Welcome to Bolivia !!

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Hola,
So we left salta today and got on a bus to the border of bolivia. The bus does not go across, so we have to grab our packs and walk across the border into bolivia. Well we decided to take the 5.30am bus, so we would arrive at the border earlier then the 7am bus. Because after crossing the border we then have to go the train station and buy train tickets to uyuni. Well we forgot to ask one very important question when buying our tickets,,,,, what time does it arrive? Apparently this 5.30 bus makes quite a few more stops on the way. Its more of a locals bus. So after 8 hours on the bus we arrived at the border at 1.30, a whole half hour sooner than the 7am bus would have... ughhhh.
So we arrived at 1.30, grabbed our packs and off we went searching for the bolivian border. The town we were dropped in is very small, and not much there. So after a few wrong turns we found the right road, and about a 1km walk we reached the border station to bolivia. Luckily there was no line to cross, we got our exit stamp for argentina, and then crossed to the bolivian side to enter. Well as united states citizens we must pay an entry fee into bolivia. Due to good ol bush policies, and his holier than though crap we must pay a hefty fee of $100 to enter. No one else pays, only u.s. citizens. We planned for this and got extra money in argentina for it. Well once at the border and ready to enter, we were told only U.S. dollars, no pesos??? what the fu$%&!! We only had a small amount of U.S. money. NOW what? Well after watching the bolivian border guards laugh at us for a bit and keep telling us no enter, turn around, one guy finally told me i could walk across and exchange my pesos for dollars at a money exchange. So off i went, exchanging money, back to the border and all was well.
Once in Bolivia we then had to walk to the train station which ended up being a mile or so away. Ohh and another thing worthy of mentioning, the altitude is now over 10,000 feet, actually like 11,500 or so. So walking around with big backpacks aint much fun, haha. So we made it, and tickets were avilable, first class of course. Now off we go on a 9 hour train ride to uyuni, where the salt flats are. The train was not too bad, they showed a few movies, amusingly 2 of the 3 movies were about kidnappings in south america and mexico??? odd.... And the third was in spanish with spanish subtitles. We made it to uyuni around midnight after a long long day of traveling, up at 5am, and arrive at midnight, buses, trains, walking, borders,,, was a fun day. Uyuni is another very very small town. We luckily got a room for a couple bucks only 100 feet from the train station, and called it a day. We had to be up early the next day because we had booked a 3 day tour of the salt flats and mountains all the way to the chile border and back to uyuni, where we would then hope to catch a overnight bus to la paz 2 hours after returning from our 3 day tour.

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