The stunning beauty of Bolivia

Yeah, so ok, I have obviously been a bit lax with the blog for a while, but thought I would give the low down on Bolivia. I think Bolivia is one of those places that is seldom visited as a one off, but more for the travellers that are seeing the continent as we are dong at the moment. This, I come to realise, is a real shame because despite the poverty that is evident as soon as you cross the border with Argentina, the country has an AMAZING landscape and lovely people who are warm and talkative. Annie and I crossed the border at Las Quiacas in Argentina aand walked across to a town called Villazon in Bolivia after getting though customs. We had a small problem after getting there, as we had to get up to a twon called Tupiza from where we would start the 4 day tour of the Salt Flats, mountains, geezers, coloured lagoons alll conatined in a national park of Bolivia. We had purposefully spent all of our Argentinian cash though, thinking we could take money out from a cash achine on the border. "Our survey says - eeeee-uuuuuurrrrr!!". The one cashpoint in town wasnt working. So amongst the hustle and bustle of early morning Villazon life (old tanned women with bowler hats and pigtails, people selling beaten fruit on the streets, all types of people trying to coax tourists into tours or taxi rides) we pulled together the remaining Chilean currency we had in our wallet aand changed this for Bolivianos. This was not enough to get the train as we had planned, so we re-thoughht tactics and went to get a Bolivian bus, which the Chilean covered us for. This was our first travel experience in South America that was a it more humbled and had us semi-worried about our bags in the hold, but the journey up took in some great scenery - mountains and cactus fields - and was comfortable enough and had us there in 2 hours without having to wait another 5 hours for the daily train. 

Once there, we got talking to 3 nice german tourists at the bus station, who were there for exactly the same reason as us, had some good recommendations on place to stay and tour operator and asked us to join them. This was great news so we hooked up with them straight away dropped our bags in the hostel, sorted out the 4 day tour and then went out for some food and drinks on an evening that had a heavy thunderstorm, which we hoped would die down. It did.

The next day we left early for the trip. Pictures and words cannot really do justice to the things we saw over these days (pictures on facebook!). The trip took us high high up into the Bolivian mountains (up to 5100 metres at our highest) and we slpet in small hostel places en-route each night. The altitude and lack of light pollution (coupled with the clear nights) meant that we were given a spectacular view of the stars every night. Millions and millions of them everywhere you looked, and you could see the dust of the nebulae and galaxy bending across the sky. Unbelievable. I even got to see two shooting stars in one night, when I had chosen to go out for a quiet walk late one night with my powerful head torch strapped to my head like a modern miner.

And the scenery and wildlife! Thousands and thousands of pink flamingoes feeding on the algae and shrimp of the coulourful lagoons way up at 4000 metres, amazing views onto the valleys below, hot sulphuric geezers that made the different coloured mud bubble in round pockets and fire egg smelling fumes into the air, stange formations of rocks, and a whole HEAP of llamas and alpacas that roamed around for vegetation from natural springs and lakes. But the highlight was the Salt Flats of Uyuni. A prehistoric salt lake from 300 million years ago that covered up to a 3rd of Bolivias surface area and has since evaporated, leaving behind a vast expanse of kilometres and kilometres of nothing but flat plains of white salt that blinds the eyes with the suns refections unles you are wearing sunglasses. One of the coolest and most surreal places I have ever been to. It´s like the scene in "The Matrix" (for those that have seen it) when they enter the system´s simulation and call for guns. Very cool. And because of the landscape, you can take loads and loads of perspective pictures whereby those in the background look like tiny little people! (again, see faceboook).

We had a guide and cook for the 4 days, taking the 5 of us across that part of the country in a jeep, prepared our meals and gave us information. The 5 of us became good friends over the time and I was given the name "ninja" for being the only one who did not suffer from any altitude sickness or otherwise, which had hit all of the others quite hard at different points. So I did not chew the coca leaves like others as I hadnt felt the need to. I did drink some however in some "Mate" which was prepared for us in the evenings. 

So the trip was an amazing start to the Bolivian experience. We left Dmitri and Elena before and after the tour was over (Dmitri had to leave the tour early due to the extent of altitude sickness) but gained a new travel companion in Anni-Katrin, who decided to join us for the journey we were making further into Bolivia and beyond. Our next stop from Uyuni (where the tour ended) would be the old Bolivian capital of Sucre, and then to Potosi and La Paz before heading into Peru. The first part would have us face an epic bus journey that was so rubbish that it became comical - but at least we got to travel true Bolivan style!! This to comein the next update!