Bolivia = the REAL South American Adventure!

While I don't normally skip adventures, I'm going to for this particular goodness. Don't worry, I'll get back to it...but right now, I'm going to delve into the random adventure we've just had. So our supposed 2 hour ride from Potosi to Sucre took a wonderful 12 hrs. Since I did the mine tour, we missed the last bus and decided to take a "taxi" which is actually a minivan that shuffles people across the 2 cities. First there was the flat tire, but that was fixed relatively quickly. I was in the front seat with the driver and Yuko was nestled in between 2 older Bolivian gentlemen (that ended up being quite nice). So off we drive on the thankfully paved roads...and about 20 kms away from Sucre our taxi broke down. First it was kinda exciting, in a Bolivian adventure sorta way. After tinkering with the van for about 2 hours, the first theory was that it was the lack of gas, but the driver hitched a ride, got some and then they figured out it wasn't. After a few more hours, other theories emerged about the battery, the alternator and then the pump. Needless to say, we were obviously not amongst mechanics. So they gave up and ended up starting a bonfire on the side of the road. We ended up tearing down trees for firewood, enjoyed the stars and practiced our Spanish. The stark realization that we were going to have to sleep in the van in almost freezing temperature didn't really hit us until 3am (we were suppose to arrive at 10:30pm). So yup, we've finally used my emergency blanket and my super duper headlamp! We finally got into Sucre after hitching a ride with this crazy woman taxi driver at 7am who was nice enough to pick us up but drove like a manic fiend across the winding road overtaking everything in site from trucks, to kids running and barking dogs. And before you ask, we still had to pay the full amount despite getting here way later than expected...meh, at least we're safe and sound in Sucre. From the little we've seen, it's a beautiful and peaceful UNESCO city. We've stayed almost a week here - not doing a heck of a whole lot but getting warm and healthy. Again, it's been meeting about great people...we've had copious amounts of wine (the Bolivian strain is not so bad), played hours and hours of Shithead and just generally hung around talking about life and such.

But back to the last few weeks. After La Serena we headed to San Pedro de Atacama, Northern Chile. This was our last city in Chile, which means we were going to do it well. We wonderfully bumped into our fave Scots, and we had a crew of Londoners, French/Canadians and Irish who we did some fantastic tours with. On one of our excursions we woke up at 4am to head to the Geysers. Aside from the fact that it was -9 we had a blast looking at the natural geysers, blasting jets of water and steam into the air. We had almost forgotten how cold minus anything feels. But we were rewarded with a swim at a hotspring (that felt pretty damn chilly). I tried llama meat for the first time and it was delicious! I think it might be my new fave meat - it's really really tasty in a non gamey way. It's suppose to be healthier and leaner than beef. Either way, I can't seem to get enough of it. We got back early to watch the Chile match in a bar that was filled with really proud and excitable locals. I've never been in a place where people celebrated so much even though they lost " Vamos vamos Chilenos"! We started with 10 pitchers of beer and ended up having our own little bonfire party at the hostel with pisco sours and wine. The next day, we discovered the joys of sandboarding! Of course Yuko is now a pro as well...apparently anything with a board and she's ON baby! ON! If only it didn't kill your lungs so much to climb up the sand dune, it'd be far better. We went to the Valley of the Moon afterward and as you look over the cliff, you see this majestic view of craters and dunes. It was amazing seeing the sunset as it changes colours and actually see the moon rise from behind the mountain. After, it didn't take much to convince us to go to the desert party, which pretty much consisted of drinking and standing around a gigantic bonfire. But we had great company and I'm a big fan of drinking under the stars in open air...
Salta, Argentina = Felt a bit like a blip but Lynsey, Toby, Yuko and I had a fun wine/gorge tour to Cafayate. HL - Yuko scrambling up a cliff in boots...yeah, we thought it was a city tour. Oops, not so much. Her new nickname...spiderwoman. We headed up north again to the border and walked through to Villazon, Bolivia to take the train even further north.

Tupiza, Bolivia - This was just another short pit-stop to stock up on Alpaca goodness so that we could be warm and be prepared for our excursion. We heard that the Salt Flats were going to be extremely cold and we definitely needed some warmer clothes. Our list consisted of buying sweaters, toques, scarfs, socks, leg warmers and basically anything that we thought we would need. Check the Facebook pictures, you can see us modeling the gear and looking local. It's funny, I still think of Flashdance when I wear the leg warmers...we look local, in fact, we're actually taller than a lot of the locals! Wahoo. We feel like giants...Yuko loooooves it!

Uyuni Salt Flat Tour - We took a 3 day tour = ie. we spent 3 rather grungy dirty days on an old beat up Toyota Landcruiser we named Tupac (in our defense, he was an aboriginal leader that fought against the Spanish Conquistadors...the rapper may or may not have been named after him). Day 1 - Lots of salt. Bolivia has the largest salt flats in the world. It was really impressive and we tried to take some funky pictures but to be honest, it really didn't turn out very well. Apparently, taking perspective pictures are a lot harder to take than it seems. We also played in the Train Cemetery - which is a graveyard for all the old trains that use to carry the minerals across the country. It was basically like an adult size jungle gym with lots of rust. We stayed in a Salt Hotel, saw some mummies in a cave and watched shooting stars. I've never seen so many stars in my life. With no light pollution, at over 4000 meters, you can see the Milky Way and stars all the way to the horizon. There is something wonderfully poetic about seeing millions of stars surrounding you. Day 2 and 3 consisted of seeing lagoons, lakes and some really interesting rock formations. We saw a red lagoon, a blue one, a white one, a green one. To be honest, we were kinda done with it...the cool thing was that it started to feel a bit like a South American safari. We saw flamingos, llamas, vicunas, wild rabbits and other bird species. We spent a lot of time in Tupac seeing the landscape and played a lot of random music from Scotland, Ireland and Canada - educating each other of some really cool bands. It was a nice refuge from the incessant pan flute that they seem to play everywhere here! Make them stop!

Potosi - This is the highest city in the world. At a breezy 4060 meters above sea level, it was really hard to breath. Nothing like struggling to breathe after walking 50 meters and feeling your heartbeat a million times to feel alive! Apparently, drinking mate de coca or chewing coca leaves (yes it's from the coca plant but no it's not like doing coke) helps with altitude sickness and energy. I did the mine tour (Yuko opted against it since it's not great for claustrophobic people) on the local mountain that they've been using to extract primarily silver and zinc since the 1800s. It was fascinating crawling through the sometimes extremely hot and cold mine. The pictures do not do it justice, there is no way of being able to truly describe it. The conditions are really awful and the life expectancy for the miners is very young. They use their own explosives, there is asbestos everywhere and depending on where you are, there is not much air circulation. I really enjoyed learning about the culture behind it. They believe in God, Tio (God of the Underworld) and Pacha Mama (Mother Earth). And it's about respect and paying homage.

Aside from the fact that it's been on the cold side, we're really enjoying Bolivia (ok, at least I really am). It's rougher, poorer, less westernized and it's interesting. The people are either really friendly or completely not. It's ridiculously cheap (definitely more of what I expected or had hoped the rest of South America would be). Everything here is truly an adventure...tomorrow we're off to La Paz to have some more wonderful excursions.