Hola todos! Somehow I lost the notes I did for this one and have had to redo them and not having chance on the road hence the delay.
So after we left off from the last one Totally not Ed Sheeran and myself managed to find a few places where they would still let us have a beer over the dry election weekend which was very good going I have to say, among them was this nice little restaurant where we had a good chat with the lad serving us and then a short ways up the hill from there a cool little bar that looked very old school, the man running that place was cool and let us have a few beers in the back. lovelllyyyy.
That took care of Friday, then for Saturday Ed and his pal went back up to El Alto for some more footage for his video so Valle de la Luna would be a solo mission for me. I had to do laundry in the morning so didn’t head out till the afternoon.
Once the afternoon rolled round it was back on the cable car down to the same station we went the other day when we did the other valley, I am soon able to sort out a taxi up to Valle de La Luna. I get there, pay the £3 entrance fee and I am in.
So what to say about this place? Well for starters it is a much easier walk than the Valle de Las Animas being mostly flst with some hill climbs to get to viewpoints and there were good viewpoints here and it is another interesting landscape that resembles another random star wars planet.
Doing some reading into this place it apparently got it’s name after Neil Armstrong visited here after the Apollo 11 moon landing because it very much resembles what they seen on the moon with these rock formations, before that it was known as the valley of the spirits. True or not it doesn’t look earth like I’ll say that.
The spires here are made up of clay and sandstone rather than actual rocks and because of this the area is subject to erosion, in fact every time it rains in La Paz this place changes slightly. If you dear reader visit you may see something different to what I seen if you look at finer details.
Despite it’s arid look you also get catcus plants growing here, they are apparently a unique Andean cactus not seen in other regions and it is known as the San Pedro ribbed cactus or Achuma in Aimara, unfortunately didn’t get any pics of the cacti but you can look them up if interested.
After this I headed back and the rest of the evening went by pretty uneventfully only Ed was feeling ill so I went to those 2 places mentioned at the start on my own but not much else to say there.
Sunday itself was the election day and for us turistas it was pretty much a lock in as during the day there are no shops, restaurants or other places to go open, there is also no public transport and even international flights are grounded on this day. Any car on the road needs a special permit to be driving during polling hours. I didn’t go out and have a look at the voting I just chilled at my gaff, caught up with my family and just got my stuff together for the next leg.
The plan now is heading south to Oruro, from there I will visit the once great mining boom town of Potosí before heading to the old capital of Sucre before going back towards Uyuni and crossing into Argentina.
Will be dropping the blog for Oruro right after this one.
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