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Well, it's been quite some time since we posted our last blog, and we have been up to quite a lot since then. We are currently taking some down time from traveling, in one of the wealthiest cities of Bolivia, Sucre. But prior to this, we have been exploring the country's south, and some of the poorer but more traditional parts of Bolivia.
Last time we left you, we were saying our sad goodbyes to Argentina, after almost 3 months of traveling in and out of the country. A fairly early bus ride took us to the frontier between Argentina and Bolivia, where we made our way on foot from the crazy bus terminal of La Quiaca (Arg), to the Bolivian immigration office at Villazon. After a fairly straightforward border control process at an extremely busy office (luckily, the line was bigger to get out of Bolivia than in) we took a first steps on Bolivian soil. We could tell virtually straight away that we had entered into a place completely different from anywhere we had been yet. Crazy market stalls were spilling out onto the streets, smells of street food could be found everywhere, and our first sightings occurred of native senoras in the traditional dress; pleated skirts, stockings, buckle shoes, shawls complete with bowler hats and long plaits. We didn't spend a great deal of time in the border town, however, as we had a train to catch! We had heard a great deal of different information about the train system of Bolivia - mostly to do with its inefficiency. Despite the discouraging advice, we decided we would give the train a try, and delay an experience on a bumpy Bolivian bus for as long as possible! Surprisingly, the entire process was very smooth - from buying the tickets to the ride itself. After a few very scenic hours on a comfortable, yet somewhat wobbly train ride, we arrived in Tupiza, a very small, isolated town in the southwest of Bolivia.
Somewhat reminiscent of the American 'wild west', Tupiza is most famous for being very close to the site of the famous downfall of Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. So, aside from the usual becoming accustomed to the town, randomly bumping into friends from our earlier travels (a quite common occurrence on 'the Gringo Trail'), getting used to the high altitude (over 3000ms above sea level), and quietly celebrating my birthday, we decided to saddle up once more, and go on a 5 hour ride amongst the wild, rocky scenery outside Tupiza. A very nice, relaxing . The one point of excitement came when my horse got spooked by an oncoming car and nearly 360'd of an embankment! Our excellent guide, Milton (who we conversed with only in Spanish) explained that the horses mother had been killed by a car - nice bit of psychoanalysis we thought! The ride took us through some very interesting landscape, vast, rocky canyons and dusty plains scattered with scrub and cactus - all very beautiful, but so remote and desolate it was very hard to believe that the town was only a few miles away. At the end of our trip, we returned to town, and jumped on the train again that night, headed north to Uyuni.
When we pulled into Uyuni station at 1 in the morning it was freezing- the condensation on the train windows had started forming icicles! We quickly grabbed our bags and made our way to the closest hostel. We were glad to have a heater in our room but when the electricity periodically turned on and off we just had to think "That's Bolivia for you!". The next day we booked a tour of the salt flats- the reason we were in the town of Uyuni in the first place. In this part of Bolivia there are huge salt flats where salt is gathered and processed. There are also huge expanses of desert and strange rock formations all of which you can tour in jeeps, starting in the town of Uyuni. We settled on a three day tour and spent the rest of the day exploring this very small and strange town- highlights included seeing a kid patting a dog which was in the process of eating the scalp and horns of an ex cow ( in the food market!) and Ryan buying a poncho and a new pair of aviator lenses. Yes I do believe he has watched Easy Rider one too many times.
The next morning we met the rest of our group in the middle of town. Ryan and I were joined by Victoria from England and a French couple Clementine and Bastian and the Spaniard Ima. Our driver was Adelin and our cook/ general helper was Soledad. We all set off (along with many other jeeps heading on the same journey) and our first stop was shortly out of town- a train cemetery! When Bolivia stopped using steam trains for cargo transport over 100 years ago, some of the carriages and engines seem to have simply been left where they stood to rust away and eventually become a tourist attraction! It's fascinating to see the way everything has wasted away and the huge amount of rusty scrap metal surrounding the area (Tetanus Land!) There's also some pretty funny graffiti (Wanted: Mechanic with experience!) After mucking around and taking pictures with the trains for awhile we set off again. As we drove we saw our first glimpse of the salt flats- just an endless white strech in the distance and wild LLAMAS! Awesome. We stopped again on the edge of the salt flats at a small village where you can buy objects made of salt and then in the middle of the flats where we saw men shoveling salt into wheelbarrows and the big piles of salt which scatter this part of the flats. Crazier still, was the fact that the workers appeared to have cycled to work, the pushbikes leaning up against nearby mounds of salt. Even further in we visited a hotel entirely made of salt bricks. Inside even the beds are made of salt and many statues. Legally it shouldn't be there and it definitely shouldn't be inhabited (due to its effect on the environment), but still there did seem to be guests there. Bolivia hey!? The view was pretty cool but thanks to the heat and the endless view of white I nodded off and before I knew it we had arrived at INCAHUASI! This is an "island" of sorts in the middle of the salt, called IncaHuasi as it was once apparently inhabited by the Incas. The island is covered in many cactuses (some as old as 900 years!) and we took a walk here which gave us great views of the flats all around. The uphill hike was a little hard though as we were now at over 4000 metres above sea level which makes it a little harder to breath! After lunch we had fun taking some silly photos- as there is nothing for miles to give photos any real perspective you can create some pretty crazy effects, See our photo album for examples! Before we could rest for the night we drove for a couple of hours and ended up at lodgings where we tried to stave off the cold with card games, food and tea.
Early the next morning our first stop was a mirador where we could see a volcano which lies on the border of Bolivia and Chile. Unfortunately soon after that we experienced our first (?!) punctured tyre and had to wait awhile before our driver got it fixed up with the help of some fellow jeep drivers. Undeterred we soon continued to our lunch spot and some close up llama experiences! Lunch was followed by a series of lakes made up of different minerals such as Borax. Because of the build up of these minerals, the lakes were surrounded by a white crust and often had hunks of mineral floating in them. All this was due to the close proximity of several volcanoes. We also saw baby wild foxes on this stage of the trip- very cute! Before too long, we experienced another technical hitch, with our car putt, putt, putting. After trying to press on, our driver stopped and performed some maintenance - blowing dust out of the carburetor! Soon we were off again. Late in the afternoon we stopped at some incredible rock formations, including one called Arbol de Piedra or Tree of Rock- it really does look like a tree. Much of the rest of the day was spent driving through the most amazing Mars like scenery- red desert as far as the eye can see and rolling red hills scattered with rocks, before reaching our final destination for Day Two- Laguna Colorado. This famous lake was nominated to be one of the new seven wonders of the world and it was spectacular. Again due to minerals in the earth, this lake appeared a purpley reddy kinda colour. There are also hundreds of pink flamingos that live there thought at this freezing time of year we only saw about 50- still pretty amazing though. We came to the end of a very full day and tried to sleep through the cold because tomorrow we knew we had to get up at 5.30!
The pay off for this disturbingly early start was firstly getting to see some crazy geysers. We watched and tried to warm our hands by a stream of steam shooting straight up in the air. One thing that didn't keep us hanging around them too long though was the nauseatingly powerful smell of sulfur! In other places, steam just floated out of holes in the earth) including where a no parking sign had been installed!) giving the whole area a very other worldly appearance especially in the first of light dawn. Just when we thought it couldn't get any better we arrived at the hot springs. Yes after two days of being cold and smelly in a jeep we got to bathe in really warm, lovely, natural hot springs. Even if both my hair and Ryan's board shorts were literally frozen (you could hold them up like a piece of wood!) it was worth it cause we were warm for the next couple of hours- bliss! So one more stop at Laguna Verde, a beautifully green lake before the looong haul of 7 hours driving back to Uyuni. We were all sad to say goodbye and leave our group but glad to get back to a hot shower and a warm bed!
That's all for now, photos and more blog very soon!
Love,
Hayley and Ryan
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