Advertisement
It was now time to head to Bolivia. Because of a a huge snowstorm over the Andes, the pass had been closed for over two weeks. My bus was one of the first to try again to cross. First, I should explain why you pass over the Andes this way. It is to take a 3 or 4 day tour of a place called Salar de Uyuni, which stands for the saltflats of Uyuni (a dippy little town in Bolivia). Most people take the tour starting in Uyuni, Bolivia and bounce around for 3 days in a 4x4 seeing the sights. However, as I earlier stated, I needed a new way to reach Bolivia, and so ended up crossing the border via the Andes Mountains. Once over the pass, the bus would then drop us off at the border of Chile/Bolivia, and then we would get in the 4x4 and start our trek.
The key phrase here is: ONCE OVER THE PASS!!!!!!! Remember, the pass had been closed for over two weeks. We are not talking state of art snow ploughs clearing the road here folks. I think it's called, let's wait for the sun to melt it.
As we climbed higher and higher, the snow got deeper and deeper. Near the top, there was...... Great! A traffic jam. Another bus was stuck in the snow, blocking the road. So our bus sat, and sat. Then our nitwit driver had a great plan to make his own road and go around the stuck bus. Well that worked for about 30 seconds, until we got stuck even worse, and started sliding. Hello, doesn't anyone here think about crevasses? Whereas a little while ago we in our bus had been laughing at the other stuck bus, now we were the source of stupidity. At least they were stuck on the ACTUAL ROAD.
So we waited, and waited. Someone showed up with a shovel. The driver dug, tried to drive, we slid some more. Repeat this scene several times. Oh, and all this time we are watching these big trucks try to make it over the pass, and NONE of them can make it. One almost jackknifed. About this time was when I thought, let's stir the conversation. "Has anyone read, Alive?"
Well, one thing I've learned in travel, especially to the developing world, is that what we in
our comfy three bedroom two bath homes see as a terrible, horrible set of circumstances, many of the world just see as a little bump in the road. What back home would take a tow-truck, several phone calls to AAA, a lot of hysteria and money...well, here, was just a 4x4 and a tow line solution.
Enter ALEJANDRO. This legend of a man Bolivian driver showed up in his snowsuit, hooked a line to our bus, and we were out of there.
We then peaked the pass, and went through immigration into Bolivia. The photo of the immigration office speaks for itself, wouldn't you say? No duty free shopping there folks. In fact, no bathrooms. Your pee freezes as it hits the ground!
Once past immigration, we transferred all of our bags to the top of the 4x4, and we were off for our 3 day adventure with Alejandro the driver.
What an adventure it was! It by far rates as one of my top 5 experiences of travel. Unimaginable sights. Unforgivable cold. One night it got so cold outside that the 4x4's radiator froze solid, and yes, it did have antifreeze. The next morning Alejandro
literally lit a fire under the car to unfreeze the water, and also used a torch. It was minus 25 Celcius that night. Oh, did I mention there's no heating where we stayed? Thank you mummy sleeping bag, thank you.
There were six of us in this together. Two French guys, two Aussies, a German girl, and me. We had a blast, and got along great together. In fact, we hung out with each other after the tour ended. The Aussies, Bridget and Mark, had such great stories. They have been traveling for two and a half of three years, and have lost count at some 70 odd countries. The German gal (who I by chance later met up with in La Paz), has been living in South America for some time and says she has no idea when she's going back to Germany.
Such fascinating people. Such incredible sights. Definately a topper on my list of experiences.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.038s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 9; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0161s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb