Well, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!! Rather belated, I admit, though I have been in the Atacama desert and cut off from civilisation (and the rest of the time pissed or recovering from the night before!!) We started our second Gap Adventures tour through Bolivia on the 14th December. On the 22nd Decemeber due to the very bad influence of our new tour group Kirsty discovered the joys of red wine and it´s been pretty much a blur from then until early Jan!!!!!
Before xmas we went to the silver mines in Potosoi where 8 million ppl have died and 3 die every month working in the mines (Bolivia don´t take safety very seriously!). After the tour of one of the working mines our guide purchased a stick of dynamite and prepared a bomb (in the minibus) then we drove to a bit of empty hillside and she lit the fuse. We were passing it between the 15 of us and getting our photo taken while the fuse burnt. I was last in the queue!!!!!!! "Don´t worry" she said, "its got another minute before it blows"!!!!! I threw it at Luke who´d volunteered to run with her and bury it, he was still holding it at least a minute later while she was digging a hole in the ground for him to put it in!! They´d been running away from it for only about 20 seconds when the thing went off and good god, it was an explosion!!!!! Imagine that happening in the UK? I don´t think!!!!!!! but hey, thats bolivia for you!!!
Christmas was spent on the spectacular salt flats, the photos will say it all, just stunning scenery!! We´d had a brilliant day but couldn´t wait to get to the hotel to do our secret santa and start the drinking on xmas day night! We were in jeeps driving across the salt flats to our salt hotel, only an hour and a half til we arrive and we joked "how do the drivers know where to go on the flat stark salt plains where there is nothing but blinding white salt in all directions and then the horizon?" Answer: they don´t!!!!!! The rain came in and visibility reduced to nothing and after a couple of hours we realised the driver had bugger all idea where the hell we were! We were travelling in convoy so every 20 mins we´d stop, the drivers would chat in the rain then we´d start driving round in circles again! They hadn´t got a sodding compass between them and unfortunately kirst and I had forgotten ours too!!! I tentatively asked whether anyone had an i phone to see if we could try using GPS?!!! "Turn left at the next grain of salt!!" You guessed it - GPS wasn´t an option. I was beginning to worry we´d run out of petrol soon and on a personal note i was desperate for the loo and not for something that would get washed away by the rain either!!! EEk!!!! The tour leader was in our car and he just told us we´d be spending the night in the car and put his ipod in! Not quite the reassurance we were looking for when you´re lost in the desert on xmas day!!!! Anyway some time later the rain stopped, clouds lifted and we could see the horizon again which meant the drivers could navigate and halleluyah we made it (and i didn´t have to leave a present in the middle of the white salt flats!!)
On boxing day we saw moon landscape, mountains, active volcanoes and pink flamingoes. then unsurprisingly one of the clapped out old jeeps gave up the ghost completely and apparently the AA don´t cover the desert so i spent the afternoon with two more in our car and kirsty and the tour guide sitting practically on top of me - much fun was had by all!!!
Then 27th Dec we crossed into chile and left Bolivia and its stunning landscape and pretty dire food behind! Apart from the bus never arrived to pick us up, so we left Bolivia and were stuck in no mans land waiting to get into chile for about an hour with a bag of lollipops and two cereal bars to our name! No stress, a different bus came eventually and once we were over the border into the little cute dusty and hot border town of San Pedro we cracked open a case or two of Cab Sav and another night lost in a haze of red wine!!!
You could be forgiven after reading this for thinking that most of the action is happening at night. Contrary to this, we are surfacing during the day, and on the 28th I went sandboarding. amazing fun!!! Quite a lot like snowboarding but hurts a lot less when you fall (and I did), infact spent so much time on my arse kirst struggled to get a picture of my face!!! But i seemed to get there in the end and was soo much fun!!!
New Years Eve was spent in Santiago, Chile. Our group weren´t much into clubbing (much to my dismay) and the tour leader hadn´´t bothered to make a restaurant reservation and with 20 of us in our group we couldn´t get a table anyway. Kirst and i were so pissed by the time we left the hotel, i don´t think we really noticed. so we ended up seeing the new year in standing outside a burger joint and infact weren´t even together cos at the crucial 12 o clock, kirst was in the loo and i was running around completely trollied calling her name!!! Yet another fantastic new years eve, not!!!!!
So the Gap tour is now over, we´re officially on our own from here, scary!!! and on the 4th Jan we made our first bus journey and border crossing (into Argentina) all on our own!!! Very proud of ourselves! We´ve stopped in Mendosa (the area is surrounded by vineyards and produces 70 % of Argentina´s wine, need i say any more?!), its a beautiful city, we love it! Unfortunately one or two other people think so too, so when we arrived we couldn´t find a bed for love nor money, we trawled the city, backpacks on, looking for a room with an israeli couple we´d met at the bus station. eventually we found a room in a crappy hotel across town for the 4 of us! So we slept with these strangers (who were lovely) in a room you couldn´t swing a cat in, paint peeling off the walls and a toilet that didn´t flush!!!
Next day we got the hell out of there and not happy with the new place, later that day, moved again!! Now we´re in a really nice place with our own room (its a triple but we hope we keep it to ourselves) we have our own bathroom, free breakfast (and we´ve found the stash of cereal so keep helping ourselves throughout the day) and free internet (here i am), all for a bargain 8 pounds each! Its not perfect by any means - the light in the bathroom has an interesting strobe effect going on (i applied my eye make-up y´day using my head torch) and they play bob marley on repeat from 5pm til at least 2am!!!!! I love reggaee but good god, buy another cd!!!!
The plan is to stay here for the week and head to Buenos aires on sunday for serious partying and of course, to learn the tango, can´t wait!!!!! In the meantime we´ll attempt not to die from the heat (30 degrees every day - i can feel the sympathy oozing from you all), oh and do a tour of the vineyards! I don´t ride a bike, so we decided the perfect time for me to learn would be in argentina, riding around vineyards on the back of a tandem with kirst in control, both getting every so slightly tipsy on red wine! I´ll let you know how that one goes!!!! xx
