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Published: January 10th 2012
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Bolivia- The good part Following Peru it was crossing into the infamous Bolivia. The poorest country in South America and they have been at war at some point in time with all their neighbours. Chile ‘stole’ a part of the coast line from them and during the 1930, they were at war with Paraguay, who took a piece of land that was believed to have oil, to date none has been found. Wars make so much sense….
Crossing from Peru you hardly pick up any differences in appearances between the local people. Lake Tsitikata, where the original two Inca’s are believed to have originated from is the highest altitude lake in the world. The border between Peru and Bolivia runs through the lake, the floating islands are on Peru’s side and Isla del Sol on Bolivia’s side. You can spot the gringo’s who was at Isla del Sol, they are all burnt blisters from the sun. Because of the altitude you forget how ‘close’ you actually are to the sunJ Other than that, it’s hardly worth the mention.
Next stop; The Salt Flats- where earth and sky merge. It’s the most surreal,
weirdest place! It stretches for miles and miles, blinding you from the sun’s reflection. The salt flats actually expand every year, growing bigger and bigger.
The first night we spent in a salt hotel, literally, everything is made out of salt. It’s a really cool concept, albeit absolutely freezing!
Those weird pictures you always see, where people ‘crush’ each other, or jump in the air, these Salt flats are the number one spot to take them on this planet and guess what happened to Miss Intellegent? “Slim vang sy baas”. The cheapskate bought cheap batteries off the street and guess what, brand new batteries lasted exactly; one photo each….so I have NADA pics of the salt flats. Yes, mock me all you want, I’ll deserve it.
Uyuni is the town where the salt flats tours start from and it’s a horrible horrible place. But the horribleness of Bolivia is covered in a separate section. So asshawling out of Uyuni, I ended up making the most obnoxious, rude, crude, SLOWEST guy friend I have ever. A Pommie who was on the same bus out of Uyuni as me and we ended up travelling together for almost 2 weeks.
That bus ride from Uyuni through Potosi to Sucre is a chapter on its own… I’ll make it short. It’s freezing, it’s a local bus (in other words, it’s a super crappy bus) a litre of rum, 2 litres of coke and a new German friend (3 gringos on the bus). We were supposed to only change busses in Potosi, we ended up getting off at 2am, with no idea where we were, freezing our butts off and we had enough to drink to last us a week! Thank goodness the German (as per stereotyping) had all the right things in place to manage and get one drunk Pom and one very drunk Saffa to a hostel.
Potosi is the highest altitude city in the world, over 4000m. It used to be extremely rich due to the silver deposits within the mountains you can see there used to be some money, in the colonial building style. That’s one thing about colonialism around South America the building style really makes these cities stunning! These days it’s not a popular town anymore and it can only still run on its reputation it’s poor and run down.
Moving towards Sucre
with the crazy one, it only took one morning of waiting around for him to make me realize. This “travelling with” someone is going to require way more patience than initially bargained on in my “rumken” state. I quickly decided I need to establish some boundaries and rules else I’m going to lose it. I always slept 30 minutes later than him, showered second and still made it onto the bus first. Felt like I was travelling with a girlfriend really….
Sucre is a gorgeous city, it is the legal capital of Bolivia and you lose the Bolivia feeling there for a bit, it feels like you are in a small European city. The food there was amazing we managed to find some great bargains and had 2 chilled days before Pom number 2 (Chris) came along.
Then there were three on a bus to La Paz. I have never heard such crude language, never heard so many human rights laws broken, never did I think I would joke along about the stuff they joked about. Never have I been called to have a “default pissed off face” and after a few days earned the nickname “The German”
because I like stuff to work and things to be on time (DUH). It was, in a nutshell, some of the funniest days I have ever had in my life I have not laughed that much in a long time, if ever. I am so glad I met those two they made a big part of my trip. Oh, I also received some unwanted advice from these two about how to pick up guys; “don’t speak, don’t argue, don’t have the default face”….
From La Paz we got on a crazy flight, small, about 16 seats, with hail pounding down! To a place which is now one of the 7Natural Wonders of the World and I get why, I totally get it. Because it is damn special.
The Amazon is just incredible, you just get this feeling of absolute freedom…There is no way to describe it, it’s special, it’s surreal, it has sloths (!!) and big HUGE rat thing, it has pink dolphins that no one knows how they got there and rivers than criss-cross through 5 countries.
We managed to get ourselves a tailor made trip, we spent two days looking for/at animals and birds, it
was incredible! Then we managed to get an overnight trip right into the heart of the jungle with a guide as crazy as the come! He absolutely loved that trip almost as much as we did, we had no electricity, no cell phone signal, no people, nothing! We bought two bottles of wine and had the best night I’ve had in South America, surrounded by nothing, but the mysterious Amazon jungle. The guide took us on a midnight walk which was incredible he managed to find everything and then some. Once again, I remembered “passion is universal”. His dad started taking him out into the jungle at the age of 5 and it shows he absolutely loves that place. He’s also a complete nut job, which means he was perfect fit for the two Poms J
The guide was appalled that I don’t have a boyfriend, according to him it’s the most important thing in a woman’s life (??) .When asking me why I don’t have one, Gareth, not one fallen on his mouth and sharp as ever, casually told him, because “they are all dead”. He smiled and told us he believed that. Gmpf.
When
you go to Bolivia everyone tells you, "Everybody gets sick in Bolivia". Meaning food poisioning, I never get sick from my stomach, so just ignored this.
Here the three of us are in Rurrenabaque, in the Amazon after our incredible time in the jungle. I'm not feeling great, go for a quick "nap". Those two have been having well, the runs (I have learnt in the mean time that my mom read these blogs!!!) and here I go as well... (oh, we stayed in a hostel with a total of 2 toilets and a total of about 25 pack Isrealis)
They grad dinner, me a nap, they come to fetch me. We have to go to this misquito bar, they have happy hour. It took us an hour to eventually leave, because as one finishes, 2 needs to go, the rotation delays us so that we only have 40mins left of Happy hour. So here the 3 of us walk down the street, laughing our asses off, because all we want to do is well, GO! But the more you can't laugh the more you laugh...the more you laugh, well, the bigger the risk....we just just made the
bar and completely missed happy hour...that one is going into my favourite memory boks 😊
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Freakshow
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Rietta!! Jou avontuur klink of dit net lekkerder word!! Ek is skoon jaloers om als te lees. Mooi bly en pas jouself op! Ek is terug bd werk - dit suck!! love you!