A JOURNEY IN BOLIVIA 1988
first (tephro) cactus, our field number JK 1.
On the way back we took a look at the church of Laja, which was already built by the Spanish before La Paz was founded. A colossal church with about 30 seats stood next to a dozen shabby houses.
Then we were taken to the "Valle de la Luna", the moon valley, a heavily eroded area just south of La Paz in the direction of Obrajes. There was even a small cactus garden here.
By half past four we were back at the hotel and the (mostly sympathetic) driver thought that he should charge us another extra $ 15 for the trip to the moon valley. We refused this. We wondered whether we would get our bus tickets or whether the other taxi driver would get our money back. I felt less and less well and went to bed at six o'clock. At that moment there was a phone call that the tickets for the bus were available. The next day we could continue to Cochabamba. In the hotel we exchanged some dollars. A boliviano (peso in the countryside) turned out to be worth about 87 cents.
Tuesday, August 2nd
After a good night's sleep of 12 hours, I got up like a different person. It was cloudy and cold. At seven a taxi took us to the bus station, after we eventually left money for yesterday's taxi driver to avoid any difficulties later on.
In the bus station we received an enormous cup of coffee with an egg sandwich for Bs 1.50: our breakfast. As for the coffee, "It could have been coffee."
The bus left at exactly eight o'clock. Almost all passengers had a blanket with them. A woman offered us her blanket. We thanked her very much for the noble gesture, but explained that we had to be able to take a beating.
During the journey we sat glued to the window. We drove on a neatly paved road towards Ururo. The Altiplano is fairly flat and has been cultivated almost everywhere. The fields were plowed waiting for the rainfall. The rainy season often starts in September October, but sometimes stays away. A year like that is a disaster for Bolivian farmers.
It is known that llamas occur here. We only saw them after an hour. Meanwhile the sun broke through again and the temperature rose rapidly.
We had hoped to descend quickly from 4000 m to 3000 m after the Altiplano, because we still had some difficulty with the thin air. However, it turned out to be
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