Sorata

Sorata: June 18,19,20

After Sidney 's spectacular arrival at 6:30 in the morning we headed to Sorata which is on the west side of Bolivia and is know for its trekking in the Cordillera mountain range. It was a 4 hour bus ride from La paz.

Sorata was beautiful it is a smaller (but still quite large) quieter town surrounded by mountains. We found a simple hostel that day and explored the town to get our bearings. We decided to walk to cafe illampu recommended by lonely planet just outside of sorata. We had a nice chat with the  Swiss owner while we ate delishes sandwhiches. They had built a look out tower between trees that we climbed. Jesse and Sidney went to the very top but I stayed at the lookout just below because it was already swaying and I felt dizzy so I decided to play it safe and they reassured me I wasn't missing a new view. 
Since they had just baked a new fresh cake they convinced us to have a piece while they went about work on their farm.  Work during our visit included killing three rabbits to transport  to their friend in La Paz. I will spare you guys the details on how that went down and say that the cake made with duck eggs and organic flower was yummy and we enjoyed playing cards in the country sun.
  
That evening we went back to our room played some more cards and then slept early. We sure made the most of Sidney 's first day and Jesse and I were so happy to have her join us.
  Oh one funny thing I forgot to mention was on our walk to cafe illampu we wandered 30 minutes in the wrong direction before we finally decided to ask for directions from the Bolivia children who had been walking near us. These children were friendly and eager to interact with us, they had gotten their English books out of their bags and were shouting words like "dog" "boy" "girl" at us. They were happy to give us directions back in the right direction. Luckily between Jesse's and Sidney ' s Spanish (and I like to think my smile ;) ) we have made out ok so far.

Day 2:
We were sleepy bears and slept until 11. I think we all needed it. I know I did as I have been fighting a cold. We hurried to get up and on our was as we wanted to walk to the caves 6 km out of town and at altitude it we had been walking a little slower than we normally would.

All three of us loved walking the winding roads through the mountains to the caves. Each turn in the road held a new view for us to take in. Jesse said it reminded him a lot of his trek in Nepal with winding roads along the  steep hillside between villages ...where as in Canada a lot of these area's would have been parks. It took us two and a half hours to reach the caves.

Going into the caves confirmed a few things for me:
1) I'm not a fan of small dark spaces. It was really just the entrance of the cave that was small and narrow and then it opened up into a big chamber but even the thought of the big chamber being burried under the earth made my skin tingle.
2) Likely because of reason #1 but I Don't think caves for are for me. This was the second time for me and the the first floating on a inner tube wasn't any better.

The cave was pretty interesting though it was 400 meters deep with an enclosed lagoon. We opted to walk the cave instead of taking little paddle boats. They lined the cave and path with little lights so luckily it was easy to see where we were going. We also had a nice guide who came in with us. The cave was extremely humid and was about 21 degrees Celsius. I think the humidity contributed greatly to my discomfort because I had more difficulty breathing and it brought out a barking cough. So although the walk to the caves was fabulous and was Jesse's and Sidney 's favorite part of the day, mine was the moment we exited the cave back to the fresh air.

Because we had slept in so late we were forced to take a taxi back into town so that we wouldn't be on the road in the dark. It actually worked out in our favor though because the taxi had to take a different route back do to Construction.

It is impressive to see the cars handled on winding tight turns and is even more impressive and terrifying when two cars have to pass on the road with sharp cliff on the side.

The rest of the night was uneventful..we found a quiet place to eat, bought food for our trek (hike) the next day and then went to bed early since we were leaving at 6 am.

Day 3 of sorata will have to be written later as we are almost at our destination and I hope to post this when we have brief Internet at the airport.  We are hoping to find our way down to Uyuani where the famous salt flats are located.

No guarantees on Internet since sorata didn't have connections any time we tried. But for now you know we are alive and well and enjoying our time in Bolivia.