Ill have a Bolivia... with a side of... SURPRISE ME!

South America » Bolivia
December 10th 2009

Published: December 17th 2009

hehe, lame title... I KNOW! But I couldnt think of anything more suiting. Bolivia has been surprise after surprise! The fun kind of YAY I cant wait surprises. Not to mention the amount of times Ive said ¨Ill have a...¨ I thought once more for Bolivias sake would be kind of necessary. ha!

So I left off last in Peurto Igauzu... eeks, seems ages ago! Not entirely sure how Ill manage to pull of a blog entry for over a months time and do it all justice. Sorry yall, I kind of shit the bed on this one! Must have been all the ¨Ill have a´s ... ¨ that kept me from my only responsibility while away! I promise Ill do better : )

Ok, NOW for the updates!!

From Peurto Igauzu... after Amy and I visited the most outrageous breathe taking waterfalls you could ever imagine we hopped a bus and rode it to Salta (still in Argentina!) There we we spent a lot of time in the main plaza, went for some delicious meals, drank a lot of the Salta cervesa, met a really nice guy named Ben... hung with him for a few days... walked over 1000 stairs to a mirador overlooking the gorgeous city! Drank with the simpsons on Halloween (The bar was called Barney Gumbles! really effin cool), had a really nice BBQ with all the hostel peeps... met Jodi and Murray!! and had our first run in with Katie and Suzie!

After the longest day ever... it was awful... bloody hot, my feet were starting to swell, we were hungover from halloween night... had to check out of the hostel by 10am and couldnt catch our bus until 1am we finally made it into Bolivia!!! Yay 😊

I wasnt sure exactly what to expect upon arrival. You meet loads of people along the way that offer advice, recommendations and tonnes of overlapping opinions on the gringo trail. Ams and I had heard tonnes of different things on Bolivia, oh its not that safe, be careful, its ok... oh my god its gorgeous, its wonderfull, we had no problems... blah blah blah... we had no idea really what was waiting for us!

FIRST STOP : TUPIZA
Yay! Once we got our passports stamped we had a 9 hour wait in Villazon (a town just off the border) until our train into Tupiza left. I begged Amy to let us take the train, heard the bus ride in was absolute crap... not to mention I have the worlds tiniest bladder (I can place bets!) and have to pee every 5 minutes, and there are no banos on some of the buses here! AH! soooo, we waited around town. thanks amy😊 The train ride in was great! By this time my feet were the size of footballs and I was getting a little concerned, but the beautiful landscape and the already completely different than Aregentina lifestyle was enough to keep me tickled! It was love at first site. Tupiza * the down home, kick yer boots up, ride em cowboy kinda place! * We got in at 7pm and quickly landed a hostel with our new Canadian friend Tom! My feet were killing me so we didnt do much that night. ok, lets get serious... I didnt do much at all while in Tupiza! Amy and Tom went horseback riding one day... I went to the hospital! stupid swollen feet... laid in bed a lot... attempted a few walks around town... but paid the price! I will say though, that my trip to the hospital was really pleasant. The doctor was fantastic and I was in and out faster than you can say Butch Cassidy and Sundance kid! haha... anyways, Tupiza was adorable... a cute, very traditional little town surrounded by massive red hills. The perfect resting stop : ) and the place Amy, Tom, and I decided to do our Salar De Uyuni tour!

The Salarrrrrrrrrrrrrr! A 4 day Jeep Tour with our lovely guides Felix and Marta around the Salt Desserts!
2 things I really wanted to do while on our tour:
uno. Practice my espanol with Felix... unfortunately that didnt go as planned. I do blame the 71year old german lady named Eursella (whose name is more suiting than youll ever know!) who did nothing but b*tch to poor Felix the entire time not allowing any of us to get a word in. Although I did sing Felix and Marta a rather cute song in espanol.
dos. I wanted to eat Tom and Amys faces. that was fun! Of course, I couldnt do it literally, that be weird... but on the Salt Flats you can take the silliest pictas doing the silliest things and it all looks amazingly real! Now, there will never be proof that I ate there faces because along with all my other photos they got deleted. TEAR* (Luckily Tom is sending Amy and I his photos! phew!)

So during the Salar ( Im going to do a really brief recap!)
we ate extremely well, my tummy is still paying for eating cake for breakfast. The first night we slept in a very small village with no electricy, the second night we slept in a hotel with tonnes of other tour companies, the 3rd we slept in the salt hotel... which was really neat! our beds, the tables everything made of salt. we took no showers except on night 3, mine was cold! we drank cheap wine made of veg. extracts, dont ask. We laughed til we cried! We saw tonnes of llamas, pink flamingos, gorgeous lagoons...green, red and vibrant blue! a smoking volcanoe, amy and I sat in magma chairs... walked all over lava beds, hot springs, geizers at 5000m above sea level, a little island on the salt flats with tonnes of ancient cactuses, the without a question best night sky I have ever seen! and all types of landscape! it was really great, and probably thus far the coolest thing.

After the salt flats Amy, Tom and I headed to Potosi! We had 2 choices, the decision seemed almost impossible. All 3 of us were brain dead from the salar. So, 2 options: stay in Uyuni and in the morning or wait 4 hours for a bus and arrive in Potosi in the middle of the night. Option 2 seemed to work better for Tom who was on a tight schedule and Amy and I were happy to follow! Uyuni isnt the most appealing town. So we got a beer and waited! FACK! when I saw the bus pull up I got so nervous. I think I might just be a huge baby... but it really looked scary! sketchyyy sketchy. It really put me into a frenzy actually, which I know is so silly. But, we squsihed into the bus with no bathroom (poo! haha) and people were lying in the aisles.. the bus takes off and wham! Im sick. Amy had to sing to me for a hour just to calm me down. The road to Potosi was absolutely awful!! and the bus drivers rip like mad! Well, after Amy was done singing her and Tom fell fast asleep.. and I tried to take gravol dry. oh god, not a good idea. But we made it... and I didnt have to throw up on the guys lying in the aisle!

Once we arrived we got a cab to a hostel, it was 2am and we were tired... than... Amy leaves her daypack in the cab. awww shit. camera, ipod, passport, visa, all gone. uh oh! poor girl. The cab drive got his ace...we got... nada! Needless to say we spent the next couple days trying to sort that out.. phone calls, police stations, stake outs at the terminal hoping to find the lucky winner! But noooo dice. We also did the Mine Tour while we were there! It was insssssssssssane. Again, hahah.. Im kind of embarrassed to say this AGAIN, but I was scared. hahah. Potosi is 4060m above sea level, its the highest city in the world... and crawling through tiny tunnels with no ventilation was hard. it was exhausting really... but VERY VERY interesting. Worth it. I have all sorts of appreciation for the men who work in those conditions day in and day out for commonly barely anything. While we were there Potosi was celebrating its 199th birthday and the visiting of the Presidente the next day! so we danced in the streets with the locals in the plaze one night and watched the parades and listened to all sorts of marching bands. FUN!

Off to Sucre! We decided to take a cab into Sucre... it was a 3 hour cab ride for 6 dollars each (between Colin, Amy and I) so we said why not! I loved that... it was so nice riding in a car. The cabbie was amazing as well, so friendly! he stopped and let us take photos, we tried some really tastey rice wraps and dried meat from some ladies selling on the side of the roads... he taught us the different kinds of music across south america! Colins spanish is absolutely amazing so I tried really hard to sit and listen to their conversation, and when I didnt get something Colin helped! 😊 So Sucre... so clean and pretty. I really liked our time there. We didnt do a whole lot... just danced at Joyride, sat in the Plaza... tasted there famous chocolate, walked to the beautiful mirador where we drank tastey coffee and enjoyed the view of the city! haha, thats about it.

OKKKKKKKKK GUYS! I cant write anymore... I am too tired to continue. hahah! so Ill write again VERY SOON to fill ya in on LA PAZ, Rurrenbaque and now the start of Peru!!

sorry!!

lots of love
MIRANDA

Ill have a Bolivia... with a side of... SURPRISE ME!

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