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Week Five – Uyani Salt Flats and the last week of South America...
Today is Sunday the 8th, tonight we fly to Australia and we are currently in Santiago Chile where we have been for a few days. Its hot here which is lovely but its really really expensive!!! We are glad to be moving on tonight, we have seen what we came to see of South America and have loved every minute, however now we are tired of the altitude and coldness and ready for some sunshine and barbies!!!! This week we have been through Bolivia and into Chile, heres what we have done...
Sunday we caught the bus from Potosi down to Uyuni. Its bank holiday weekend so nothing is open in Potosi. Yesterday we went to talk to a travel man regarding the Silver mines, he promised to come to our hostel this morning and give us some traditional cakes and breads which the locals will eat loads of today and will offer to people who visit, all as part of todays festivities. He kept his promise and at 8am this morning delivered a huge bag full of the them, that will keep us going on the bus journey. We had been told that the bus journey was bumpy...nothing prepared us for how bumpy. We had 6 hours of full on bone rattling along winding mountain roads with no air con, by the time we go to Uyuni our brains had been battered. We knew where we were staying so walked to the hostel, once in we found the closest pub...the ´Extreame Fun Pub´, ironically the bar man was the most un charismatic and un fun person we have met so far, we didnt stay long. We again tried our negotiation skills to arrange a salt flat tour from our hostel, Spanglish again proved not to work very well. After a bone shattering day, we dined and bedded.
We were again woken early this morning by a knock at our door, it was a guide, wanting to know if we were going on the tour with him. What we didnt know when we negotiated last night was that Manyana manyana doesnt mean the day after tommorow which we were trying to say, it actually means tommorow morning. Spanish, must do better! We later met up with Manuel and Dori who we were going onto our Salt Flat trip with. We spent most of the day trying to arrange for a jeep to the Salt Flats, lucky Dori speaks fluent Spanish, phew. Nothing much was open today as it was still bank holiday so we tried to blog, but got a bit bored of the wind up connection. The 4 of us went for a walk around Uyuni which is pretty small. We ended up at the park which was the weirdest park ever. In South America, everywhere seems to have a central park which is usually quite well kept...in Uyuni the park was a desolate area with 2 buildings where they kept the trees, behind glass, and barbed wire. It wasnt quite as nice as some of the others we have seen!!! Tonight the 6 of us all got together for some food and drinks. Here we learnt that Brandon used to live with someone that we both worked with, very very small world!
Tuesday – Up early and after draining all of the hot water in the hostel it was time for some erands before we get going in the jeep. To be able to leave Bolivia we have to be stamped out by imagration in Bolivia, to get our stamp we need to pay, to pay we need money and the one, yes one cash machine in town, is empty. Hmmm, this also means that until then, we have no breakfast and rumbly tums, boo! We manage though, just, to get pennies and get ourselves sorted without holding everyone up. Once we meet up, we decide to get some alcohol for the trip and Manuel has already done some research on Barcardi prices in the town, so we head for th cheapest option at 3.50 pounds, very cheap...because its unsealed and full of either tap water or worse still 96% alcohol that they sell, and drink here! We decide not to risk blindness and opt for the more expensive and hopefully more genuine options. Ladened with our supplies we loads up the jeep. At this point i realise that im going to burn my head again as it is blisteringly hot today, so headed into a little shop where my only option, other than a cowboy hat, was a wooly hat. I brought one knowing that llama fur wasnt really what i would need on my head today but i would have to risk overheating all the same. Once we had all firmly packed ourselves into the jeep, we went to the Train Graveyard. The drive out there was pretty much a junkyard but at the end you get to see some old steam trains which were quite cool. We had a few photos and clambered all over them before watching tornados in the desert area. A small one came over us at one point which was gritty! Our driver / guide was an interesting dude. He was pretty young so we named him el niño, child. He was no older than 12, with a small caterpillar on his top lip that would have blown off if he´d kept the window down for too long. After the train graveyard we drove back into town, which was the wrong way, just to get him Coca leaves. Cheeky thing. He chewed them like they had gone out of fashion, so he was probably always a little high, funny how you get used to this being normal behaivour, from your driver. We collected lunch and more food and then drove out to the Salt Flats for miles and miles. On the way you see loads and loads of jeeps as most people visit the flats from Uyuani. We stopped at a small village where we visited the salt factory where they make the salt flats into the salt that we eat, here you could by 50kg of salt for 1 pound, we had to explain that we couldnt get it in our luggage as the man looked pretty miffed that we werent buying it, crazy! We had lunch here, were we sampled our Barcardi, and yes, it was a fake odd made up one, but still pretty potent. Further on to the flats and we stopped at a salt hotel. From here you can see for miles and miles with nothing. This is where we spent ages making up silly pictures of us all, sitting in shoes and on cans etc. It had to be done, more pictures are to be added. Our guide got a bit impatient here and Vamosed us on, which we begrudglingly did. The next stop was the Pescado Lake, which you had to pay to visit. We all decided that we could see what we wanted from the bottom and so spent another hour taking pics. Its pretty addictive when you get started but its hilarious to watch everyone doing exactly the same. One girl even stripped off to her bikini to have her pictures taken, we just pointed and laughed. We drove for miles more before stopping in the middle of knowhere to look at salt bricks. They were like giant building bricks of salt which is what the houses are built from. We had a build and then carried on to our hotel for the night. When arrived, we were disapointed that our guide had taken us to a town called San Juan. When we booked we had said that we wanted to stay at the Salt Hotel and although it is less comfy than in town, we didnt mind. The Salt Hotel was 1 hour back from where we had been and the hotel we had been put in was a corridor of 4 rooms and nothing else. We had a little moan at the guide who told us that the salt hotel lady was on holiday, fib. In the end he brought in his manager to talk to our disgruntled lot who continued to lay into him as to why he hadnt stopped. Suprisingly enough there was a salt hotel 5 minutes away which we could now go to, and did. It was beautiful. Unfortunatly though they only had 3 beds, single beds. Or so they said. We had another few words and miraculously a room with 6 beds appeared. It became apparent that the guides get money to pay for the rooms and what isnt spent, they pocket. Therefore our guide was trying to take us to the cheapest places. Hmmm, he wasnt going to pull the wool over our eyes. Once dropped off our guide disapeared, not to be seen again tonight. We were left with no water (which seems a theme) and no idea whether we were gettng fed. There was nothing for it other than to crack open the wine and Barcardi and while away our concerns, that was after the group drank a load of tea and minsweeped the biscuit baskets from other groups tables. Hours passed and we were getting hungry. We asked the hotel people whether our guide would be back and if he was going to cook us dinner. We werent really sure what was going to happen but later on we got fed which was a relief. We were the last group awake, playing the card game we had learnt from the Danish in Manu and drinking fake Barcardi. We called it a night and split ourselves between the 2 empty rooms. It seems the drivers wanted one of the rooms though and woke Brandon and Alex at 1am, but the door was locked so they lucked out, oops!
Wednesday we waited for hours until our guide turned up. We had even resorted to an early morning card game to keep ourselves amused. We were the last group left in the hotel, even the group whos jeep didnt start left before us. When our guide arrived we were all feeling the rage as at was over an hour after we were expecting to be collected. We had asked one of the hotel men if he knew where el niño was, he went off driving and came back to tell us that he was with him girlfriend and shouldnt be long. This just added to the frustration so when he did arrive and Vamosed us, all hell broke loose. Poor lad must have papped himself, especially when Brandon through his 28 KG bag up to him on the roof rather than passing it, almost knocking the poor little tyke off the roof. Then we noticed that his girlfriend / last nights conquest, was sitting in the front seat. We said that she couldnt come with us as were were already like sardines and had paid more to have 6 of us and more space in the jeep. Our arguement was that Bolivian people are small, us lot are not so if she was coming, she had the roof. He told us that she was the chef, another fib. She certainly liked her food but not sure that warranted calling herself a chef. We told him that we would cook ourselves but she wasnt coming and if he had an issue, we would call the tour office to confirm this. At this point it changed and the poor girl was left behind. Funny work ethic he had. It was a tense drive to start with, then he seemed to try extra hard, we even had a bottle of free wine for night time.Today we visited three lakes all covered in Flamingos. The scenery was once again beautiful. Suprisingly we had lunch, without our chef, hmmm what a suprise! We also saw the red lake today. Everything has weird and wonderful colours due to the mineral content. It is amazing that in one relatively small rea, there seems to be a load of different minerals and salts, and volcanos. Whilst driving along, we saw a smoking volcano, desert wolves and rats (which look like bunny rabbits with moustaches!) We again had fun whilst choosing our hotel for the night as the first one was b .a .d. The second one we got shouted at for looking in the bathroom, and the final one, called Duche, was lovely. The man had made a homemade hot shower heating system which was a hose pipe hung through the dining room which was heated by the wood burner. He was rightly very proud and it worked a treat. We all had a hot shower which was definatly the best that we had had for a while. We had another night of cards and free wine before dinner. After dinner we made use of the solar panel electricity and huddled round the wood burner to watch a film on Bradons laptop. It was blumin freezing today so we all layered up and slept in sleeping bags. It was an early night, ready for our early morning.
Thursday, woken at 5am, big Happy Birthday shouted to Dad the other side of the world as there is no signal on the phone. Its still dark and freezing. It was the last day of our Salt Flat tour and we packed and readied. We drove for a couple of hours and watched the sunrise enroute before we arrived at the Hot Springs. It is said that these had medicinal effects...at 7am in the morning, when sporting a minimum of 5 layers, wooly hat, scarf and gloves, it didnt seem like a good idea. Manuel however stripped off and jumped in. Crazy. We all watched on, happy to be warm, ish.We had breakfast by the springs and the lake in the middle of knowhere. It was amazing. Now one thing we have failed to mention was the in journey entertainment. The guide had one cd. On that one cd, he liked 1 song, which he repeated over and over and over and over and over. It started to send us all a bit stir crazy and after day one we tried to find a way that we could use the I pod. Although the cable seemed to be there, no electrical things in the jeep seemed to work, not even all of the windows. We had asked him to just turn the song off as silence was certainly preferable. Thursday morning though, just after breakfast, he produced...a Bob Marley cd. I have never seen such relief on everyones face as he put it on and we all sung and danced around the jeep. It was wicked. We carried on towards the Chilean border where we needed to catch a bus from in a couple of hours, the drive was long but the view lovely. We stopped one more time for a hot drink, where we met a strange lad who offered us some San Pedro. It is a halucanegenic drug made from cactus. He said he wasnt allowed to take it across the border and still had loads left. From the glazed eyes and distant vague look, i think he had had too much. We took it and gave it to our guide as a tip (because none of us wanted to give him money) He was happy as larry and smiled more then than he had the whole trip, nice work. We caught the bus to San Pedro which is a small town and hour into Chile, the road was tarmac, and had barriers and was smooth, it was a blessing after the Peruvian and Bolivian roads. Here you have to be stamped in again and have all of your luggage scanned and checked, a mile away from the lack of security when you walk into Bolivia. In Chile it is illegal to bring in Coca leaves or to use them, whilst walking around the market though, you can openly buy them. Maybe its only the Bolivian ones thats are illegal! San pedro was lovely but very very expensive, in fact all of Chile is expensive. We booked a bus out of there as soon as we could. The bus to Calama takes an hour or so so we arrived in Calama about 4.30pm. We were all planning on staying here for a night or so before heading to Santiago, however when we looked around, the hostels were really expensive and the town wasn´t worth staying in. We were all a bit tired and narky by this point so we dumped the bags and us girls in a cafe while the men went off to make a plan. Sitting outside the cafe was good to watch the world. In Chile, people are all different, no more small Peruvian people, everyone is taller and more modern. Its a world apart from a couple of hours east and it felt a shame. While waiting we had to endure over an hour of some guy singing in the street, it was the worst singing we have ever heard and when he walked over to us and cooled himself off whilst leaning on my chair, we struggled not to burst out laughing. I think he thought he was a stud as he un did his shirt and spoke to us girls, not good. He didnt even get the hint when a passer by turned his speakers around so that no one could hear his warbling. Some people just dont get the hint. We also got hassled by three prostitues begging for money from us and something else from passing men. We had a man try to sell us plasters and he thought he knew me and kept calling me Linda. Then when i ordered a cup of tea with milk, i waited 45 minutes before getting a tea bag and a pint of hot milk.This place is very weird and we really need to get out. I was relieved (which was a word is didnt think i would use for this) when Tom came back and said that he had booked us onto a 23 hour night bus to Santiago leaving in 3 hours. Yes 23 hours, on a bus. We were going to be going with Bradon and Alex and Manuel and Dori were heading the opposite direction. We were all feeling grubby and shattered so made our way to a Shoopdogs resturant where we took over the back of the resturant with our mountain of bags, ordered some food and beers and crashed out for a couple of hours. Wet wipe wash later, Guacamole hotdog (hmmm interesting) and beer later and we were ready and heading for the bus. The next 23 hours were a mix of sleeping, more sleeping, some eating, Transporter 3, reading and a bit more sleep. Not a lot more to report. Oh other than Toms ´Daily Fresh´ vacumn packed chicken (play doh texture chicken product) sandwich which was fresh for another 10 days. Think they need to change their brand name really. We arrived in Santiago about 7pm and headed for a well recomended hostel in the Brazil Barro part of town. They were full, till Wednesday! We managed to find a hotel nearby which was the same price, expensive. We checked in for 2 nights till we leave. We had tv, a really comfy bed and a high pressured hot shower, luxury. After a good wash and a scrub we met up with Brandon and Alex and went for a chinese and a few too many beers. I remember up to the point i told some beat boxing lads hat they were very good, before they then started to beat box in spanish about us, and i dont think in a nice way, how rude. After Tom put the willies up me I stealthily paid the bill and we made a swift exit. As i had been drinking we had to make a detour to the garage for some water and crisps to line my belly. I think i passed out whilst eating them and we woke late the next morning...both with stinking headaches.
Saturday, after a late breakfast and a nice brew, we returned to bed, where we stayed until 5.30pm. Tom watched Arsenal play on ESPN and i slept, a lot. We thought we would go and have some tea and found a small cafe. I had mashed ptoato and salmon. Mashed potato was lovely and we munched it down. Tom was happy with his banana milkshake. After this we went back, watched a film and slept just a little bit more.
Sunday. It was nice to wake up with a clearer head, i am never drinking again! We packed our bags again in readiness for our flight tonight. We have loads of washing to do so went out in search of a launderette, only to realise its Sunday, nothings open (we should have learnt that by now!) so we have bags full of stinky clothes. We got a taxi to the central market where we were hoping to pick up some bargains and some souvenirs but it is the food market. It was amazing though, full of fish stalls. We had a good gander but decided not to risk seafood with a flight ahead, instead we headed to one of the shopping malls to buy t shirts and have a KFC (safe food)...and a beer, oops, did i forget an earlier resolution??? We now have 6 hours before our flight so have finally updated the blog and got our pictures online in super fast time. We cant wait to get to Oz. We have seen everything that we wanted to and soaked in the culture. We are looking forward to warmth, sea, surfing, our camper van home and cooking our own lovely food. We have an 18 hour flight ahead of us, but its allworth it for our next chapter...
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