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The last time I wrote we'd fairly recently crossed into Bolivia... Since then we've crossed borders into Chile and into Argentina, where we are now. So here I go with an update of the last few weeks, having finally got back to the world of speedy internet connections....!
After our days of rest and relaxation in Copacabana at the lovely Cúpula, we caught the bus to La Paz on 15th November (mum's birthday). Getting there was incredible. You approach it from above, through the 'High City' where the less well off live, and are confronted with views of the city filling the bowl below with buildings sprawling up onto the valley sides - a fantastic sight. La Paz itself, however, wasn't hugely appealing, perhaps unsurprisingly being the capital city. We stayed a few days, meandering throught the markets (selling llama foetuses!) and streets, stopping for Simon to buy a handmade Bolivian guitar, looking around the 'Coca Museum'.... and visiting a very plush private clinic where Simon had a chest x-ray done for his application for a working holiday visa for New Zealand. The gap between rich and poor was stark when we ventured into the Zona Sur, inhabited by La Paz's ex-pats and where the clinic was...
We then boarded a bus to Sucre on the evening of 18th, 12 hours or so south east of La Paz and very different... very relaxing, very pretty and all painted in its original white, the reason for its now being a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We spent a lot of time watching films on cable TV and eating in a Dutch-run café with lovely food...(!), but also spent a day mountain biking with a tour out of the same café, visiting the cement works just outside Sucre where they uncovered dinosaur footprints, and out into the surrounding countryside, going 'off road' (me very slowly!) and ending up swimming in waterfalls and eating a barbecue at a lovely hotel in the middle of nowhere. It was a lovely day and we enjoyed a few beers with the rest of the group when we got back - three girls from Dublin, two Dutch guys and a Texan travelling through South America on his motorbike...
We left there last Thursday, the 23rd November, catching a taxi to Potosí and a bus straight away from Potosí to Uyuni, the departure point for the 'Salar' (12000 square kilometres of salt flats...). The road was unpaved and the bus journey the worst I've ever experienced! It took a couple of hours to stop shaking once we'd arrived!!
In Uyuni we signed up with a recommended agency to set off on a three day tour the next morning (the 24th, Laura's birthday). A lovely bloke, Roy, a neurologist (my age!) originally from South Africa and now from Toronto, and who we'd met briefly in Sucre had just come back with his wife off the same tour and said it was good. (It is the way on the Gringo Trail that you are always bumping into the same people again and again!)
We ate that night with him and Danielle, his wife, in the Minuteman Pizza Restaurant, run by a guy from Massachussets and his Bolivian wife - some of the best pizza I've ever tasted!! It was a lovely evening... We talked a lot and were even interviewed by another motorcyclist, Allan, from California (and who'd been on the same tour as Roy and Danielle) for his diary podcasts (www.worldrider.com - I haven't checked yet to see if we're on there!!?).... They were lovely people... There's always a bit of sadness in crossing paths with such great people and having to say goodbye so soon. But then that's what this is all about....
The next three days were fantastic... travelling across the Uyuni salt flats and then southwards through desert landscapes, and past coloured lakes dotted with hundreds of flamingoes, weird and wonderful rock formations, live volcanoes and steaming geysers... for hundreds of kilometres all the way to the Chilean border. We landed on our feet getting to go with a brilliant group of people, all our own ages - James from Liverpool, Anna from Bristol, Vincent from between Dublin and Belfast(!) and Nicolas and Sophie from Belgium... and lovely Domingo, our guide, and Feliza, the cook. We got to know each other pretty well, squeezed into the 4WD, and sharing rooms in basic hospedajes for the next two nights! It was great fun... and the first night of Vincent's guitar playing, sing-alongs, card games, beers and lots of laughing will be long remembered by all of us, I think...
The scenery was some of the most wonderful and different I'd ever set my eyes on, often for what wasn't there rather than what was.... expanses of nothingness, white over the salt flats as far as we could see, then sandy desert, red rock as though on Mars, the red Laguna Colorada and very green Laguna Verde... The changes went on and on and were feasts for the eyes. It was so much to take in and of course, as always, over far too quickly. The dream would be to go back, and drive ourselves, stopping for as long as we wanted at all these views... It was a very memorable trip (hence all the hundreds of photos!)
Anna and Vincent took the tour back to Uyuni on Sunday (26th), while the rest of us crossed over into Chile and to the small town of San Pedro de Atacama, right up there on the edge of the Atacama Desert. Nicolas and Sophie have since headed back towards the coast and Peru, and James is still with us. We got out of Chile as fast as we could; the cost of everything there came as a shock after Bolivia! It wasn't the only difference. The very minute we left Bolivia, we had noticeably entered Chile... with paved roads, road markings, barriers, escape lanes, signposts, an air-conditioned, brand new mini-bus - all things none of us had seen for quite some time!
Yesterday (Tuesday 28th November and seaside grandad's birthday) we got a transfer here to Salta, in the north of Argentina. Again, there's a lot of development here, and it doesn't feel like we're really in South America any more! But it's cheap... and we didn't hang around last night, heading straight out for a famous Argentinian steak and wine - both living up to expectations! The comfort's nice, although it was sad leaving lovely Bolivia. I feel like we just 'brushed past' it, and have so much to go back and see one day...
So here we are, about to start the last leg of our South American journey, heading southwards and really looking forward to all that's to see here... Welsh villages, cowherding gauchos, tangos in Buenos Aires, wine valleys and the Patagonian Andes.... It should be good.
I'm still missing you all, and inbetween times trying to take on board everything that we're seeing and doing. It is an amazing continent to visit, and we've barely scratched the surface. All the people that we've crossed paths with recently have made it all the more special...
The Christmas decorations are beginning to show here in Argentina (though I suspect they've been up for ages at home?!), so we're thinking of you all the more...
lots and lots of love,
Linds and Simon xxx
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