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Published: March 18th 2010
I am currently in La Paz, the capital of Bolivia after a hideous bus journey that involved zero sleep and lots of bumps! So if this makes no sense then I hold the lack of sleep, combined with high altitude (its getting blamed for everything at the moment!) at fault...! I have only been in Bolivia for a few days and have seen the Salt Flats which were amazing. After staying in Santiago for a week after the earthquake and vaguelly looking for jobs, I left to Mendoza, a winery region back in Central Argentina and then headed (after a 4 hour adventure in Cordoba) to Iguazu Falls. AMAZING. After a few days chilling out in Salta I headed through to Bolivia after promises of cheapness which was very welcomly received!
So when I left you I was in Pucon, and about to embark on a bus ride further north to Santiago. Clearly did not quite realise at the time that the said bus ride would take me past Concepcion at approximately 3.30am on 27th February 2010 (cue earthquake measuring a massive 8.8 on the Richter scale...).
When the earthquake happened I pretty much had no idea what was
Motorway
Parts of the road dropped by about 1 meter due to the earthquakegoing on, as we were all asleep, and were jolted awake. The main tremor lasted for over 2 minutes which just seemed forever, and it kept onincreasing in intensity which was terrifying. Initially I thought that it must just be a bumpy road but as it got worse, things started falling from the roof racks and so I dug out my spanish dictionary to ask someone to confirm it was an earthquake! The bus stopped and we all got out onto the road- the roads were wrecked and no one knew what to do. Also the tremors kept happening for ages afterwards so it was safer to stay put. Everyone was getting out little radios and a few people tried to translate for me, because it was pretty scary not having a clue what was going on cos of my useless spanish!
It wasnt til the next morning at like 11am that we were able to make an attempt to start going again. The pictures I have attached show what kind of a mess the motorways were in and it started to really hit home how bad it was. Still though, it was not until we reached Santiago at 9pm
Wrecked road
Everytime we thought the road was looking better we would come across something like this. I have no idea how we managed to get to Santiago, but pretty impressed with how the Chilean people and authorities were dealing really quickly with the problems that night that I clicked in and felt pretty traumatised... I went onto BBC news and could not believe the state of the towns down south... 😞 and also how many people had been worried, so sorry guys I couldnt email before that evening.
Santiago was in not too bad a state. The first few days there was a lot of rubble and some churches and older buildings had not escaped which is sad. However in comparison to towns in the south, the buildings stood up amazingly well. The following days saw hundreds of aftershocks, but I only felt a couple. However even these comparably smaller shocks were enough to make me realise how scary it would have been to have been inside a building when the earthquake happened... speaking to people who had been inside hostels even in Santiago which is further away from the epicentre than I was, it sounds terrifying to have to run out scared the building will fall on you.
A few of us tried to offer help in the towns down south but there was nothing we were allowed to do, due to the aid organisations needing trained individuals etc, its just
A bus not quite so lucky as ours
The people were luckily ok in this bus, just fed up so sad to see it on the news and feels so strange to actually be so close.
I stuck around in Santiago for a week and job hunted which was actually quite theraputic! There seemed to be lots of opportunities for more permanent roles, but not as many casual temporary roles. In fact they seemed frustratingly law-abiding as far as the visa situation was concerned! It bodes well for returning there later though when I want to stick around for a year or so. A lot of people have told me they dont like Santiago and find it boring, but I actually really enjoyed it. Chile as a whole doesnt reallly feel like you would imagine South America to, as its economy is doing well and really cant be regarded as 3rd world in any way. As far as travelling goes, although the scenery is stunning and there are lots of beautiful places to see, it can be very expensive and feels like you are more on a holiday rather than travelling! To live though, then I think Santiago would have a lot to offer me and I really enjoyed spending time in the city.
After a big
decision making process, I decided to give up the job hunt after a week as I really wasnt ready to quit travelling quite yet! I had heard so much about Bolivia that I was quite eager to travel on and see it. I headed first back into Argentina to a town called Mendoza, in an important winery region. I had met a couple in Santiago who lived in Mendoza so it was great to catch up with them for a night as well. One of the main things that is a MUST when people visit Mendoza is a tour of some of the wineries... so it would have been rude not to indulge in this tradition! I hired bicyles with some American girls and we set off to cycle between wineries. HOWEVER it was SO hot!! Amazing fun though, especially when the first place gave us free samples of olives, chocolate and Absinth by 11am...! We then continued on for a few miles before admitting defeat and stopping at one to have about 3 bottles of wine. That part was much more fun than the cycling, lol. But the drunken bike ride back was fairly entertaining I guess, lol
Collapsed bridge
Think this bridge was shown in a lot of the news reports. This was pretty close to Santiago Although I was in a bit of a mission to get to Bolivia by this point, there was somewhere I definitely wanted to visit first... Iguazu Falls...! Although Iguazu was pretty much on the wrong side of Argentina for me, there was no way I was not going there and Im getting pretty used to long bus journeys by this point, who needs beds anyway! My aussie friend Andrew who I met in Santiago was in Cordoba so I met him there (had about 4 hours to explore Cordoba (actually really liked it and want to return later!) and then we continued together on my 2nd overnight bus ride in a row! Argentinian and Chilean buses are amazing and they often give you food and you can choose between semi-cama (cheaper one which is a basic reclining seat), Cama (even more reclining with more room) and Executive (basically a proper bed!). I tend to opt for the cheaper option because I´m a bit poor, but was convinced to accompany Andrew on cama this time which was an exciting change for me!
Iguazu Falls did not disappoint. It is a waterfall system consisting of 275 falls and marks part of
Collapsed church in Santiago :(
Generally Santiago seemed to have got through the earthquake relatively ok (compared with further south). But there were some buildings that were too old and weak to withstand the tremors the border between Argentina and Brazil. The barriers and walkways at theArgentinian side allows you to get so close to the falls and get an amazing view over the Devils Throat which is arguably the most impressive fall. It is a u-shaped, 82-meter-high, 150-meter-wide and 700-meter-long fall and it is just incredible. The water just seems to drop off the edge into nowhere,like the edge of the world. We had a great day exploring the park and I was so happy to finally see the waterfalls I had heard so much about. That evening me and Andrew randomly bumped into one of my friends from my hostel in Ushuaia, Erin, and so finished the day with some cervazas (beers) which was a pretty good end to the day, although led to a pretty good hangover the next day!.
The hangover was indeed so bad that Andrew couldnt quite cope with his initial plan of crossing to Brazil and getting a visa and so randomly continued with me to Salta, Argentina!
Salta is a town in the north of Argentina (btw the north is SO much cheaper than patagonia, so that alone made me happy!) and is in a beautiful
Santiago, view from Cerro San Cristobal
Massive hill overlooking Santiago with an amazing park space. However the smog around Santiago is pretty bad so you cant really make out the mountains of the Andes that are the backdrop for the city valley so the setting is gorgeous. It has a beautiful countryside surrounding it, and I really liked the chilled out feel and the plazas in the centre. There are loads of opportunities for sports and day trips in this area, but Andrew and I basically just used Salta to chill out and I was pretty happy with this...there was some gorgeous viewpoints to walk to and that was plenty enough activity for me! I also managed to meet up with my friend Juan (my spanish friend who I met in Patagonia) for dinner and drinks which was great, and we went to a traditional dance show in the bar strip of Salta.
After a couple of days I was ready to make a move to BOLIVIA! Was chuffed to pieces avout this one as I had been going on for about 2 months about needing to get to a cheaper country and so was pretty ready for it! Myself and Andrew got ourselves onto the bus to the border town of La Quiaca and prepared ourselves for the last comfy bus for a while. As anticipated the roads and buses in Bolivia are not quite as good as in
Santiago Palacio de la Moneda
presidental palace in Santiago. Reckon they are pretty chuffed with the building, its just been reopened and they are v proud Argentina and Chile and the bumpiness of last nights journey felt pretty similar to the earthquake!
I had been trying to practice my spanish and even since being in Bolivia for just a few days I feel that I am improving as there are fewer english speakers and so it is forcing me to try harder which is good. Andrew is encouraging me by basically forcing me to do all transactions and then follows this up by laughing at how crap I am... boys are really supportive, eh!!
When crossing the border, myself and Andrew befriended a group of 3 Swedish girls who had similar plans to us. Following an ´interesting´ local bus trip from the border town of Villazon to Tupiza (on which I made 3 Bolivian friends who I discussed penguins and sloths with! I really do have the randomest spanish vocab in my brain) the 5 of us decided to go on a 2-day trip to the Bolivian Salt Flats. I had heard so much about this trip and was so excited to see the salares. Salar de Uyuni is the worlds largest salt flat , and at an altitude of 3,653m it covers 12,000
Absinth at 11am?
The start of our winery bike ride in Mendoza sq km. I had invested in some Coca leaves for altitude and so we munched away on tese (absoluntely hideous tasting!) and traipsed off in a 4x4 with our driver and cook. The trip was great fun and the salt flats were amazing. As it is coming to the end of the rainy season, some parts were still covered with water and this meant that it projected a perfect mirror image of the clouds etc, and then in the centre it was now dry and all you can see for miles is blindingly white salt! It was probably the most bizarre scenery I have ever seen! The night we spent at a salt hotel where EVERYTHING is made of salt. It is possibly nearly as annoying as sand for getting everywhere!lol
SO after being dropped off in Uyuni, Andrew and I waited for a day in Uyuni (not recommended, there is nothing there and no water between 6am and 8pm, helpful!) and have headed to La Paz. I have only been here for about 3 very tired and confused hours so have not explored yet but the atmosphere seems really chilled out. Bolivia is generally giving me a really
Wine and food
Indulging in a bit of ´flashpacking´at the wineries!
Note to self, absinth followed by wine doesnt make me any better at riding bikes! good feeling. It is how I imagined South America to be, with amazing and diverse scenery, and with over 60% of the population being indiginous people there are lots of interesting cultures and exploring is never going to be boring! It´s pretty good that I like it seeing as I will be here for the next 3 weeks, before then starting a minimum of 1 months work in a town called Sucre in South Bolivia! So I will be saying goodbye to Andrew in a day or so and heading back further east in Bolivia. Not entirely sure what I will do yet, but there are jungles, grasslands, beautiful traditional towns and a possibility of nipping east and going to Brazil for a week so I´m sure I will find something to entertain me!! Not really loving the thought of that bus ride all over again, but hey, at least its not boring!
So sorry for yet another essay, I will try to keep a bit more up to date next time! Hope everyone is well, keep in touch badgers xx
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trish Green
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SO good to hear all your news Becca - we are thoroughly enjoying hearing all your tales of adventure and green with envy that you are on the move and doing such amazing, exciting things! Keep on enjoying and soaking it all in. Ellie is off to France on Good Friday, so she'll be another Greenie roaming the planet.....Happy, safe travelling hun.... Love from us all Trish, Andy, Tim and Ellie:-) x