Bus Rides into Bolivia

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Since we left the UK almost everyday has been filled to the brim with activities, wether it be walking, sightseeing and other touristy things its finally started to catch up on us, were both pretty tired. And if one of my mates was away travelling for 9 months and I'd been at home working my arse off I'd tell them to get lost, but we are genuinely more tired than we had been throughout uni.

Coming from the ore inspiring, making you feel tiny, Iguazu falls, we headed for Salta, a smallish city surrounded by the Andean mountains. The quality of the bus ride had deteriorated enormously since the last one; our pre dinner drinks of whiskey had been replaced with nothingness and our gorgeous braised steak, mash and wine has their place taken by a spinach pie and fake fanta. We were glad when the 24 hour bus ride was over and we had made it into Salta, ready for some real food.

To say this was planned to be a bit of rest time we were checked into the hostel and back out again within an hour, having made lunch and ready to wander around the town. According to our sources, Salta doesn't have all that much to do in it other than the couple of things we did. The first was to go to an inca museum (Museo de Arqueología de Alta Montaña) that had a rather strange and unique centrepiece, the exhibition of the worlds best kept mummy (and not the domestic type). They had three of them all together, all found in the same place in the Andes, however they only had one on show at a time. The 3 bodies had been naturally mummified, unknowing to their family who buried them alive as a human sacrifices, through the cold weather and an altitude of over 6000m. They were perfectly kept for hundreds of years, showing no signs of decay.

This was one of the two main attractions that Salta beheld, the second being a big hill that overlooks the city. It took us the best part of half an hour to get to the top, another half to have a look around and another 10 to walk back down. The view was similar to looking out over Huddersfield, not breathtaking but it gave us a good excuse to do some exercise. Once we had completed the walk it was back to the hostel to make some tea, a speciality of ours, sliced steak and mixed roast vegetables with veg. Amazing. We found out, after buying all our food, that the hostel was putting on an all you can eat BBQ that evening, so we were more than gutted to miss out on a meatfeast. The owner too wasn't happy that we made our own food, making us feel more than discluded from the group later that evening, stopping us from eating with everyone. So we went to bed!

The morning later we were out of there and on to the next place, Tilcara, a small 'pueblo' or town set into the colourful, Wild Wild West like countryside. Not only was it beautiful, it was at 2500m and the effects were kicking in, struggling for breath, headache and slight nausea. We best get used to it, we are only going higher.

It took a vast majority of the day to get to the small town but once we did arrive we noticed the size, similar to that of Holmfirth and with the tourist crowd also. It had a small plaza filled with local Artesian shops selling all things alpaca in every colour of the rainbow, and closed in by a mass of restaurants specialising in Llama meat. We found ourselves a hostel within 1 minute of the bus station, a nice cheap rustic place where we got a whole outbuilding to ourselves, fitted with a kitchen, bathroom and bedrooms.

In our first afternoon, we had a good look around the town, checked out a bit of local football played only on a dirt pitch with rocks all over it and explored the surrounding area. There really wasn't much there, but the setting of the town was awesome, with sandy coloured mountains either side and enough cacti to keep John Wayne happy. The first day was an easy one, relaxing rather than cramming every minute with something. I even finished a book!

The second day however we were much more active, opting for an early bus to the nearby town of Purmamarca which houses the Cerro de Siete Colores, a mountain made up of seven different colours of sand. I'd seen a photo on the web and knew it would be worth the visit if we could get there. We were not disappointed! We took a stroll around the base of the hill and then gained some height from the opposite side of the valley to look upon the seven colouredness in all its glory with the small pretty town at the foot of the hill. The hill itself was like a miniature Aires rock, jutting out of the ground with no other touching hills, and the fact every other hill around was green made it all the better. On the way down we also got a glimpse of desert wildlife; we THINK we saw a guineapig ... It could also have been a tailless rat but it looked fairly piggish to us!

After our oh so exhausting day (a hint of Laura's sarcasm), we got a little bit of food and waited for the next bus back to Tilcara, only a mere 5 minutes. Back in our cosy little abode I was hit with a migraine, probably due to the dry and high climate so had the next 4 hours in bed reading a book with Laura doing the same, minus the migraine. By 7pm the fuzzy headed ness and migraine like symptoms had cleared and been replaced by the familiar feeling of hunger, and what better way to feed it than with local Llama. We expected it to be cheap however found a price similar to that of steak, and with the taste of pork. What let it down was the curried sauce it was served upon, other than that llama will be back on the menu in the future. Swilled down with a beer and wine, perfect.

And so that was our Argentinian adventure over, the next morning we were up early and ready to catch the bus to the Bolivian border followed by another bus, hopefully, to Uyuni.

The last Argentine bus that we took was a doddle, driving us right into the border town of La Cuipa where we had to walk a kilometre to the border control, get our stamps and say goodbye to amazing steak, pristine buses and a very westernised South America.

There was no queue at the border control and within 5 minutes we had collected our stamps and entered the very different Bolivia. Shops were replaced by street side stalls, selling a wide array of electronic goods and Nikke/Addiddass/Panther knock off shoes. The change was instant and welcomed, we could finally afford to live again.

It was only a short walk to the bus station, and after getting cash out of the ATM we bought our tickets to Uyuni, scheduled for 4pm. It gave us ample time to have some food and soak up a bit of the new culture before embarking on our £6, 10 hour bus ride to the land of salt. Food fried, no change from Argentina or Chile, we got ourselves to the station for 3.30 just in case we had to do anything. The bus didn't turn up until 5 and hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come. Adding to the poor first impression, the bus was in a condition worse than a rugby minivan, stinking of sweat and not a working, reclining chair in sight.

We were off, Laura sat in a broken chair, the only one on the bus that reclined, however doing so on its own accord and at random times. Te bus was due into Uyuni at 12pm and we were already an hour behind schedule making it 1am. The first 5 hours were fine, with entertainment from the people around putting box loads of biscuits in the aisle causing everyone to become semi professional hurdlers. From that point on though, things got cold, very cold. The window let in a draught, night was coming and we were gaining altitude by the minute. By 12am neither of us could feel our hands or feet, I stupidly had on a pair of shorts which didn't help and Laura had her poor circulation problems. 1am came and Uyuni was nowhere to be seen.

It wasn't until 3am that we finally arrived, teeth chattering, into the town with an altitude of 3500m. The fiasco hadn't finished, we still needed a place to sleep so we went in search. 15 minutes later we had a room and a severe cold. We slept that night both fully dressed and huddled like penguins. It was 4am by the time we nodded off, safe to say we turned our 8am alarm off.

Every highlight has its issues, and this was it for the Salt flat trip for tomorrow our only task was to get ourselves booked onto a tour. We cannot wait for it!!!

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