or hassle.
When I first arrived on ‘Isla Del Sol’ I did indeed feel a real pang of frustration and regret about being on my own. I was itching to go off and explore but, looking out onto the lonely expanse of rocky hillside that constituted the island, I felt uneasy. Once I was out of the village of Yumani, there seemed to be no-one else around for miles (except for perhaps a few solitary shepherds in the distance), and no there were no clearly marked paths. Ever since my incident with the would-be bag snatcher in Mexico, I’ve been very wary of being alone unless I’m within sight of at least a small handful of people. I also had at the back of my mind the fact that my good friend Jamie was quite badly attacked in this part of Bolivia a few years ago with the girl he was travelling with. So, I was about to turn on my heels and retreat to my miserable ‘hotel’ room, wondering what else I’d do with my day, when I caught sight of two other gringos (they had to be) stooping along the same path that I had just walked down, weighed down with enormous back-packs, what looked like camping gear, and what was unmistakably a guitar. There was nothing for it but to say ‘sod it’ to feeling like a Billy-no-mates, and to ask if I could amble along with them to the end of the island (where I knew there was another small village where I could get a boat back to Yumani if I needed to). They obliged and we all set off together, me sure that they must have thought me a bit strange hiking in my hoop earrings and eyeliner, as they were definitely favouring the ‘ascetic chic’ look. David (Californian) had a wild Jesus-like beard and sandals on, and Camilla (Brazilian), battered old army boots and fatigues. They were lugging their tents and guitar to the end of the island so they could ‘get the f*ck away from people, man’ but, whatever they made of me (or the rest of humankind for that matter), they let me keep their company for a while, sharing some coca leaves with me (and I carried some stray bits of their gear in return) until we got to the next village called Challa. I discreetly left them here when they got into a bit of a barney with the local who was selling tickets to enter the community (the north and south parts of the island each levy a sort of charge on visiting travellers, which I sort of guess is fair enough as we stomp past their homes, looking at ancient ruins and Inca sites). David and Camilla didn’t want to part with any money at all, and didn’t feel they should have to, but I just let it go, coughing up the 10 bolivianos, slightly annoying and ‘tourist tax-ey’ as it felt. I’m afraid I left it up to them to continue arguing the rights of highway with the poor bemused looking Bolivian standing there with his clipboard!
Challa turned out to be nothing more than a small cluster of houses nestled amongst surrounding hillside where the locals seemed to be growing some kind of beans. Even compared to the fairly basic nature of everything else I’ve seen in Bolivia, life on the island seemed even further removed from modernity. By the time I got to Challa I realised that I wasn’t going to make it to the northernmost village, Challapampa, in time to get the boat, and that the best thing for me to do would be to cut my losses (missing out on the ruins – but I guess I’ve seen enough of those by now) and head back to Yumani on foot. There seemed to be a few other travellers heading in that direction so I tried to suss out the friendliest-seeming and most approachable amongst them, in order to find some company for the trek back.
I ended up walking with a French couple, Ana and Gil (who had both spent a couple of years living in London) and a London guy also called David (but without the hippy hair-shirt vibe of the other David!). All three of them had recently met at an animal sanctuary where they had been volunteering north of La Paz, and it sounded like they had already had an amazing time on the northern part of the island, lodging the previous night with a friendly local woman who they met while out walking around. She’d apparently put them up for 15 bolivianos a night and fed them on fresh trout in the evening for 10 – lucky them. They said they’d got up at 5.30 that morning to watch the sun rise over the lake, and they were generally full of the joys of spring. Hmph – some travellers have all the luck! They weren’t unbearably smug, but they were evidently magnets for good fortune when it came to finding the best places to stay. After a couple of hours of hiking back to Yumani David got befriended by some local kids and their Mum, a traditional Aymara woman, suddenly appeared offering lodging. Again, the deal was 15 bolivianos a night and the other three jumped at the chance when the saw the nice, clean homely rooms (a whole lot nicer than the grimy one I was paying 50 for). I was gutted, as it would have been so nice to have joined them, but I had a feeling it was too late. Gil and David kindly came back to my lodgings with me to see if I could at least get some of my money back and move to be with them, but there was no going back on the deal. A wrinkly old woman, who was probably the proprietor’s Mum, told us that the proprietor was away on business in La Paz (‘hmm’, we thought) and that there was nothing she could do. Oh well, I made the best of the situation by agreeing to go and have dinner with the rest of them in their ‘hospedaje’ later, and before we sat down to eat we all had some laughs with the kids in the garden. They were enchanted by our cameras and the whole idea of taking photos and appearing in them transported them away to another world – it was really lovely to behold. Under a watchful eye, we let them take some snaps and, thank goodness for the delete function on digital cameras, as I ended up with about 30 pictures of the neighbours washing, the roofs of local houses, siblings’ shoes and headless torsos etc. on mine! Once again, one of the nicest things about being somewhere so remote and unspoiled was watching kids play naturally and spontaneously, appreciating the simple things in life rather than demanding expensive toys and gadgets. We bought them some lollies from a local shop as a bit of a treat, and you would have thought we’d offered them the world. One little boy just held his lolly at arms length for about 5 minutes before unwrapping it, exclaiming “mira, mira!” (look, look!).
So Sunday evening was nice, dining on trout again (from the lake - deliciou) and finishing off with some tots of whisky from a bottle that one of the guys had won in a poker game or something in La Paz. I enjoyed listening to their tales, although they did bring on pangs of ‘travel envy’ and some feelings of self-doubt in me. These were real travellers, who’d been camping and living off the land, sleeping under the stars and all that – proper adventurers... Once again, goodness knows what they made of me and my naivety (shivering because I wasn’t wearing enough jumpers, and I’m sure I saw some eyes roll when I confessed that I hadn’t bought a torch to help me find my way back to my lodgings after dinner). I guess I shouldn’t have been so hard on myself, though. I have certainly had my share of adventures on this trip, perhaps more in terms of the people I’ve met, and the sights I’ve beheld, as opposed to the outdoorsy-type, penny-saving hardships I’ve put myself through (and it was a bit hard for me to get a word in edgeways to share my stories with this lot so it was kind of impossible to ‘compete’). Plus, it’s a ‘you win some, you lose some’ type game, this whole travelling life. A few lousy, lonely days staying in grubby rip-off accommodation, and dreaming of home, usually give way to an unexpected adventure or twist of good fortune a few days down the line. With just under a month left now until I return, I’m sure there are a few more plot lines to develop and characters to emerge in this, my chronicle of 7 months on the road, told from the perspective of a girl who is not really one ‘type’ of traveller or another, but an ever-changing and emerging mixture of impulses, influences and experiences.
So, just to get my 50 bolivianos worth (!) I woke up really early yesterday morning to watch the sun rise over lake Titicaca – an arresting and quite spellbinding sight that really helped to get the mental cogs in motion as I did some reflecting about myself and my future (not long now ‘til I really have to start making some decisions about my ‘post-travelling life’). I then popped to get some fresh bread from the village for breakfast, to eat on the balcony looking out onto great views. This actually satisfied me in the end that every boliviano had been well spent, no matter what anyone else thought (not necessarily in terms of what it had bought me, but in terms of where all the thinking over the weekend had taken me - listen to the old sage in me!). And it was only a fiver for goodness sake – what would than buy me back in England now (barely I pint I guess, in some places)?
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