La Quiaca, Villazon and Uyuni nightmare

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We left Humahuaca in the morning and jumped on a bus to take us to the Argentinian border town of La Quiaca where we would cross over into Villazon on the Bolivian side. The bus journey was a sign of things to come, we had booked a ticket but there were no free seats so we spent the three hour journey sat on the stairs of the bus. We were definitely starting to feel the proximity to Bolivia.

Once we arrived in La Quiaca we made our way to the border crossing which we only managed to find by following other people with backpacks, there were no signs. We queued at immigration for an age, they seemed to be letting people through at a rate of about one person every five minutes, we realised why when it was finally our turn and noticed they were using a typewriter. Eventually we got through into Villazon, we thought it was over, but no, we were confronted by another line to get stamped into Bolivia. We queued again, this time however the line was not quite as civilised. As we approached the window to get our passports stamped the line disintegrated into a mass of people shoving and pushing. After elbowing a few Bolivians in the face we managed to get through unscathed. Welcome to Bolivia.

Now safely in Bolivia we made our way to the Bolivian office of the tour company we had booked our salt flat tour with in Salta to pick up our train tickets to Uyuni. We got there and were greeted by a man called Freddie Fernandez, who told us everything was in order and we should come back in a couple of hours to get our lift to the train station. This however was not the case. We went back to the office after some fried chicken and chips only to be informed that in fact the train had been cancelled and we would now have to get a bus to Tupiza and then change and get a bus to Uyuni. We would arrive at about two or three in the morning. This was not good news. Not only had we paid more for our tour to have the train ride included, but we had heard that you shouldn´t get the bus to Uyuni as its a long, bumpy ride on a very dangerous, gravelly road that snakes slowly up the mountains to the Altiplano at 4000 metres. Even worse we were doing it at night.

With no choice as our salt flat tour started the next day we cautiously got on the bus with a bunch of other travellers who were in the same situation. The bus looked like the sort of thing that's used to transport convicts, it was black with small windows and it looked like the wheels were about to fall off. The first part of the journey to Tupiza was OK although it was full of colourful Bolivian women with huge bags of fruit and veg so there wasn´t much leg room. Once we got on the second bus from Tupiza to Uyuni things got worse. The bus rallied up the mountain on the rocky roads scarily close to the edge and as it was now dark I think everyone was a little worried. We made a brief stop after about an hour, the drivers got out and put on ski suits and huge coats. Oh dear we thought. We had been warned about the cold but we didn't realise it would necessitate the use of ski suits.

We got my sleeping bag out and prepared ourselves for the worst. After about another hour the temperature had dropped dramatically, we were pretty high up now and starting to approach the Altiplano, we spent the next couple of hours shivering and trying sleep in an attempt to block out the cold. This effort was interrupted twice. The first time was because we came to a van which was stuck in the middle of the road, so all the men had to get out in the freezing cold and give it a push. The second was some time later, just as we had nearly blocked out the pain from the cold we met a truck coming down the road in the other direction.

The road was not really wide enough for both so people again had to get out to move rocks so our bus could get closer to the edge of the mountain road and squeeze past the truck, a pretty scary moment. The rest of the journey after this was OK, just very, very cold. We drove for another hour or so, now on the Altiplano which is completely flat, it really felt like we were at the top of the world. Eventually the lights of Uyuni came into sight. We were going to make it alive. We were greeted off the bus by a lady from our tour company who showed us to our hostel. The cold was so unbearable we slept with all our clothes on in the hope we could get some sleep before starting our three day Salt Flat tour the following day.

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