Bolivia!

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Tupiza :

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After crossing the border into Bolivia, (seemingly correctly) we got a train to Tupiza lasting about 3 hours. On the train they played the film Spartacus which seemed like an odd choice as it was only early afternoon, with a full train of travellers, and lots of families with small children, and Spartacus is very bloody and....... racy, shall we say! Anyway, ignoring that, the views from the window were awesome, as the train powered through a dessert with lovely mountains in the distance.

Arriving in Tupiza we luckily met some staff from the hotel we were staying at, yes a hotel not a hostel!!! We got shown to our rooms and there were single beds... not bunk beds! It was incredible, the first time we hadn't stayed in bunk beds for a month, it's the simple things that please you most you find when you travel!! The hotel was also a travel agents, and we immediately booked in for a 4 day tour of the salt flats which we were really excited about. It consisted of being driven around for 4 days, slowly making your way towards Uyuni, in a 4x4 with a driver/tour guide and a cook, neither of which spoke any English! We were told that because of all the rain lately, the salt flats, which we would reach on the last day, were flooded with a few inches of water. This was a good thing though apparently, as it acted as a giant mirror, reflecting the sky, we were looking forward to it immensly! We were also told that there would be no showers available for the 4 days, but we were visiting a hot spring on the 2nd day, so we were prepared to use that as our bath! I think that we were all actually pretty excited to live a basic life for a few days as well to be honest, I know I was!

That night we headed out to find a nice place to eat, and ended up going into a restaurant called The Alamo which was really random! We entered through saloon doors to a room with only approx 6 tables but jam packed with a load of stuff, such as numerous pictures of celebrities, customer pictures and wierd and wonderful objects placed here there and everywhere, even hanging from the ceiling, not to mention the biggest t.v. I have ever seen, playing a Tina Turner concert, it was hilarious!
We all ordered and enjoyed our meals, pleasently surprised when we received the bill, it came to 63BOB, 6 pound, between us!! We kept getting surprised at how cheap it was in Bolivia, never getting used to it!
The following day was quite relaxed, enjoying the breakfast provided, which consisted of bread and jam, pretty much what you get everywhere for an included breakfast, but we quickly got into the routine of smuggling bread rolls into our bags for lunch!!! We then went for a walk around the town, which was really small so didn't take particulary long and popped into the bank to withdraw some money.... no easy task!
We were in there for at least an hour, as they wanted our passports, photo copys, numerous signatures and to be honest I wouldn't have been surprised if they wanted our fingerprints it was that thorough!! Eventually we got our money and headed out, struggling to spend it with everything being so cheap. We headed back to The Alamo for food that night as well, and a local band came in and performed some songs on guitar and accordian, of course passing around a hat for donations afterwards, but it was worth it, the music was great. An early night after that, as it was the first day of our salt flats tour the following day, so we needed our rest!

Salt Flats

• Day 1

We managed to get up in time to set off on our trip, and we were joined by 2 others, two guys from Holland called Ben and Benny who were lovely and thankfully could speak Spanish, which helped a lot with our non English speaking guide! Charlie was our driver/guide and hilarious, constantly asking us 'Com esta?' how are you? and dancing away to Backstreet Boys and Lady Gaga, mixed in with a bit of Bolivian rap for good measure, we also had Deliza with us, who were refered to as Mama, who was our chef for the next 4 days, who was lovely as well. We drove for a good few hours before we stopped for lunch, sat on top of a mountain enjoying the views with random llamas every now and again running past! The food was incredible and really quite impressive having been prepared on a mountain, chicken stew with potatoes and rice, salad and dessert! Amazing!
Starting driving again was when the topic of conversation turned to crossing the border into Bolivia, we were telling the Bens how easy our crossing was, when they mentioned queuing for the entry stamp! Looking at our confused expressions, they asked if we had any trouble with that... we didn't, as we didn't have an entry stamp!! As we crossed alone and not in a tour group, we just walked across and not one of the guards pointed us in the right direction! We just decided to forget about it for now as we couldn't do anything about it, and sort it out in La Paz after the trip, as usual nothing was simple for us.
Slowly climbing the mountains, we reached an altitude of 4000 metres (phew) and we tried some coco leaves which are meant to help with altitude sickness when you just place them inside your mouth and hold them against your cheek. They tasted awful but I didn't feel ill so I suppose they worked!
As we were driving later on, literally in the middle of nowhere, suddenly a woman appeared out of a bush rushing towards the car with a small boy in tow. It turned out she was selling bracelets made of llama wool and gloves etc, we all bought one as (usual) they were very cheap, about 50 pence. We nicknamed the little boy 50 Bob (Bob seemed appropriate with the currency being bolivianoes or bob for short), as the whole time he was stood half hidden in a bush looking all gangster (picture provided) he was hilarious!!

From travelling around all day, and obviously being in the middle of nowhere, nature calls and there was a distinct lack of toilet facilities along the way until we arrived at the accomodation in the evening, so whatever bush we could find had to be our toilet. This was actually quite a mean feat, when sometimes we were on flat plains with barely any plants, and also 3 other jeeps following close behind us, but an experience!! We arrived at our first nights accomodation at about 6pm, it was very basic but at least it had a flushable toilet!
We watched Charlie play football for a bit, which was actually very impressive playing at such a high altitude, I don't know how they did it as walking was becoming quite tiring after just 20 seconds! The mountains in the background were also stunning, providing a very different and much better background to a normal football match! We headed back to our accomodation for food that Mama had cooked for us, which was all delicious, and we were all so tired after that, that we headed straight to bed, it was 9.30pm!
The temperature difference at night time was shocking, getting to zero degrees from the mid twenties, I slept with 3 blankets on, wearing thermals and my fleece and I still could have been warmer!

• Day 2

4am start! It was a struggle getting out of bed as it was still freezing!
Setting off it was still pitch black and we were so tired still, but it was impossible to sleep as the roads were so bumpy and we were all crammed into the jeep with just enough room to breathe. We stopped to look at some ruins at about 6am, which seemed pointless as we couldn't see, it was too dark still, and after tripping over one too many rocks, we set off again.
We visited a lagoon absolutely filled with flamingoes, who all immediately on seeing us, flew to the other side of the lagoon, but it was an incredible sight all the same. Our next stop we were all pretty excited to get to .............. a hot spring! We were all pretty dusty from a day and a half travels, so we were looking forward to treating it like a bath. It wasn't a natural spring as I imagined it to be, but still pretty dam good, in the middle of nowhere with stunning scenery all around. It was really, really hot that you had to keep getting out then dunking back in again, otherwise it literally felt like you were boiling in a giant cooking pot! We spent a good hour in there which seemed a sufficient amount of time to wash our layers of dust off, and headed on to visit laguna verde whilst Mama made lunch. It was ....... dare I say it again ...... stunning! With the blue sky and the snow capped mountains reflected in it, it was perfect. Needless to say we took many a photo before heading back to the spring for lunch.

Setting off in the jeep again, listening to a bit more Backstreet Boys and Lady Gaga, we left the luxery of the hot spring and headed towards the geyers which smell horrifically like rotten egg, it was the sulpher! There were a few there, just continuously emitting their foul smelling steam, it looked good, just so smelly! We decided to run through the steam to get some good pictures and it smelt so bad you could taste it, so we had to hold our breath. NOT ADVISABLE! At a high altitude it doesn't bode well to hold your breath, we could do it for 2 seconds before we were dizzy and gasping for air, but still better than breathing in what seemed like the equivalent of 1000 rotten egg sandwiches!
Slowly leaving the eggy smell behind, we made our way to our next accomodation for another ridiculously early night!

• Day 3

We had a 5am start, which was made instantly better as we were given cake for breakfast. So we fuelled up on a lot of that before heading out! We saw alot more flamingoes all gathered in a lagoon that was completly red, they eat the minerals that make the lagoon red and thats why they are coloured pink apparently!! Yes we actually learnt a few things on our travels!
It was really cold at this point as we had reached an altitude of 4900 metres, and a lake we visited had a thick layer of ice all over it, we had a quick moment of feeling sorry for a little family of ducks, as they tried to break their way through the ice, but we got too cold and swiftly moved on! Moment over!
We had a 20 minute stop in a tiny village and bumped into some people who we met on our very first days of travelling, it was really random bumping into them in a tiny village on top of a mountain in Bolivia, when we had last seen them in Rio! We had a quick catch up and then headed off to see the rock formations, including the famous rock tree. Everyone there was just set free and allowed to clamber on all the rocks, some of which were huge, and many precarious, no such thing as health and safety here!
We ate lunch near a rock formation that was shaped like an eagle, incredible. We all got nicely sunburnt from being so high, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, so a permanent red nose became our staple look.
Not long after lunch we headed to Uyuni where we would return the next day to end our tour and head to La Paz. About half an hour out of Uyuni we stayed in a hostel made from salt bricks, yes I did taste a brick to check, and yes, it definitaly was salty! :s
We drove to the salt flats to watch the sun set, and we were all really excited to see it finally as it was the main attraction point of doing this tour. The flats were flooded still with 4 inches of water, but my god, I think it made it all the better! It was basically like a giant mirror, you couldn't tell where the water ended and the sky started, no horizon! The sunset was, breath taking! Such an amazing sight, I honestly couldn't believe my eyes and the pictures we managed to take are fantastic!!
We waded into the water, and coming out it looked like we were wearing salt socks, as the salt content was obviously very high, it was all stuck to our legs! We were finally dragged away when it got dark, back to the hostel for food and card games, having a very late night, bed at 11pm!!! Shocking!!

• Day 4

Last day of the tour, and we didn't want it to end, although we were looking forward to a shower! Some Americans told us the previous night that apparently on the second night, showers were available, although we weren't told that at all! Nevermind, we still lokked kind of presentable.......
We got up at 5.30am so we could watch the sunrise over the flats, and it was just as good as the sunset. We spent a good few hours taking a stupid amount of pictures, of people standing on hands etc, it was so much fun, everyone trying to come up with the most origional ideas!
After running out of ideas and much posing, we headedback to Uyuni where we had to say goodbye Charlie and Mama. We all had an amazing time and told them so, by then it was only 1.30pm and our bus to La Paz didn't leave until 8pm. So we had 6 and a half hours to fill. Whicj we did by eating, drinking and playing cards!
We paid a little extra to get a semi cama bus, which means that you apparently have a bit more leg room and you can recline your seat, it's a load of rubbish, there wasn't a lot of leg room and when the person who sat infront of you reclined, their head was basically in your lap and you consequently got squashed! Thankfully I actually managed to sleep quite alot through the 10 hours drive to La Paz, arriving there at 6.30am the next day, and then it all went wrong! After an amazing 4 days it all came crashing down as my bag got stolen at the bus station literally within 5 seconds of arriving there! Passport, cards EVERYTHING gone, I was devestated but we were so lucky to have the Bens with us still, and speaking Spanish for us, otherwise I don't know what we would have done. They were life savers.
We spent the rest of the day faffing around going from hostel (who wouldn't let me check in without a passport) to police station, to immigration to British emabassay, nightmare. Eventually we ended the day checked in, with a police report and an emergency passport ordered! We also sorted out the lack of a Bolivian entry stamp, Han and Lis had to pay 300 Bolivianoes to get one though (30 pound), but at least it was all sorted!

The hostel we stayed at, Adventure Brew, was really nice, and they served all you can eat pancakes for breakfast, and a free beer that was brewed in their own brewery every night that you stayed there, what more could you want? Well obviously a shower, which as soon as the opportunity arose, we made a beeline for! The beds also were incredible!
The salt flat tour was absolutely amazing, an incredible experience and we saw some truely amazing things, but we were ready for some home comforts. We had a great time with the Bens and we all got on so well, being with each other 24/7 (well 4 days) and seeing each other in gradual increasing levels of filthyness makes you bond in a big way! We promised to stay in touch.
Gaining some more great friends along the way is a big plus of travelling.

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