And suddenly... I´m in BOLIVIA!

Got some catching up to do so I´ll get straight down to it. Just as I had stopped worrying about the postman stealing my bank cards, they miraculously arrived all at once. A watched-kettle never boils and all that. It was like Christmas morning, I was actually shaking with excitement, maybe with relief. My travels could continue after 3 weeks in Santiago, 2 and a half weeks behind schedule. However, life in Santiago had become well, life. I had friends, a family, and decided to stay another weekend... and another few days after that… had some great times playing musical chairs with teenagers, watching gringos get rowdy and hanging out with the students in the park. For me it´s such an easy city to spend time in, I could happily have settled there for months. Went to see the impressive Museo de Belles Artes and the national history museum, even caught up with a friend I met in Patagonia - Tom (chicken curry guy!). Alas it was time to go, and I was excited as the next man to be back on the road. Cristian - my Chilean host and friend had decided to come along for a month or so with me, so not only did I have the excitement of starting out again but I had a travel buddy too. Menos mal! We got down to some serious planning, booked some bus tickets super-cheap with TurBus online and set off on weds morning - with many sad goodbyes to my adopted Chilean family. I already miss them a lot and will be forever grateful for the generosity and kindness they showed me. Although the people of Chile are supposedly the more ´cold´ of South America - I have first-hand experience of exactly the opposite. Chile has a place in my heart forever. Cachay?

VALPO AND VIÑA

First stop - a day in Valparaiso and Viña Del Mar. These are the coastal towns near Stgo -only an hour and a half on the bus, and definitely worth the trip even though we only had one day there. Viña is the more up-market of the two, we enjoyed some beers and the beach and watched the student ´freshers´ trying to complete their initiations. They wear destroyed clothing, get covered in flour, fish, paint and beg for change - nice! Then Valpo - got a lovely tour from our friend Andreda who lives there. It´s an incredible city (UNESCO world heritage site) set on numerous hills with loads of ancient little funicular ascensors to get you up them. It´s covered in beautiful graffiti art, brightly coloured buildings and amazing views of the Pacific Ocean. I would have liked to stay longer, but we had a night bus to La Serena, so it onwards.

LA SERENA

Further up the immense coast of Chile is La Serena - the second oldest city in Chile. We arrived at 5am and spent a few painful hours in the bus station waiting for everything to open. Got a strange hostel - everything was very busy, so we ended up in a guest house that was basically a Chilean family home. La Serena didn´t whip us into a frenzy. There are nice villages further out into the hills but we decided we didn´t have the time or energy to visit them. We checked out the famous ´faro´ (lighthouse) and beach, but were generally pretty underwhelmed by the place. The centre is set back from the coast which doesn´t really do it any favours and it was chocker with ´flaites´ (Chilean chavs!). We visited the neighboring town of Coquimbo - which was actually quite nice. There´s a monsterous great concrete cross up on the hill, you get great views up there even if you don´t pay to go up the lift to the top. It was nice for a brief stop on our way but not really blown away by the place. Wandered about wasting time before getting another night bus further north to Antofagasta.Here we again arrived at 5am and had planned to go and see the Portada (stone arch thing) but no-one was very helpful in letting us know how to get there or whether it was even possible, so we got a bus to Calama straight away and then a minibus connection to San Pedro de Atacama with some randoms we met in the bus station. Right from the start I could tell it was going to be amazing; vast, empty desert with the massive Andes in the distance. And that was just the drive there…

HIGH AND DRY

Although exhausted after our long journey we got straight out into the town of San Pedro. The Atacama Desert is the highest and driest place on the planet and you definitely feel it. Constantly dried mouthed! By some lucky coincidence we had arrived on the weekend when the moon is closest to the earth and it was a big deal with all the folk going out into the desert for sunset. The skies here are famous for their clarity, it only rains a few times a year and clouds are rare. Arriving late in the afternoon we had a mad rush to book a trip into the desert to witness this event, also managed to book all our trips for the next three days in about 10 mins waiting for the bus to turn up, we were proud. Firstly it was off to the Valle de la Luna, named so because it looks a bit like the surface of the moon. The landscape is just incredible, I´ve never seen anything like it. Strange rock formations, miles of desert, snow peaked mountains and volcanoes in the distance. It was definitely time to get blown away. Climbed up onto a ridge to watch the sunset (mediocre, but I´m spoilt) and the moonrise over the Andes (stunning!). It was magical. We returned to our shabby hostel for some much needed sleep because it was up at 3.30am for our next trip to the Tatio Geysers in the altiplano. So, it´s COLD in the desert at night. Everyone knows that right? But minus 5 is colder than it sounds. The volcanic activity in the area above San Pedro (over 3000m) creates incredible geysers and allows free flowing water even at these low temperatures. Huge jets of steam burst from fissures in the ground and it was really exciting to get up close to them. The sun rose, but it still didn´t seem to be getting much warmer, however a treat was in store; natural hot springs… time for a toasty warm swim to warm up! Getting out wasn´t so easy though. I´ve had a cold for what feels like forever (2 weeks?!) and after getting out it wasn´t helping my symptoms. I remained wrapped up in about 5 layers for the rest of the day, even when it got hot. We also visited a nice village and ate some llama kebab. Tasty! Back down to the 2420m of S.P. and had a relaxing afternoon taking in the little desert town. It´s like a scene from a western and very picturesque but it is full of tourists and pretty expensive too. We had a last celebratory churrasco (meat sandwich) for my last night in Chile, for tomorrow it was off on a 3 day 4x4 trip over the mountains into Bolivia and the salt flats of Salar de Uyuni…

4X4 HEAVEN

There´s a heap of advice about doing this tour - who to go with, all the things that can go wrong, warnings of altitude sickness and horror stories... But here I am afterwards and all I can say is DO IT! We chose a company recommended in ´Get South´ and the Lonely Planet. It was expensive but considering the alternative ways of getting into Bolivia and the fact that everything is included for 3 days it´s definitely worth the extra pesos. Estrella Del Sur company transferred us to the Chilean border (actually 5 mins outside San P.) in a minibus where we waited for aggges to get out of Chile. Chilean borders are a pain. We also met the people we would share our vehicle with. Two French girls - Marion and Sophie, a Brazilian lad - Junior and a British fella - Charlie. First impressions were good. Then we drove about 50km through no-man´s-land, up and up to the Bolivian border in the mountains (4000m-ish). What a different experience getting into Bolivia… the guy didn´t even look at my passport, just stamped us all in super quick and got back to laughing at us posing for photos with the picture of the smiley President Evo Morales.Here´s a quick comparison - Chile = Police with machine guns, barriers, paperwork, customs and stern immigration officers. Bolivia = one cheery chap in a hut at the top of a mountain. Thus began the massive contrasts between the South America I´m in now and the two previous countries. Anyway, we enjoyed a tasty breakfast outside and met our guide for the next 3 days - Nienfer. Stuck our backpacks onto the roof of the 4x4 and we were off! Some people complain about having more than 4 people per vehicle, but I found it great to have the 6 of us together and it was definitely worth it to have such a fun group. Speaking a mixture of Spanglish/Portuñol/Franglais; being from all over the place, we hit it off really well, loads of laughs from the start, which continued throughout. That first day we saw some incredible lakes and got to an altitude of nearly 5000m. A note on Altitude Sickness - Some people get it, some people don´t, I was mercifully one of the latter. Pretty proud of my body for taking the extremes of nature in its stride. The girls got sick that day and the next morning. The only effect I had was a racing heart in the middle of the night, but I think that was the bad wine… Coca-leaf tea helps a lot, but don´t overdo it… as the boys found out in Uyuni after coca-leaf mojitos. You do feel very old and unfit up there, even the smallest exertion leaves you breathless. Take it easy and enjoy the view, and there are PLENTY of those. So, so incredible up there, it´s like nothing I´ve ever seen. Vast deserts, mountains, impossibly coloured lakes. And it´s just so EMPTY. Before having lunch we had a soak in some natural hot springs and ended the day at the Laguna Colorada (Red Lake). It really is red. Our hostel was basic but much better than I expected; cosy beds and everything, just not much water or electricity. Later we went out to look at the stars… UNBELIEVABLE. The Milky Way was like a bright slash across the sky, with the Southern Cross at one end and shooting stars coming in every-which-way. I was speechless. Day 2 we continued across the altiplano desert stopping off at lots of cool rocks, geysers and lakes. Also lots of wildlife - foxes, Vicuñas (wild llama things), Viscacha (giant chinchilla things) and loooads of Llamas! Due to the salt flats being flooded we went straight to the town of Uyuni for a night and enjoyed our last dinner together and then all went to the pub. In the morning we visited the Train Cemetery - real cool load of abandoned, rusting steam trains. Then it was into the Salar… what a place. 12,000 km⊃2; of salt flats - the largest in the world and visible from space. So astoundingly beautiful, the horizon just merges into a blue, mirror-like mirage of snow caped mountains. We drove into the middle to see the piles of salt being dug out by the locals and took loads of great photos. Some say it´s better when it´s dry but I enjoyed how completely distinct and unique this experience was. Sadly it was time for our trip to end and part ways with our lovely team. Junior has joined us for a while but saying bye to the girls was sad. Ate some super cheap street-llama and got a craazzzy night bus to Sucre where we are at the moment.

Bolivia is in VAST contrast to Arg and Chile. Not only is it a lot cheaper, but it's like a different continent. I think Cris is in a bit of culture shock, he can´t believe how different it is and he has travelled in Asia. The night bus crashed along dirt roads that a 4x4 would have struggled with, let alone a huge great bus. There are lots of people wearing the traditional and brightly coloured clothes which I think are so beautiful. You can see how much poorer it is, and people aren´t as helpful to outsiders so far. It´s a fascinating country and I´m really enjoying the difference in culture.

Okay, I´ve really written far too much. One last story… It´s 1am and were getting off one night bus in Potosi to get another one to Sucre. Something white shoots under the seat in front of me and a Bolivian girl starts frantically searching under everyone ``Misimi! Mi gata!`` she shouts, I have no idea what she´s on about, turns out she is chasing round her pet kitten that she´s had in her bag for 6 hours on the bus… me and Cris were crying with laughter. Don´t lose your cat on the bus! Welcome to Bolivia.

So the next and final chapter of my travels has begun. I´m absolutely loving every minute.