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Sorry this has taken so long to write, lots been happening..and well this is all out of date as such now, but will keep it all coming i promise! Do it in installments and i am trying not to make them all so long...not happening though so sorrry!!
So, since i last wrote things have got more hectic would you believe, after Lorna leaving us, we were rather sad and went up to northern chile to a place called La Serena to top up the tan, so we caught an overnight bus to this little beach town which had been recomended to us by a fellow gringo, managed to sneak into our beds at about 6am and get a few hrs sleep - and only pay for one nights accomadation (always a plus).
Instead of a beautiful little hot beach town for us to gain some strength back, we found ourselves in cold town that was soooo boring, there were about 5 of us in the hostel, and well...nothing in the town was open! Weve found that on the weekends in South America, the streets are deserted, nothing happens! Anyway, we did brave the beach on our first day...we were the only people in bikinis i´m not going to lie, everyone else was in jeans and jumpers - needless to say we didn´t stay long and actually ended up staying for only one night rather than 4 like we had planned!!
I mentioned in my last blog that we were thinking about going into Bolivia, it´s meant to be amazing and cheap...so we made the executive decision that it was stupid to miss out this country so we caught yet another overnight bus further north in chile to a town literally in the middle of the desert called San Pedro de Atacama. I can´t say the journey was amazing as we stupidly picked the wrong seats and ended up sitting right infront of the toilets, which after 16 hrs absolutely wreeeeeecked, i felt sick! But we survived and have learnt our lesson, sit near the front of the bus lol!!
Anyway...San Pedro is a tiny place and it is absolutely gorgeous! We both immediately fell in love and decided we were going to stay a while, especially after moving hostel everyday practically! We were really lucky with our room mates, and we all formed a little group the four of us, me, Kate , Kevin and Dylan!
On our first full day we rented bikes the four of us and off we went for a cycle round the desert! We had our trusty hand writing photo copied map, got lost a few times but eventually ended up where we wanted to...a place called Valley de la Luna...it´s a place that resembles the moon! MERYL (heres your shout baby girl...it was just like we imagined, needed you there). By the time we got to valley, we were exhausted from all the up hill riding, but the scenery was immense! Literally surrounded by mountains and nothing for miles upon miles, was a great sense of freedom cycling! Me and Kate had a little walk on the moon, whilst the boys were jumping down rocks and just generally being boys...again meryl, the walk on the moon made me think of you!!
So, after our trip to the moon, we left the bikes for a little bit and walked around to a place to watch sun set! When i say walked, i mean hiked! We thought it would be a 10 min walk but no no, it was like 50 mins and we arrived just in time for sun set, which was beautiful! The whole desert turned red from the reflection of the sun!
We had to get the bikes returned for 8pm and it was 7pm by the time we left our sun set watch, meaning we were never going to make it and well, we also couldn´t be bothered for the walk back to our bikes followed by a bike ride so we hitch hiked back to our bikes which was great! Me and Kate sat in the back of this pick up truck looking at the sky changing colour, and we managed to cycle back (in the total darkness of the desert but under the millions of stars) and get back at 7.45pm, wooop go us! My bum was killing me by the end of it, we worked out we had cycled well over 30 miles...felt very proud of myself! Slept well that night, after out but freeeeezing cold showers!!
The next day a whole lot more people arrived in the little hostel that served the smallest breakfast possible and we decided that we would all have a go and try sand boarding! After my experience on the volcano i figured i was never going to have a go at snowboarding so sand boarding was a very exciting thought for me! :) The only problem was the new people wanted to get bikes and the four of us really couldn't be bothered but in the end we gave in...we hired bikes and sand boards for 4,000 Chilean pesos so like 6 pound and we cycled with the sand boards on our backs, wejed them between our backpacks and our backs and off we went, looking a lot like buzz lightyear as we went....too infinity and beyond! ha!!
Me and Kate gave up with the whole cycling thing early on, my toe couldnt handle the entire uphill slope and our bums couldn´´t handle the pain from the day before so we walked wheeling the bikes up the rocky hills, through sand dunes and finally arrived in these huge sand dunes! It was the most picturesque scenary...got some amazing photos! The boys were straight up, me and kate decided to pace ourselves and start from half way down the slope so we could get the hand of it, i soon got bored of that and went to the top....it was sooo high!! Most immense fun coming down though, and i didn´t fall, went down so quickly! The climb to the top was exhausting, through the sand so i only managed to come down 5 or 6 times...it took 20mins to climb and 20 seconds to come down :)
The cycle back to the hostel was a bit more tolerable than on the way out, but i did fall off the bike, how embarassing i know! :S It was the sand though...it´s difficult to cycle on sand sends you flying all over the place! When we got back to the hostel, finding our way again through the darkness of the desert we bumped into some guys we met in Rio....lets just say we ended up having a messy night playing drinking games, not our best move the night before starting a 3 day tour of the salt flats....o well!!
Me, Kate, Kevin and Dylan booked the tour together with a company called Calletera, there was a total of 18 of us...in 3 jeeps! We were definately the youngest there bar 3 18 yr olds from Dorset, much to Kates excitment, yes we actually found people from Dorset like her haha! very rare!! The tour started at 8am with a 3 hour wait at the border to cross, not the most amazing border, infact it was soo dodgy!!
Our first day was brilliant, we had stop offs at the most beautiful lagoons and the drive was spectacular! The desert is such an awesome place! Our driver Epi was truly amazing and he explained what everything was..although in spanish! Lucky for us there was a deutch couple also in our jeep who spoke spanish...phew! I couldn´t believe how cold it was though, i was 100% expecting warm weather, but no! I had 4 layers on which soon became 6 and well, thats what i wore the entire tour because it was far too cold to take anything off at any point! The first night i actually woke myself up from my teeth chattering!
The lagoons are full of Flamingos which are strange yet very beautiful creatures! They all appeared to follow each other in single file. At one point there was two lines of them, walking in opposite directions, it looked like two football teams shacking hands, hilarious!
The first night we spent in very basic accomadation, no shower, no toilet roll, no heating BUUUUT we did get fed well! Seeing as it´s the desert all the food this was veggie anyway so i was very happy! The altitude did take some getting used to, we were at stupid heights above sea level and i did have a head ache, one guy in our group really struggled with it! He was being sick and he couldnt stand, wasn´t fun for him!
The second day, after the coldest nights sleep EVER we had an early start! Before we had even got to our first stop off point, one of the other jeeps broke down! Everytime they thought they had fixed it, the jeep drove for 10 metres and then broke again! At one point they actually took out the engine, i really did need Gabriel, my trusty mechanic with me! Would not of taken him 2 hours to fix! haha! Bless the drivers, they were getting rather stressed, especially as the ill guy really needed to get down to a lower height, but we soon had a herd of about 8 jeeps all trying to fix this one broken one! It took well over 2 hours, of which i spent 1 hr 55 mins in my jeep escaping the cold!
Once it was fixed (woooop) we stopped off at some more beautiful lagoons, the reflection of the surrounding mountains into the water was just so picture perfect! I don´t think any of my pictures will do this tour justice! I recommend it to all! We also stopped off at a very strange tree...made of stone! Not really sure how this works but itwas very cool! As was another rock we saw which was intertwined with green rock....i even saw a desert rabbit! Made me miss our trusty rabbit Alfi at home a little bit!
The second night we spent in one of these hostels made of SALT! I didn´t believe it until i saw and tasted it myself but seriously, a hotel made of salt! Everything, including the beds, tables and chairs were made of salt! Here we had a shower too which was amazing, although not so fun when getting out and realising that you have to get dressed in about 20 seconds before catching frost bite haha! I know you all think i am being dramatic, well because thats what i generally am, but seriously it was beyond freezing! There was zero feeling in my hands or feet by the end of the tour! none what so ever!!
The third and final day of our fabulous tour was what we had all been waiting for...the SALT FLATS! The further we drove away from our fabulous hotel, where i feel i should tell you i had spiderman sheets on my bed haha...the surroundings became more and more white until all you could see was white upon white and mountains! The heat also meant that the heat waves were creating beautiful illusions of more scenary that was there but wasn´t if you get me!? anyway, badly explained i know....in the middle of the salt flats which are HUUUUGE is a little island full of cactus and coral. We climbed to the top and the it was breath taking! Not just becuase of the amazing view but because of the altitude, could barely breath when we reached the top ha!
We spent a long long time meandering around this random island, and then got very involved with getting all the cool photos one most get when visiting the salt flats! We spent a lot of the time jumping, dance and ninja style as well as perfecting angles so it looked like we were standing on each other, stamping on each others heads, sitting in hands, cartwheeling and jumping over people!! The funny part is that i have lost so much weight thatveryfew of my clothes actually fit me, so i have been rolling my trousers up! Whilst jumping around i managed to spilt my trousers - right down the bum! was hilarious...especially as we didn´t notice until later that evening when in our hotel for the night!!
The tour ended on a little town called Uyuni which had no working ATM´s so we had no choice but to stay the night! We had hoped to catch a bus first thing the next morning to a place called Potosi which used to be the wealthiest town in south america thanks to it´s mines! However know it is a bit of wreck! Anyway...we missed our bus due to no cash! When we eventually managed to get some cash from some little curency exchange thing that wer charging all the gringo´s 10% commision as what they were doing was basically illegal we decided we would just catch the night bus straight to La Paz!
The journey was HORRENDOUS, Bolivia must invest in something i like to call ROAD!! It was such a bumpy ride and as it was a local bus it was ram packed with people sitting on each other, sitting and standing in the isles! The women who sold us the ticket told us to watch our stuff at all times which was very reassuring! We had everything of value strapped to us, money belts went on, as did the under arm bag and camera, can´t say it was terribly comfi haha!! Thank god there were two other gringos on the bus with us especially when at 3am in the morning we were hauled off the bus and told we had to change!
Know one had told us that we needed to change so we were very confused and tired as we hadn´t slept! It took about an hr to get any sort of explanation or new bus ticket! I was possibly the happiest person alive when we eventually got on another bus...and it wasn´t as rank as the first!!
We arrived in La Paz early morning and couldn´t check into our beds until 1pm so we sat around for a long time very very tired!!
As this blog has taken so long to write i will write about La Paz in due course, i need to get over it first before i can even think about writing about it! We had been warned that La Paz was a crazy place but honestly when we arrived we had no idea! However, we did keep on extending our stay to the last possible second...but onto Inca Trail now!!
Will write about La Paz and Inca soon! Hope your all good and having a nice passover/ easter!!
Lots of love
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