Hey yáll,
so we are well and truly in Bolivia now, and it is most certainly a very different country to Argentina. Our border crossing went very smoothly, just a couple of stamps and a walk across a bridge, and it was over. Later we found out that the border is so relaxed that you can do day trips from one country to another without any passport checking, you can literally just cross the border unchecked, which is how the cocaine trade survives so easily. The differences in the two towns that share the border could not be more apparent. You go from a well developed city to an impoverished one in the space of fifty metres, it is quite uncanny.
From the border we made our way to the train station, and slept on the dirty floor for around 4 hours whilst waiting for our train. It was a surprisingly good sleep, I think mostly brought on by the altitude. We got on the train, and were surprised by its comfort. 4 hours later and at 3.5km above sealevel we were in Tupiza, and were instantly Marauded by 15 children trying to sell us a room in their affiliated hostel. We chose one quickly, and made a b-line for it. By this stage a headache set in. Little did I know that it would not subside for three days. This was the begginning of my altitude sickness. Something that the girls were fortunatley spared of. Although I didn´t vomit, I was miserable. Whilst in Tupiza we booked a 3 night 4 day tour of the desert and the salt flats. It was $100 US everything included. Our tour consisted of me and the girls, two Germans, a Chinese Canadian, our guide, and his wife the cook. It was good to travel with these Germans and the Canadian. It made the three of us appreciate each other´s company a hell of a lot more. I don´t know what these other girls were expecting, but I think they were all suffering from culture shock. During the first stop in the desert, one of the Germans asked where the toilet was, our guide laughed and gestured to the entire countryside. The horrified look on these girls faces was priceless, but the complaining didn´t cease till the tour´s end. Myself, I was no fun for the first two days of the tour. Each day was 12 hours sitting in a jeep, getting to altitudes of up to 5km above sea level, my head felt like it was splitting every time my heart beat. Despite the amazing sprawls of desert either side of me (the types you only see in the movies), I was concerned with little other than sleep. Then when we finally got to the hostels the beds were so short, squeaky, and uncomfortable, that I hardly slept a wink.I was particularly grumpy on the second day, as I was sure I had lost my camera. It turned up in my sleeping bag, which was incerdibly lucky!
On the third day everything turned around. I still woke up with a headache, but this time I decided to treat it with Codral, the panadol had been doing jack all, and within half an hour I was feeling mountains better. Then I realised why the Codral worked so well, and probably why the altitude hit me so hard... I was getting a cold. But by this time I didn´t care, I was just glad to be awake without my head throbbing. I enjoyed the third day, even if it was much the same as the first two, but it was the first time I was truly able to appreciate the Flamingos and Llamas. We got to our hostel near the salt flats, and I was thrilled to find our beds were a good length and comfortable. On top of this the whole hostel was built out of salt, including the bed bases, it was cool.
On the fourth and final day of our tour we headed in to the salt flats. They are so vast it is impossible to comprehend. Somewhere in the middle of them is an Island of cactusses, where we stopped for a good two hours. The three fo us took the opportunity to take some awesome photos, which I shall psot as soon as I can, but with Bolivian internet being as slow as it is, that may take awhile. Coincidently, it happened to be New Years Eve. And we celebrated Australian New Years, with the girls daring me to do a nudie run into the vast, open, and deserted planes. In a rare display of extraversion, I took up the dare, and sprinted naked in to the distance. It was liberating, if retarded, and the girls got some photos of my pasty white ass in the distance. Which incidently, Sarah sent home to her Mum today. So sorry Anne, you have been warned. The tour ended in Uyuni, which is about as rural a town as you can imagine, we booked into a dank hostel, and despite there grandest efforts the girls missed New Years, opting to crash at 11.40pm. I decided I would not miss my first New Years in 15 years, and went out on to the street to watch the fireworks being set off by the locals. I watched as one local used two massive rockets as crutches, and winced everytime she threw the rockets forward, jammed them into the ground and then threw her weight on to them. I am truly surprised I didn´t see any amputees, I guess when things go wrong they can´t afford the medical to survive as cripples. As morbid as that hypothesis is.
The fireworks were alright, and satisfied that I had done my bit staying up for New Years, I headed back to the hostel at 12.05. To my surprise, the hostel had locked up... Before Midnight on New Years! Before long more backpackers turned up and became equally as disgruntled, until a crowd of over fifty of us were thumping on the door. People began resorting to throwing rocks at the windows and eventually an angry man came down and let us in.
The next day we got up early for our bus ride to Potosi. I realised that my cold had hit me with avengeance. I guess I had not exactly been taking it easy. And as soon as I saw our bus, I knew it was to be a horrible day. You see the busses in Bolivia are built for Bolivians surprisingly. And I have not felt as much of a giant as I do in Bolivia. They are on average the same height as the girls... So real short!
The girls sat next to each other and settled nicely in their well proportioned seats, falling asleep almost immediately. I looked at my seat directly behind them and wondered how I was going to get my legs in. I managed it by jamming each knee painfully into the gaps between the seats infront of me, my kneecaps were pressed firmly against the metal bolts holding the arm rests up. As I reclined into my seat I realised that the head rest met right in between my sholder blades forcing me to hunch over. Finally I realised my shoulders were far broader than the seat I was allocated to. As I considered what the implications of this could be, I watched a ver large lady approach me, each empty seat she passed only confirming my wildest fear. And thus it was realised. She plonked her enormous build practically dead on me. Her wide heavy thighs, driving into mine, driving my kneecaps further than I originally thought possible into the bolts they had been resting against. The bulk of her body crushing my shoulders in on them selves further, wedging me firmly between this woman and the window. Also as showers are a comodity in Bolivia, and the bus being incredibly stuffy, this woman reeked, and thus as she sweated on to me I began to smell the same way. The bus finally began its journey and as I sat, hunched over, bolts cutting into my knees, snotty from my cold, hardly able to breathe, partly due to restricted lung capacity, partly due to the stench, the woman fell asleep on me, began to drool, and I pondered whether I could keep this up for 7 hours.
When we arrived in Potosi, I was not a happy chappy. I made things worse by taking codral on an empty stomach. Disoriented, dizzy, sore, and tired, my map reading was attrocious, and after getting lost many a time we finally made it to the hostel. Where I slept like a baby. The following day made up for the previous one. We visited a cooperative mine. But that my friends is another story for another day. Thanks for sticking through this epic if indeed you did. Till next time, Chuckles
so we are well and truly in Bolivia now, and it is most certainly a very different country to Argentina. Our border crossing went very smoothly, just a couple of stamps and a walk across a bridge, and it was over. Later we found out that the border is so relaxed that you can do day trips from one country to another without any passport checking, you can literally just cross the border unchecked, which is how the cocaine trade survives so easily. The differences in the two towns that share the border could not be more apparent. You go from a well developed city to an impoverished one in the space of fifty metres, it is quite uncanny.
From the border we made our way to the train station, and slept on the dirty floor for around 4 hours whilst waiting for our train. It was a surprisingly good sleep, I think mostly brought on by the altitude. We got on the train, and were surprised by its comfort. 4 hours later and at 3.5km above sealevel we were in Tupiza, and were instantly Marauded by 15 children trying to sell us a room in their affiliated hostel. We chose one quickly, and made a b-line for it. By this stage a headache set in. Little did I know that it would not subside for three days. This was the begginning of my altitude sickness. Something that the girls were fortunatley spared of. Although I didn´t vomit, I was miserable. Whilst in Tupiza we booked a 3 night 4 day tour of the desert and the salt flats. It was $100 US everything included. Our tour consisted of me and the girls, two Germans, a Chinese Canadian, our guide, and his wife the cook. It was good to travel with these Germans and the Canadian. It made the three of us appreciate each other´s company a hell of a lot more. I don´t know what these other girls were expecting, but I think they were all suffering from culture shock. During the first stop in the desert, one of the Germans asked where the toilet was, our guide laughed and gestured to the entire countryside. The horrified look on these girls faces was priceless, but the complaining didn´t cease till the tour´s end. Myself, I was no fun for the first two days of the tour. Each day was 12 hours sitting in a jeep, getting to altitudes of up to 5km above sea level, my head felt like it was splitting every time my heart beat. Despite the amazing sprawls of desert either side of me (the types you only see in the movies), I was concerned with little other than sleep. Then when we finally got to the hostels the beds were so short, squeaky, and uncomfortable, that I hardly slept a wink.I was particularly grumpy on the second day, as I was sure I had lost my camera. It turned up in my sleeping bag, which was incerdibly lucky!
On the third day everything turned around. I still woke up with a headache, but this time I decided to treat it with Codral, the panadol had been doing jack all, and within half an hour I was feeling mountains better. Then I realised why the Codral worked so well, and probably why the altitude hit me so hard... I was getting a cold. But by this time I didn´t care, I was just glad to be awake without my head throbbing. I enjoyed the third day, even if it was much the same as the first two, but it was the first time I was truly able to appreciate the Flamingos and Llamas. We got to our hostel near the salt flats, and I was thrilled to find our beds were a good length and comfortable. On top of this the whole hostel was built out of salt, including the bed bases, it was cool.
On the fourth and final day of our tour we headed in to the salt flats. They are so vast it is impossible to comprehend. Somewhere in the middle of them is an Island of cactusses, where we stopped for a good two hours. The three fo us took the opportunity to take some awesome photos, which I shall psot as soon as I can, but with Bolivian internet being as slow as it is, that may take awhile. Coincidently, it happened to be New Years Eve. And we celebrated Australian New Years, with the girls daring me to do a nudie run into the vast, open, and deserted planes. In a rare display of extraversion, I took up the dare, and sprinted naked in to the distance. It was liberating, if retarded, and the girls got some photos of my pasty white ass in the distance. Which incidently, Sarah sent home to her Mum today. So sorry Anne, you have been warned. The tour ended in Uyuni, which is about as rural a town as you can imagine, we booked into a dank hostel, and despite there grandest efforts the girls missed New Years, opting to crash at 11.40pm. I decided I would not miss my first New Years in 15 years, and went out on to the street to watch the fireworks being set off by the locals. I watched as one local used two massive rockets as crutches, and winced everytime she threw the rockets forward, jammed them into the ground and then threw her weight on to them. I am truly surprised I didn´t see any amputees, I guess when things go wrong they can´t afford the medical to survive as cripples. As morbid as that hypothesis is.
The fireworks were alright, and satisfied that I had done my bit staying up for New Years, I headed back to the hostel at 12.05. To my surprise, the hostel had locked up... Before Midnight on New Years! Before long more backpackers turned up and became equally as disgruntled, until a crowd of over fifty of us were thumping on the door. People began resorting to throwing rocks at the windows and eventually an angry man came down and let us in.
The next day we got up early for our bus ride to Potosi. I realised that my cold had hit me with avengeance. I guess I had not exactly been taking it easy. And as soon as I saw our bus, I knew it was to be a horrible day. You see the busses in Bolivia are built for Bolivians surprisingly. And I have not felt as much of a giant as I do in Bolivia. They are on average the same height as the girls... So real short!
The girls sat next to each other and settled nicely in their well proportioned seats, falling asleep almost immediately. I looked at my seat directly behind them and wondered how I was going to get my legs in. I managed it by jamming each knee painfully into the gaps between the seats infront of me, my kneecaps were pressed firmly against the metal bolts holding the arm rests up. As I reclined into my seat I realised that the head rest met right in between my sholder blades forcing me to hunch over. Finally I realised my shoulders were far broader than the seat I was allocated to. As I considered what the implications of this could be, I watched a ver large lady approach me, each empty seat she passed only confirming my wildest fear. And thus it was realised. She plonked her enormous build practically dead on me. Her wide heavy thighs, driving into mine, driving my kneecaps further than I originally thought possible into the bolts they had been resting against. The bulk of her body crushing my shoulders in on them selves further, wedging me firmly between this woman and the window. Also as showers are a comodity in Bolivia, and the bus being incredibly stuffy, this woman reeked, and thus as she sweated on to me I began to smell the same way. The bus finally began its journey and as I sat, hunched over, bolts cutting into my knees, snotty from my cold, hardly able to breathe, partly due to restricted lung capacity, partly due to the stench, the woman fell asleep on me, began to drool, and I pondered whether I could keep this up for 7 hours.
When we arrived in Potosi, I was not a happy chappy. I made things worse by taking codral on an empty stomach. Disoriented, dizzy, sore, and tired, my map reading was attrocious, and after getting lost many a time we finally made it to the hostel. Where I slept like a baby. The following day made up for the previous one. We visited a cooperative mine. But that my friends is another story for another day. Thanks for sticking through this epic if indeed you did. Till next time, Chuckles
2 comments:
"I lost my camera. It turned up in my sleeping bag, which was incerdibly lucky!"
Hmm, Sarah were you taking some 'scenic' shots for the blog? I'd like to see them if so.
Fantastic photos and great stories...thanks!
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