update from Bolivia!

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Hmmm so I have been a little rubbish on the update front and have managed to travel through Argentina and Chile without doing an update. OOps. Well instead of trying to remember all of that and be constantly behind Ill dive right in with a recent update of what weve just done...and ill tell you all the rest later!

Santiago

Joined by the Martins for a week in Santiago we had a brilliant time! Santiago was a really great city surrounded completely by the Andes (which meant it was really smoggy and the smog really hurts when it gets up your nose). Chile is supposed to be expenisve but we managed to eat 3 course meals for 2.50GBP a head! We had a really great hotel which was luxury for us and there were loads of things to do, including a day full of museums for mum and dad and rafting for us four on a river through the Andes. We had a brilliant guide for the rafting (real job a vet!) who took us to "try" some local food and drinks after. one huge jug of fruit wine, a beer, and two huge wine/ice cream concoctions later we were pretty much knocked out! Durinbg the week we also managed to get to Valparaiso which ia a really pretty old town with restaurants with a view over the harbour, lots of pretty multicoloured houses going up the hillsides, street art and lots of higgeldy piggeldy cobbled streets. AND we found time to visit nearby Viña del Mar where we had the biggest burgers I have ever seen in my life and had a nice little sunbathe on the beach (sez wanted to stay there all week to top up her tan). We explored the different areas of Santigao too... had a huge "barbeque" (basically a massive pile of meat) in the nightlife area of bellavista and visited the castle-type Santa Lucia, which was basically like a mini palace that you could climb right to the top of and look out over Santiago and the Andes. We also took 2 funiculars up San Cristobal where at the top you could see over the whole of Santiago city and the differences in the residencial areas, the skscrapers, and then the poorer areas right at the bottom of the Andes. We also managed to find time to cook, and one meal included cooking HUMONGOUS steaks. Each one was enough to feed 3 people (though Ben ate a whole one!) and they were so huge they took 2 hours to cook! It was such good steak though that the cooking time was definitely worth it!

Sez has put photos on facebook from SAntiago so have a look at them!


La Serena

After watching 4 Martins and their 5 suitcases try and pile into a normal sized car (Dad wasn´t even visible beind a suitcase in the front seat) we caught a bus to La Serena. It was a really cute little town famous for its astronomy and although I am not usually an astronomy geek (its dad who has the telescope, not me) we couldn´t miss going on a tour to the observatory there. In fact we learnt that along with Namibia that part of Chile is the best place for astronomy in the WORLD! and you could tell. we got to look through the telescopes and see clusters of stars really close up they looked really pretty. And in the bigger telescope we got to see Mars which wasn´t very impressive, just a bit orange, and also Saturn. Saturn was really cool even though it did just look like a child´s drawing! You coud see its rings and everything which was pretty amazing. We also saw about 10 shooting stars in the few hours that we were there!

Pisco Elqui

We didn´t actually plan to go here but found a flyer advertising a hostel and decided to go there for a holiday within our holiday! Pisco Elqui is a tiny village right in the middle of the Andes and it was really beautiful. We staying in a hostel wioth a swimming pool and the mountains surrounding it which was absolutely amazing. We also went on a horse ride through the Andes which was brilliant and all we could see for miles were mountains! And the houses of the very very few people that lived there on ranches.

San Pedro de Atacama (Chile)

This was where we went before crossing to Bolivia and having come from Santiago not too long ago it was very strange because San Pedro is in the desert! All the buildings were small and made of mud and the town didn´t get electricity and hot water til long ago and its still pretty besic. Despite that its crawling with tourists because of the tours available from there so itwas quite a strange contrast. We stayed there a few dasçys and did a tour to see Valle de la Luna which is one of the most inhospitable places on earth. Pretty much nothing lives there apart from a few bits of desert-type grass. It was really amazing though and did look exactly what you imagine the surface of the Moon or Mars to look like -really vast with craters and rocks but nothing else. We also booked our tour to Bolivia from here. 3 days in the wilderness with no electricity, no heating and running water only on the second night!

The tour to Uyuni (Bolivia)

Our tour left San Pedro for Uyuni and took 3 days in total. We went in groups of six in a jeep and all food and accommodation was included for the price of 52GBP for the whole thing! The first day we started by visiting some natural hot springs bang smack in the midle of the desert. The temperature was about 40degrees C and it was absolutely brilliant especially considering the scenery around us which was just mountains and deserted land. We then went to see three lakes called the green lake, the multicoloured lake and the pink lake. They really were these colours because of what was living in them and they were really amazing. Our favourite by far was the pink lake which was huge but surroundeed by absolutely nothing apart from mountains and a few stray llamas. Despite that it was full of flamingos who eat the pink microorganisms in the lake (which is why flamingos are pink). The lake was so full of these microorganisms that it really was bright pink and just looked like nothing you could ever imagine in the middle of the desert. It looked like a huge puddle of strawberry juice it really was amazing! We also went to see some geisers but I felt a bit ill there firstly because they smelt of sulphur but also because we all suffered a bit from altitude sickness...it was 4800 metres above sea level! The air was really thin it was sometimes hard to breathe and we had headaches but it was worth it!Accommodation the first night was what the Bolivians described as "basic" so as you can imagine it was. We were in the middle of the desert so it was freezing cold and we slept on concrete beds in a dorm of 6 (actually more comfy than some really soft squidgy beds but a bit hard on the back). There was electricity from 7 til 9 so just enough time to charge our cameras! No hot water or showers but the food was good and there was a group of about 20 of us so we had a really great time.

The second day was mainly making our way accross to Uyuni but stopping to see some more lakes which were so still that they completely reflected the mountains and were so clear that you could see straight through to the bottom! We also went to a part of the desert with random huge yellowy orange rocks which was actually Salvador Dali´s inspiration for his paintings. Accommodation the second night was in ´Hotel del Sal´which was a really basic place but with hot showers and all the floor was salt crystals! A bit annoying because you had to wear shoes all the time but still pretty cool. The beds were much comfier and we got a bit of sleep but got up at 5am so that we could watch the sunrise on the Uyuni salt flats. That was really impressive even though it was a bit cloudy. The flats themselves were amazing because it was just miles and miles of nothing but white salt surface and mountains. And it was realy salt you could even taste it! We had a brilliant time taking pictures and we were even allowed to drive the jeep (it was miles of nothing so we couldn´t possibly crash!) We also visited a little island there which was full of cactuses and had steps up to a lookout point at the top where you could see just white salt and blue sky for miles and miles.

Arrived in Uyuni (Bolivia) pretty shattered and about 20 of us all decided to check into the same hotel and then later go out for drinks. That was maybe not such a good idea considering that we missed tea, drank too much on our empty stomachs and were still at an altitude of 3500 metres. Oh dear. We didn´t feel too good in the morning, especially when about 12 of us all got a bus together to Potosi which only stopped once in 6 hours! And it was on one of the worst roads in Bolivia with a Jackie Chan movie for entertainment and no air conditioning. Not the best!

Potosi

We all made it to Potosi the highest city in the world and went to the nearest restaurant for a 65p burger and chips. Potosi was a really pretty place and we spent a bit of time wandering round the market, buying empanadas (like mini pasties but tastier) for 8p each, and taking pictures of the buildings. The city was really pretty because Potosi used to be the richest city IN THE WORLD because of its silver and zinc mines. Our second day there we actually went on a trip to the mines which were still working. It was a really brilliant trip but quite upsetting because the conditions were absolutely awful. The mines were so dusty and you had to crawl through lots of it. There was hardly any light and it was way too hot and our guide (a miner too) told us that the average life expectancy for miners was about 42 years old. We saw a 13 year old boy working down there who looked really unhappy and had already been working there for a year instead of going to school. It was also horrible that the miners worked for themselves selling their rock to the factories but the rock itself is only 10percent mineral content and 90percent waste and they get paid almost nothing for it even though it sells for a fortune when its exported to other countries. We also went to see a football match Potosi v Cruziero (a Brazilian team...good player called Kerlon). Potosi won 5-1 even though the Brazilians would normally be way better because the Brazilians simply couldnt run in the altitude! The fans were absolutely brilliant and we sat with the band! Its quite funny that the team are actually not very good but nearly win all of their home games because the other teams can hardly breathe let alone run at that height!

Sucre
We have been in Sucre which is Bolivia´s "óther capital" for a few days and it is a really well developed and pretty city - nothing like what you expect from Bolivia! Today we are going to see real dinosaur tracks!!! Theyre up to 80cm long! Weve also had some amazing steak for under 3pounds and sampled some of the night life which actually wasn´t really that different to England!
Next stop is La Paz with a group of about 20 people again and one of the guys birthdays on monday so should be good! Will try and keep updates a bit more up to date!

p.s. sorry if theres typos i wrote this really quickly!

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