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After a five and a half week stint in Peru we figured it was time to move on and explore Bolivia so on October 19th we took an overnight bus from Cusco to Puno in Peru, before getting a connection to our first stop in Bolivia, Copacabana.
We were again joined by our travelling companions Leigh, Kat, Will and Arch and together negotiated customs and made our way across the border.
We decided to get a ferry straight to the island of Isla Del Sol, where we spent a pleasant evening enjoying the peaceful surroundings.
After some negotiations we managed to find some cheap and cheerful accommodation for 25bolivianos (the equivalent of €2.50). Not bad for double rooms ensuite!
There's no running water on the island so guests are encouraged not to take long showers or waste water as it has to be transported uphill by donkey.
We stayed on the South side of the island which is pretty untouched, with just a couple of restaurants and hostels.
With little on offer in terms of entertainment the 6 of us decided to have a movie night that evening, watching one episode of An Idiot Abroad, Series 2 and the awful film (Alan's choice) Your Highness before hitting our beds.
We were up bright and early the next morning in order to explore the island, taking a ferry ride to the North side to begin a hike back towards the South.
After a quick brekkie we set off on our trek, stupidly forgetting to put on a second batch of sun cream, given that we were at altitude.
Needless to say there were few patches of sunburn that evening, including my shoulders, which later blistered. A valuable lesson when it comes to the sun in areas of altitude. Serious ouch!
We caught the ferry back to Copacabana that afternoon and had another chilled out evening where we dined at a Mexican restaurant and played a game of poker.
Interestingly Will and Arch managed to jointly win, despite us all playing individually. Hmm!
After a relaxing couple of days it was onto the real Bolivia, the capital city of La Paz.
We took a bus straight from Copacabana and were surprised to find ourselves having to get off the bus halfway through the journey as our bus crossed Lake Titicaca by raft while we took a small boat.
Luckily we and our backpacks aboard the bus made it over in one piece! We had a bit of a battle to get a taxi to our hostel, the Wild Rover, since the bus driver dropped us in the middle of the city and not the bus station as expected.
We stayed up until 4am to watch the Rugby World Cup that night (Don't ask me why) and spent the following day dying a death.
There's not much else I can say about La Paz except that it has a great cinema. I managed to go 3 times in one week!
We also enjoyed taking some time out from the backpacking trail by spending three nights at the Radisson Hotel before heading off on our tour of the Salt Flats.
After hearing horror stories from fellow travellers about buses from La Paz being cancelled or going off course thanks to strikes, we decided to scrap our original plan to go to Sucre and headed straight for Uyuni in Bolivia instead.
While waiting to board the bus we saw one example of why the city has such a bad name as a young Bolivian child, no more than 7 or 8, hopped on and did his best to pickpocket from those already on. To make matters worse, the man we assume was his father, was waiting outside for him to see what he had lifted.
Thankfully aside from that we had a relatively smooth bus journey onwards, or as smooth as possible when it comes to Bolivian buses.
The road itself was pretty much just a dirt track and horrificly bumpy so barely a wink of sleep was had, but we made it there in one piece and weren't turfed out in the middle of the salt flats anywhere, always a bonus!
We had another pleasant experience upon landing in Uyuni when the driver decided to empty out the contents of the onboard toilet, just inches from where we had just collected our rugsacks. If we weren't feeling sick beforehand we certainly were then!
There's very little positive I can say about Uyuni itself, it truly is a rundown, ramshackle little town with little to offer.
We spent our one day there sleeping and trying to make travel plans using the ridiculously slow wi-fi and internet in the town.
We were up bright and early the next morning to begin our Salt Flat tour with Red Planet, naively thinking that by forking out 400 Bolivianos more than some of their competitors we could look forward to a safer and more enjoyable trip. How wrong we were!
The first issue came about when one of the guides failed to turn up after missing his flight. Not only was he missing but our jeeps also failed to turn up for over two hours, with the tour agent eventually explaining that they had been unable to buy fuel and had instead gone to buy it on the black market.
When they did eventually turn up they were of very poor quality and it was a ridiculously tight squeeze for those in the back seat (mostly myself and Gemma).
Thankfully though we were again blessed with the group we got paired with and had great banter with British couple Ryan and Gemma and Aussie guys; vvv We also had a great driver, who mercifully didn't get drunk and didn't drive too fast so RP do get brownie points for that.
Our first stop was Uyuni's train graveyard, followed by another stop a while later at a local salt mine, where the owner gave us a demo of the salt-making process (for a fee of course)
Here we also had lunch, in the form of alpaca steaks and quinoa. After lunch it was onto the salt plains, where we had an opportunity to get creative and pose for some *** pictures.
Afterwards was when our jeep had its first mishap, with the front left tyre flying off the vehicle completely as it was so bald. Needless to say we all got quick the shock as the tyre went flying off in front, while the rim went behind.
Louis the driver took it all in his stride, throwing on the overalls and quickly replacing it with a spare.
After one more stop at 'fish island,' famous for its cacti, we were on the road again, stopping only briefly to fix the headlights on our jeep, which initially failed to work when it grew dark.
We made it to our accommodation for the night, the salt hotel, without too much difficulty, where we had a pretty basic dinner, followed by a couple of games of cards, s***head of course.
Our second day of the trek was mostly spent in the jeep, stopping at a volcano, to see some flamingos and taking in various different lagoons along the way.
It was enjoyable but we all could have benefited from less time in the jeep. Nothing could have prepared us for the conditions that awaited us on the second night however.
As we were one of the last groups to arrive at the Red Lagoon that afternoon we found ourselves driving around for ages desperately searching for lodgings.
They're all meant to be pretty bad but none of us were too impressed to find patches of damp or maybe cat-piss (we're not sure which) all over the ground.
We had an exceptionally chilly night, with the temperature falling to between -15 and -20. Even wearing all our clothes to bed, as well as having hot water bottles and fur lined sleeping bags wasn't enough to keep out the cold.
The 4am wake-up call also didn't help, as it was still perishing when we got up. It did heat up as the day went on though and a dip in the hot springs also helped.
After brekkie and a visit to one last lagoon, this time the green one, it was time to cross the border and head for Chile, where we spent one night in San Pedro de Atacama.
The place itself was quite picturesque and a welcome departure from Bolivia, however we found it exceptionally expensive having survived on so little money previously in Peru and Bolivia.
As a result we decided to make a quick departure and left the following morning by bus for our first stop in Argentina.
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