Hola. We are finally in the hallowed land of Bolivia, and not a moment too soon as our budget was starting to get away from us. Thankfully Bolivia offers 3 course meals for £1.50 and very comfy beds for £3.50. We'll be back on track in no time.
To get from Chile to Bolivia we went on a 3 day 2 night tour through the Atacama desert to the salt flats of Uyuni in a 4x4, driven by our trust guide Johnny who insisted on playing Bolivian music the entire time. In fact, by the end of the tour we were all requesting and singing along to "Si, Si, Si. Yo soy de Bolivia"! Tune.
Before we got into our 4x4 we were taken by minibus through the Chilean border to the Bolivian passport control office. This is probably slightly too grand a title for the small shed in the middle of nowhere, but we were able to get our 30 day stamp into Bolivia all sorted without too much hassle. Unfortunately our friend managed to pay to leave Bolivia before he had even entered it which caused a slight bit of confusion to say the least.
As I have mentioned previously we were travelling with our friends George and Lisbeth and as we needed 6 people in our jeep we were also joined by TK and JoJo from Hong Kong. TK initially stool shotgun until Johnny booted him out to the back of the jeep for falling asleep all the time, leaving me in the front to make very slow and painful conversation in Spanish with him and to try and translate all he said to everyone else. I'm pretty sure everyone knew how much I was making up!
On our first day we were taken to 3 stunningly beautiful lakes surrounded by white capped mountains and desert and hit our highest point of 5000m. The first was the white lake, as it was milky white, the second was the green lake, as it was green, and the third was Colorado lake, even though it was the reddest lake I have ever seen (actually it's the only red lake I've ever seen so this comparison doesn't really do justice to how red it actually was, safe to say it was well red). The last of these lakes, which I like to call the red lake, was filled with thousands of flamingos. It was truly an incredible sight to behold and I make no apology about the number of flamingo photos we have posted as they were just amazing. To be able to sit so close to them and watch them in their natural habitat was something I will always remember. To top it all off we got to have a dip in a natural hot spring in the middle of the desert at 4200m overlooking one of the many lakes with the mountains as a back drop. Not bad for a Thursday afternoon.
The horror stories we had heard and read about this trip were mainly centred around drunk tour guides, bad food, and the awful accommodation you get on your first night. As our driver was excellent and the food was not only plentiful and tasty but also catered very well for vegetarians, this left us with only the worry that the our first nights sleep would be terrible. From what I had heard I was picturing a small wooden hut with hard floors and thin sheets and, as we were at about 4600m above sea level, the night temperature would drop below freezing. However, like with Johnny and the food, we were pleasantly surprised and I am sure we have stayed in worst hostels in the last 6 months. The beds were big and comfy with good mattresses and plenty of blankets and, even though the temperature did drop, we had more than enough insulation to see us through the night. As we were so high up for such an extended period of time altitude sickness began to hit people in different ways. For Gen and I we were fortunate enough to just have a bit of a fuzzy head that went away pretty quickly. Others faired much worse, with one girl feeling so bad it looked as though her entire tour was in jeopardy (she didn't help herself as she refused to drink water because she "didn't like it" - my sympathy levels dropped at this point!).
An early start was had on the second day and our first stop was to an island completely made out of salt, sitting in the red lake. Following this we were taken to more stunning lakes, including a black one (laguna negra) and to a forest of rocks which looked completely out of place in the flat desert plains. This did give us the opportunity to do a bit of climbing, but we were slightly hindered by our walking boots, jeans and the fact that we were so high up any movement faster than a gentle stroll had us all wheezing away like asthmatics. Our final stop was the red valley, a beautiful field of red rock formations as far as the eye could sea. We spent a good while sitting in the sun and admiring the view until it was time to move to our new accommodation.
We were told that we would all be in private double rooms and that we would be able to have hot showers at the new place, but few of us were surprised when this tuned out not to be the case. The rooms were mainly 4 man dorms but had extremely comfortable beds, and the hot water for the shower ran out after only a few had gone through it. The water issue may have been due to the jeep full of girls who struggled with the altitude, had to miss half the day so their jeep could take them to a lower height to allow them to recover, and decided to all wash their hair in the extremely short supply of hot water. After a good feed and a good sleep we set off to the jewel of the tour, the Salar de Uyuni, the salt flats. Sitting at over 3600m high this is the worlds largest salt flats stretching 500km and covering 12,000 square km. If that's not enough stats for you, it's 9m deep and it looks amazing! We spent a few hours here taking the obligatory silly perspective shots and admiring the eery beauty of it all. It's a strange feeling to be stood on such a large expanse of land covered in white and not be that cold. We also saw the salt workers in action, making conical piles of salt before loading them into trucks. It is a seemingly endless task and looks exceptionally hard work, especially in the blazing sun without any shade and surrounded by the most reflective surface just to add to the struggle.
At the end of the trip we were dropped off in a the town of Uyuni where we had all decided to spend the night recovering and getting clean before hitting our first Bolivian bus ride, of which only bad things had been said. We stayed at Piedra Blanca hostel and were more than surprised at how comfortable it was. If the last few nights accommodation are anything to go by then we will be sleeping well in Bolivia. We even treated ourselves to some fantastic pizza at a restaurant called Minuteman which was inside a hotel. It was a little tricky to find at first until we were finally directed into a building by two security guards - fortunately they were not directing us to our death as we realised later we did just follow them unquestioningly into a random building.
The following day in Uyuni was spent hanging round at the hostel waiting for our 8pm bus to Sucre. Considering a 10 hour bus journey in Argentina cost us around £90 each and was very comfortable, I wasn't really looking forward to our 9 hour journey along unsealed roads in Bolivia as it cost us a mere £5 each! Fortunately, aside from not stopping for any toilet breaks and going over some pretty poor excuses for roads, it was not too bad a journey and we even made it to our destination on time. The only problem was that, back in uyuni, we were assured that as our bus was arriving in sucre at 4am we would be allowed to remain in the bus until 7am so that it would be safer to find our way around. Unfortunately our bus driver had a different idea and kicked everyone off the bus as soon as we arrived. Luckily for us our hostel, Gringos Rincon, is owned and run by Michael who I'm not sure ever sleeps and so he was happy to let us in at this crazily early hour. We ended up playing cards with some girls who got in at 5am until the shops opened and we could get some breakfast.
Even though very little sleep was had on this bus we actually had a surprisingly productive first day in sucre - I think a bit of George and Lizzie had rubbed off on us! We not only researched, visited and finally found a Spanish school that we liked but we also found a very nice b&b to spend the weekend at, found out how much a bus would cost to our next destination and when it would leave, and found a very tasty mostly vegetation restaurant where we gorged ourselves on falafels before finally turning in early for the night in preparation for our Spanish lessons to start at 0830 the following morning. Looking back over the last 6 months or so I'm not sure I can remember doing this much in a week let alone a day.
Remembering how tough our lessons were in Argentina we headed to our school feeling slighty apprehensive as to how the next 3 hours were going to pan out. Our worries were quickly calmed as not only did we have a class with just the two of us, our tutor Coco turned out to be an excellent teacher. We enjoyed it so much, and like the small city of Sucre enough, that we have actually extended our course and are now spending 2 weeks here. It also helps that there are 4 excellent vegetarian restaurants here!
We are now currently mid-way through our Spanish course and thoroughly enjoying it. Last night we went to the house of the owners of the school to prepare and eat the traditional Bolivian dish of Co'ko de Pollo (or in Gen's case Co'ko de Verduras). It was an excellent night with great food and great company. The night before, Gen and I joined some Bolivians in playing 'wallyball', which is very similar to volleyball except you can hit it off the walls and use any part of your body. Needless to say, Gen wasn't exactly a natural but she gave it a go! I'm currently in talks with the national wallyball association of Bolivia about a pro-career...
Sucre itself is the capital city of Bolivia but not it's main city and so is quite small with some very old and pretty buildings. As far as you can see there are very old school terracotta tiled roofs interspersed by some quite grand churches and a university. We are looking forward to our second week of Spanish and are planning on heading to Bolivia's main city of La Paz next Friday. However, what with 95% of the country being Catholic, travelling on good Friday may be tricky. Who knows, a third week of lessons may not be completely out of the question!
Harlequins rule.