To say that Bolivia is quite different from Argentina is the understatement of the century. Argentina is colonial and quite modern in its larger cities. Bolivia is like stepping into a scene out of an old American Western. It's dry, desolate, unforgiving landscape quickly reminds you why it's the poorest country in South America. The poverty smacked me in the face as soon we crossed the border into Villazon, as did the difference in its indigenous people. The local people are smaller, darker and aside from children (who are exceptionally cute) very weathered. We have found it very difficult to determine the age of many adults, and have been quite off base. Many of the women appear as if straight off a postcard in their traditional wears; big smiles, bowler hats covering long plaits, pleated skirts and bowed legs. The younger women often carry a baby in a colourful 'swag' on their backs. It’s interesting that often you will see a younger married couple and the women are in full traditional dress but the men are wearing adidas.
The border crossing was interesting. Despite the appearance of military, we could have walked across with our gringo packs and I doubt been stopped. No searching of possessions, no real attention paid to passports; a cursory look and off you go. I doubt border patrols cause many headaches for the local drug couriers. I carry with me what the others have dubbed my 'spice bag'. In it contains carious spices and condiments for cooking as most hostels won't even supply pepper or salt. I've accumulated quite a collection of herbs and at each border crossing I cop a lot of flack about my secret contraband. When asked I've disclosed it but no one even looks at the disclosure forms or searches your goods. Your bags will be belted through a scanner but it all seems to be for appearances sake really. Anyway luckily my chimmichurri (Yum!) oregano etc have made it this far! Peru might be a different story...
We bused (dodgy) from Villazon to Tupiza, a small town where many Salar de Uyuni jeep tours leave from. Tupiza is a fairly non-descript town but in some fairly spectacular country. Tupiza is Butch Cassidy and the Sun Dace kid country, literally; they rode the mountains and robbed nearby banks. It is surrounded by red mountains and vast canyons. We heard the best way to explore was on horse back so Cazzy and I organised to do a 5 hr ride. Due to the fact so many of the horses / mules we have passed in Bolivia are raggy to say the least, I asked to see a photo of a tour to see the horses. I was given a photo with some tourists mounted on some well fed, western looking horses (grey's, chestnuts). We locked it in. The next day we arrived to find our request for helmets had produced two children's dressage helmets. The literally sat on top of your head they were so small. When I told the operator we needed adults helmets she pointedly told us that the problem was not the helmets but in our abnormally large heads. I wasn't thrilled with that explanation so I asked her to try the helmet on her 'normal sized head'. She sat the ridiculously small helmet atop her head and said "see! No problem!" We had a pretty good laugh and decided to press on sans helmets. We followed our 15 year old guide to the starting point and were greeted with four of the mangiest,RSPCA horses/ mules you've ever seen. The mighty steeds were decked out in pieces of leather stacked and tied together for a saddle, had material straps for 'leathers' and home made hoop stirrups. Bloody hell. When I politely suggested my horse had seen more days than dinners the guide said "No, no problem; ok?" We again decided to press on and were joined by a lovely Aussie couple Emily and Chris on their honeymoon. We headed out of town and after I made a few adjustments to everyone's foot long 'stirrup leathers' (The guides rode short like Jockey's) we were off. Whilst not the most comfortable ride; definitely one of the most memorable. The scenery is spectacular and when galloping through Red canyons with the ghosts of Butch and Sundance it's hard not to feel pretty bloody good.
We did a bit of research before booking our 4 day 4wd tour as there have been serious accidents with tourists killed due to shonky guides, speeding, drinking etc. We were advised don't go cheap and book a landcruiser (safer, more leg room and can go anywhere). We decided to run with la Torre and were shown the vehicle we would have which was a late 90's landcruiser with nice fat, rugged tires and seemingly in pretty good nick. We confirmed the arrangements and specifically the vehicle three times, were happy and parted with our hard earned silver.
We arrived the next morning all packed and excited. We watched landcruiser after landcruiser depart fully loaded and were assured ours was on its way. Ten minutes our 80's model Nissan Patrol comes to collect us. Not Happy Jan. We have discovered it is near to pointless to argue with Bolivian tour guides, you get what you're given despite what you've paid for and it's up to you to decide whether to try and get your money back and sit around waiting for another day or suck it up. After hearing the standard Bolivian "sorry, only this one - but no problem" phrase we decided to press on. I gave the operator a rip roaring serve and very unhappily climbed into the vehicle. I was bloody fuming and unfortunately wasn't shy about letting everyone (guides included) know about it. Getting out of town and realising we had no seatbelts and a bald back tyre didn't do much for the anger levels. I was foul. I told showed the guides the tyre and they said "okay my friend, good vehicle my friends". I said: "famous last words my friend". Yep, totally snide and bitchy but cranky pants were on. Gradually began to calm down after starting the ascent through the altiplano but not before shocking myself with the level of anger I experienced. Scary stuff.
Let me just say the Bolivian Altiplano is striking. Totally unforgiving land, not a single tree, no grass, just shrubs which the Llamas eat but incredible. We drove for a few hours listening to what I imagine was titled 'the best of Bolivia 1986' (which Raul our guide bopped to in the front seat) all the time climbing, climbing, climbing. We stopped for our first lunch and were presented with oodles of food which was the first meal of many on this trip in which I overate. It's funny when you are in another's hands, have no idea of location, no idea how to source food if you needed it your brain seems to go EAT; EAT NOW! QUICK! THERE MIGHT NOT BE ANY MORE COMING! Our guide Raul was a lovely little guy who loved a joke, Jay Z, and telling us each day we were going to be eating Flamingo for dinner. His knowledge and enthusiasm of the altiplano was fantastic and we soon enjoyed his company. Whilst in Australia the idea of sitting in a 4WD for 8 hrs a day is not something you'd relish; the scenery and Raul's stories made it more than just bearable; it made it an experience.
We knew the accommodation was going to be basic and basic it was! We were told it would get down to minus 5 to minus ten that night and our accommodation was a tin shed on a concrete slab. No electricity, no fires, no heating. Bloody hell it was cold! We ate a good dinner and climbed into more thermals, fleeces, beanies, gloves, sleeping therma liner, sleeping bags with blankets over the top as a finale. I was still cold, and shivered for at least an hour or two. Three hours later I woke up sweltering and stripped off. Little sleep at 4500m at those temps with a 5am start would test the most gracious of souls but surprisingly we were all in good spirits the next morning. A mug of coca leaves tea to try and stave off altitude sickness and we were off. We were quite lucky that none of us got sick as 50% of people fall ill while doing the tour apparently.
Day two was very different and we visited an abandoned city where thousands are buried after a leprosy epidemic. There are reportedly gold deposits in the town but the surrounding locals are so superstitious they won't dig it up. It was quite eerie seeing human bones and imagining a former civilization living amongst the now crumbling walls. We entered the national park and visited various lagoons (green, white, red etc) which were all spectacular and very different. We saw flamingos (but none caught and cooked by Raul) and saw Llamas, llamas, llamas. A family will let its Llamas run wild across a very large area where they mingle with other families Llamas. They identify them by tying coloured ribbons to their ears.
We drove through a small village just inside the national park where Raul showed us the soccer field (dirt patch with two netless goals) and told us that there is an area tournament each year. The winning team gets a Llama, the second place team gets two baby Llamas and the third placed team wins one baby Llama. It gives you an idea of how surreal and primitive Bolivian life can be in areas.
We drove through a desert named Salvator Dali desert due to the fact that it could be straight out of one of his paintings. We were all going fairly well in the 4wd and taking it in turns sitting in the very small back seats. The tail bone has yet to recover from four days of sitting but hopefully some trekking might iron out the kinks again.
Whilst the accommodation was much the same on night two, there was a small fire which definitely helped stave off the cold. Unfortunately during the night Brendan, Dave and I were duking it out for who went to the toile the most times after obviously eating something that left our stomachs decidedly unhappy. Quite hilarious actually hearing someone rustle rustle while struggling to get out of liners and sleeping bags in a hurry. We didn’t have the heart to tell Raul about the food the next day as the poor guy was working his tail off. As I write this almost three weeks later my stomach still hasn’t recovered.
We climbed to 5100 m on the third day to visit geysers which were quite eerie. There are active volcano’s scattered all along the region and the geysers are areas of bubbling mud and steam vents. Quite stinky with all the sulphur but definitely worth the 5100m. We visited an area called the valley of the rocks which was great but unfortunately we had met many jeeps comng the other direction (from Uyuni) and it was crowded. Not ideal when one is trying to find a quiet place to go to the toilet (in a hurry) and from behind every rock pops a tourist! I finally discovered an actually baño (loo) and had the most freezing long drop experience imaginable!
We drove to the Termas de Polques hot springs for lunch. The boys were apparently frightened of getting their skirts wet but Cazzy and I bared the cold and had a dip. Beautiful temperture, stunning vistas and after two days of dust and no bathing it was lovely to be clean. Another hot, huge lunch whipped up by Raul nad we were back in the Nissan.
Our last night we spent in the salt hotel. The entire building is made of salt blocks. The floor is salt; the bed bases are salt; the tables and chairs are made of salt. Dave licked the walls to make sure they weren’t having us on and sure enough: salt. The generator only ran from 7pm to 9pm so we all sat in darkness until 7pm and then went to bed at 9pm. Quite funny really.
The fourth day we spent on the Salar de Uyuni which is an ancient dried sea bed that covers an area 11,000 sq kilometers wide. We watched the sun rise and turn the grey flats turn a brilliant white. The contrast with the perfectly blue sky when the sun is up is incredible. We were again blessed with great weather which is lucky as Raul told us when the clouds come down and the surrounding guiding mountains are hidden from view jeeps have gotten lost for days. We went to fish island for breakfast which is a large rock formation covered in cactuses in the middle of the salar. We hiked to the top and got some amazing views and photos and then had another great brekkie. After brekkie our driver challenged us gringos to a game of soccer on the salt flats. About 6 Bolivian guides and driver s took on about ten of us gringos. Cazzy and I were the only girls out there trying to match it with French and English soccer fanatics. After they realized we were actually body checking and tackling and having a go they started passing us the ball (often a mistake lol). It was bloody tiring playing soccer at altitude and in the blaring sun but was absolutely a highlight. Caz I am proud to say scored the winning goal!
On the salt flats there is no depth perception so you can play around with trick photography which was great fun. I will post some of the shots soon. We spent a couple of hours on the flats and then headed to Uyuni where we were to end our tip. 5km out of Uyuni we got another flat and poor Raul and the driver (name forgotten!) had to change our third tyre. These guys work so hard. They get up at about 3am to prepare our food for the day, drive and guide and change tyres during the day, cook dinner, clean the vehicle and repair tyres at night. They don’t stop. They were very safe, knowledgeable and fun guides. Despite e the hiccup at the beginning of the trip I couldn’t have asked for more.
We had a fantastic dinner in Uyuni at a pizza restaurant (Minuteman) owned by an American guy. Sometimes it’s a relief to order something and know exactly what is coming out. I love trying different foods but sometimes you crave a little western normality (as does your stomach!) This has turned into a mammoth post so will end now and pick up again later! Hope you’re all well x
