Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
So after my last blog… what happens after we get off our sandy train and get to our hotel… I look in my bag and I have had my makeup bag stolen out of my bag!! It didn't have much in it, just my make up, some jewelry (the earrings curl got us for the wedding) and my perfume, hair ties etc. I expected something to get stolen I guess… and in terms of what I would rather them take, I would much rather that then my sleeping bag or thermals!!! But fingers crossed I can claim a lot of it back on travel insurance… that's what I bought it for!
Anyway so we stayed in this hotel (I somehow managed a wikkid hot shower and seb got nothing!) and we waited to see what group we were in for the Salar de Uyuni tour. We ended up with the ladies we had been on the bus with to uyuni, and with another Irish/American guy. The only problem which we didn't realize at the time was that we were in a REALLY old 4WD. The guy had been doing it for 8 years already and obviously hadn't updated his car… so we were in for a rough ride... there wasnt even a handbrake on the car... lucky we didnt stop on too many hills i guess haha. two of the ladies had to sit in the very back too cos me and seb both get car sick. seb sat in the front with the guides son, who at one stage fell asleep on her shoulder haha. i sat in the middle of robbie and another lady. the ladies who at first seemed like they would be slow from getting into bolivia, were actually HEAPS of fun and we were glad we went with them. they told me off for not speaking enough spanish... not my fault though... im trying! haha. seb is getting better quicker than me, i can speak it but find it hard to follow conversations with words i dont know in them (obviously alot haha).
The first day we spent on the salt flats which was amazing, just white for as far as you can see. its great to take illusion photos there cos you lose perspective as to where someone is standing. you will see from the photos i will hopefully put up soon! we saw an island on the middle of the salt flats and ate this yum stuff which the guide cooked for us which was sorta like rice but heaps lighter and it was sooo yum. We tried to work out what it was with the help of the 3 spanish ladies and Robbie who spoke quite a bit of Spanish. For all the accommodation on this tour its first there you get a room, if you are late you wont get one and you need to keep driving until you find a Refucio (like a refuge place with beds and a common room really) which has room. We were lucky enough on both nights to get the places we wanted… although surprising given how slow our car was travelling!! The ladies on our tour had been smart and were so prepared with food etc! they had crackers, cheese (like philly stuff) and even had a couple of blocks of chocolate for dessert! They were like 'Lucky you came with the oldies' hahaha. The first night me seb and Robbie sat up and chatted for a while and managed to get 2 bottles of red wine when all the other groups only got 1!! Woohoo! We didn't have cards or dice so had to just sit around trying to think of things to do, but Seb and Robbie managed to chat about Europe and stuff a bit which filled in the time!
The next day was really rough. We were travelling over rocks most of the time, and our car with limited suspension wasn't doing too well. This was the first time I think when we realized we didn't have a great car! There were heaps of newer cars just cruising past us not even on the road.. I hadn't realized that our car which was probably a late 70s model would make such a difference! So the rocks made me pretty car sick but that was ok cos they kept needing to tighten the suspension or something (although we don't think there was actually any suspension at all from how sore our butts were!). The main thing we saw this day was an active volcano… but from a while away obviously so didn't look incredibly exciting, but we saw HEAPS of beautiful lagoons in amongst the mountains, some with Flamingoes in it which was cool. It was an amazing sight. That night we had to get to the place really early and somehow got the last available room. We spent that night chatting with some other people from different groups, listened to a Brazilian guy's itunes which was awesome, it seemed he had the same taste in music (favourite Pearl Jam song was even Black, the same as mine!) ummm and just hung around with them near the TINY fire and kept trying to keep it light. It was crap, the wood was bad fire wood I think cos it kept going out which sucked. We stayed that night at about 4100m which I had a bit of trouble with. Hard to breath at that height. Im also having heaps of vivid dreams, two of them being AWFUL dreams which I could see about 2 weeks of happenings played out in my dreams and they seemed so REAL! Hope they start being good dreams cos I wouldn't mind having such vivid dreams if they were actually good dreams!
The next day we woke up at 4am… I don't know why we always have to do it that early...! That was the 2nd time on this holiday we had to be up at 4am! Not a vacation! We had to get up so early cos we had a lot to fit in. the problem with this day is that (this is me deciphering the Spanish guide so I hope I've got it right) there was an active volcano which was ummm 'rumbling' I guess is the word for it. So this has meant that there was WIND like you wouldn't believe all day. After we left the place we were in, their roof actually got torn off by the intense wind. We got to this beautiful place at about 8am to have breakfast, overlooking a lagoon, with hot springs in it. But I think it was about 6 degrees and so the water - 38 degrees -would have been amazing, but the wind chill when we got out would have sucked! If we had had an up to date car with heating it would have been fine cos we could have at least warmed ourselves up, but in our old car the doors had sand and freezing air coming through making us cold when we weren't even wet! So unfortunately we didn't go in there but some crazy people did! I can only assume that those who did were in cars with good heating and not like ours.
So the last day we drove through the desert to get home. Basically only stopping this day for food cos we just wanted to get home we were so tired and cold. We also had to stop heaps of times just so that the sand storms could pass. Never seen anything like that. There were tiny twisters everywhere too! Crazy weather. The highest altitude from this day was a huge 4870m. I had some coca leaves though which the ladies and Robbie were nice enough to give me cos I wasn't dealing well with the altitude even the day before! Kept feeling dizzy and ill. Felt fine with the coca leaves though so will need to get some of those as soon as I can find somewhere to buy them! We were up at 4am and home at after 6pm so long day. Nice to come home to an entire town which didn't have power!! The wind had blown down all the power in the town so we had to try to organize dinner and where we were staying in the dark. We had booked one place to stay but then realized another place was included in the tour so we tried to score that which was good but not hot water! Its awful cos we have been in a car through the dessert and through the salt flats and now (even the morning after when the power should be restored) there is NO HOT WATER. In EITHER of our hostels! Not happy about it. Hopefully potosi will have some hot water. Don't care how much I pay for it at this stage! the funny thing is that after i wrote this part i just went to TRY the water in our hostel.. and managed a perfectly hot shower... feel sorry for seb who had a cold shower!
I haven't really described the surroundings from this 3 day tour as I don't think it really was possible to. Even the photos I will put up will not do it justice. It was an amazing few days with views that you could never get sick of, and something that I don't think could be replicated anywhere or that I could ever see again. Hopefully some of this comes out in the photos, otherwise it will only be in my memories
Hopefully I can get to internet to actually upload the last few blogs! Been out of contact for a while but haven't had access to internet or power for so long its been impossible to do anything!
Potosi is next
xo
- comments