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Hello everyone!
Weve just arrived in la paz and are in a really nice hostel and are enjoying our fist taste of civilization since we arrived in bolivia.
After leaving Salta we travelled north by bus to la quaica and crossed the bolivian border by foot to the town of villazon. As soon as crossing the border we could see the stark contrast between argentina and bolivia, like stepping back in time about 30 years. Bolivia just keeps shocking, its not like anywhere ive been before! Anyone who has seen james bond (we saw it the night before we left salta) will know its portrayed as a cuddly, teddy-bear sort of a place and it certainly living up to expectation. The people here firstly look really strange and dress in bizarre traditional bolivian outfits with long skirts and plaits and carry huge loads on their back in colourful sacks. secondly the whole country pretty much smells of toilet (quite impressive really), and the people overpoweringly of bitter coca leaves.
Next we headed north by bus to tupiza. We were in a 40 seater coach and it was a journey like no other because 1. ther bus was full of mental bolivians 2. bolivia doesnt have any roads 3. bolivia doesnt even have any dirt tracks and so the entire journey was along dried out river beds and negotiating its way around boulders etc. the scenery is fab though as so made it worth it.
From tupiza we embarked on a four day tour of south west bolivia culminating in the famous sallar de uyuni (salt flats). We set off with four of us in our jeep and our driver sebastian on what would be the most gruelling part of our journey so far. Our typical day consisted of around 12 hours driving in the jeep, with the lack of anykind of road making progress slow and very bumpy. However this part of the world is totally unique and magnificent and the hours of travelling really helped you appreciate the scale of the place. luckily we are all good mates in our jeep and we had a good laugh.
Some of the cool things we saw included lagoons of every colour imaginable, flamingos, llamas, pecunas, rabbit-squrral like things that can run up cliff faces, volcanos, active geisers, swimming in hot springs, expansive desserts and amazing rock forimations. plus on the last day we arrived at the enormous salt flats, mile upon mile of white expanse. The accomodation was very basic but we had a great time as the people were nice plus the group in the other jeep (2 argentians and 2 norwegians) were fun. we were staying with families in mud huts with no running water, electricity, flooring etc and temperatures dropped to minus 5 quickly at night. on the final night we stayed in a salt hotel constructed eintirely of salt dug up from the sallar, tables chairs, beds etc which was kind of bizarre (everything ended up very salty). The food was the best weve had all trip which is amazing given it was cooked using a gas cylendar and plank of wookd carried on the top of the jeep. At the end of the trip we were pretty glad to get out of the jeep but we had the most fantastic time of the trip so far.
The original plan had been to rest up in Uyuni a while, however upon arriving there we decided that depiste only having 3 hours sleep (we got up very early to see the sun rise on the sallar) we would get straight on a bus for la paza as Uyuni was little more than a series of mud huts in the middle of the dessert. so at 8pm we started the 13hr journey to la paz hoping that sheer exhaustion would help is sleep the whole way. However we encountered the same problem as on the bus to tupiza, even to the capital city they have absolutley no roads! so it was kind of like 13 hrs in a cocktail shaker. the bus broke down twice and when they needed to refuel one of the passengers would hang out the window holding a bucket of fuel while the driver siphoned its contents into the tank using a piece of rubber tubing. All in all it was quite fun but when we arrived in the loki hostel in la paz we were never so glad to see proper beds and warm showers.
Havent seen much of la paz yet as weve been resting and we havent been venturing out of the hostel except for in large groups as the city has bad reputation. I have to say though, it feels safe enough and the hostel is very well equipt. we will probably stay here one more day before heading north to rurrenbaque, from which we hope to do a 3 day jungle trek, before heading back to la paz and accross to lake titikaka.
Hope everyone is doing well and feel free to email/leave a message letting me know how your getting on as Id love to hear from you!
Trine
xxx
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