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So the last blog was about our journey around New Zealand and after that we decided to take a week out relaxing in Fiji before the madness of South America started! We had a lovely time in Fiji but there isn't much to tell as we literally did nothing but lie by the beach, then the pool, then the beach, then the pool; you get the picture… anyway I guess one thing to tell you is that on our second day it was a really sad as there was a house fire in the village next to us and a 4 month old baby died. Lots of the staff members at the hotel were from the village so it felt more real and we also met the grandmother of the baby on the beach who was crying to us. The Fijians are very happy and loving people and we saw the funeral parade go through our hotel to the graveyard and everyone was in bright clothing and smiling and singing; a much better way to have a funeral than we do.
After our week's holiday within our holiday it was time to head to Santiago, the capital of Chile. We had 24 hours of travelling from Fiji, via Auckland but the journey was nowhere near as bad as we expected. We spent 4 days in Santiago in a lovely apartment and we took it pretty easy as we were a little nervous to be in South America. We ended up cooking meals a lot as we struggled with our Spanish in the restaurants but we felt better when we were told that Chilean Spanish is a lot different to the rest of South America! It was a 3 day national holiday when we were there, which was a bit unfortunate as a lot of the museums, shops, restaurants etc were closed so we spent most of our time exploring the city by foot, looking at the wonderful architecture and walking round some of the city's gardens.
After Santiago, we took a 24 hour bus to San Pedro de Atacama, the world's driest desert. We were really dreading spending 24 hours on a bus but it was so much better than we expected - the seats were very comfortable and they played about 6 films - much better than the buses through Asia! San Pedro as a really lovely little dusty town. There were white stone buildings with lots of cafes and restaurants with big open courtyards, exactly how I pictured Latin America to be. Whilst we were here we did a trip to the Valley de la Luna, where we saw lots of different rock formations at the Valley of the Dinosaurs, Valley of Death and Valley de Luna. The next day we left to go on a 3 day 4 x 4 tour to Bolivia!
A bus took us to the border of Chile/Bolivia where we met our 4 x 4. It was really strange as the Bolivian immigration was just a hut in the middle of the desert! There were 12 of us in our group, so we split up in to 2 cars and were on our way. We stopped at so many beautiful places it's hard to describe. We kept saying to each other that we couldn't believe we'd seen so many wonderful sighs in one day! We saw lots of different lagoons, some gysers, rock formations, a volcano, a cactus park in the middle of the salt flats. It was all just incredible and we've got some great photos. We were very high up here, at one point we reached 4,900m. A few people had altitude sickness but we mainly just got headaches luckily. The accommodation we stayed in was very basic, with no hot water and the second place we stayed at was even made of salt and had salt on the ground instead of flooring! The food was really good too and we even tried llama, which was a bit like steak. The tour finished at the Salar de Uyuni, the salt flats, which were incredible! Everyone on our tour was lovely and we all stayed in the town of Uyuni together after the tour. 6 of us have decided to stick together for a while and travel a bit of Bolivia together.
We took a bus to Potosi, which is the world's highest city where we changed buses for Sucre, which is where we are now. Sucre's nice but very busy. There are lots of narrow pavements with too many people on so it can get a bit frustrating, especially when you want to look at all the wonderful white-washed buildings! Tonight we are taking a 12 hour night bus to La Paz, the world's highest capital city where we plan to spend a couple of days.
So far, so good in South America and we can't wait to see more!
Lots of love,
Kirsty & Sam
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