It´s the cutlery stupid...
We have discovered that you can tell a lot about the cuisine of a country by the type of cutlery routinely provided in cafes. So here we are in La Paz,Bolivia, munching away on salad and the occasional trout using knives and forks clearly designed to cut up something far more bloody. Neverthless, the trout is very good and quite different from what we are accustomed to call by that name in Europe.In addition, our hotel will make you a very nice cheese (or other type of) omelette for breakfast on a little camping stove set up in the dining room So all is well on the food front, which as you know is very important to us.
We arrived here by travelling from Cusco in Peru by train to Puno on the edge of Lake Titicaca-a 10 hour journey, although done in some luxury as the Andean Express provides an open air observation car, equipped with comfy armchairs, and lunch and afternoon tea on board as well as entertainment. Unfortunately, or perhaps not from our point of view since we feel we have seen a lot of this sort of thing, there was a strike in one of the towns that we passed through and this prevented the traditional dancers from making it to the station in time to board the train so the barman had to step in and run a class on making pisco sours. We are being fairly abstemious in order to cope with the altitude and Puno is the highest town in Peru so we decided to give this a miss although we then gave in to the temptation of the bucks fizz that was passed round in order to make up for our disappointment in missing the dancers and yet another "photo chance". Then, after a night in Puno, we travelled by car to Copacabana in Bolivia and crossed Lake Titicaca in a catamaran (fantastic!)by way of the Island of the Sun, the so called birthplace of the Inka civilization, to the Bolivian altiplano and down into La Paz.
All of this has given us an opportunity to see some spectacular views of the Andes and we shall be boring you with the photos very soon. It has also been a way to observe a little more the way in which people live-from the shanty towns on the outskirts of tourist towns, such as Cusco, to the large urban industrial and commercial conurbations and the traditional agricultural communities. I imagine the life of these rural communities is hard, especially on the altiplano in both Peru and Bolivia where growing most crops isn't a possibility. However, from what we saw, it looks infinitely preferable to the urban options. Although we saw lots of charming children running alonside the train and waving at us in the country and they seemed at least to have enough to eat, the poverty we saw in the towns made us feel uncomfortable. We hope that, on balance,people feel that it is better that we come and spend our money here than not.
On a less controversial note, this morning we have been to the Valley of the Moon, a nature reserve outside La Paz, to look at the incredible rock formations (more "photo chances") and then came back into town to watch part of the traditional May Day parade which included as well as the political parties, various groups of workers in their uniforms, miners in their hard hats, civil servants in their white shirts, bread makers, workers in the meat industry as well as, in many of these groups, women wearing the traditional dress of the full skirt and peticoats, flat shoes, beautifully embroidered shawls and..bowler hats.
More in La Paz tomorrow when we expect some of the museums to be open, then a late flight back to Lima where we shall make our farewells to South America. At least for now.
We arrived here by travelling from Cusco in Peru by train to Puno on the edge of Lake Titicaca-a 10 hour journey, although done in some luxury as the Andean Express provides an open air observation car, equipped with comfy armchairs, and lunch and afternoon tea on board as well as entertainment. Unfortunately, or perhaps not from our point of view since we feel we have seen a lot of this sort of thing, there was a strike in one of the towns that we passed through and this prevented the traditional dancers from making it to the station in time to board the train so the barman had to step in and run a class on making pisco sours. We are being fairly abstemious in order to cope with the altitude and Puno is the highest town in Peru so we decided to give this a miss although we then gave in to the temptation of the bucks fizz that was passed round in order to make up for our disappointment in missing the dancers and yet another "photo chance". Then, after a night in Puno, we travelled by car to Copacabana in Bolivia and crossed Lake Titicaca in a catamaran (fantastic!)by way of the Island of the Sun, the so called birthplace of the Inka civilization, to the Bolivian altiplano and down into La Paz.
All of this has given us an opportunity to see some spectacular views of the Andes and we shall be boring you with the photos very soon. It has also been a way to observe a little more the way in which people live-from the shanty towns on the outskirts of tourist towns, such as Cusco, to the large urban industrial and commercial conurbations and the traditional agricultural communities. I imagine the life of these rural communities is hard, especially on the altiplano in both Peru and Bolivia where growing most crops isn't a possibility. However, from what we saw, it looks infinitely preferable to the urban options. Although we saw lots of charming children running alonside the train and waving at us in the country and they seemed at least to have enough to eat, the poverty we saw in the towns made us feel uncomfortable. We hope that, on balance,people feel that it is better that we come and spend our money here than not.
On a less controversial note, this morning we have been to the Valley of the Moon, a nature reserve outside La Paz, to look at the incredible rock formations (more "photo chances") and then came back into town to watch part of the traditional May Day parade which included as well as the political parties, various groups of workers in their uniforms, miners in their hard hats, civil servants in their white shirts, bread makers, workers in the meat industry as well as, in many of these groups, women wearing the traditional dress of the full skirt and peticoats, flat shoes, beautifully embroidered shawls and..bowler hats.
More in La Paz tomorrow when we expect some of the museums to be open, then a late flight back to Lima where we shall make our farewells to South America. At least for now.
posted by Team Tierney | 9:20 PM
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