Chile and Bolivia

Please bear with us as this is a long, but very interesting blog entry.

We left Salta early Thursday morning on a bus that took us to a small town in the middle of the Chilean desert called San Pedro de Atacama. This bus was much better than the last, with the exception of the inedible lunch of tough meat and fake mashed potatoes they served us (without anything to drink!). On the bus we met two girls from England, Clare and Anna, who are doing a trip around the world. We got along really well and decided to share a room at the hostel to save money.
The town of San Pedro de Atacama is like something out of an old western movie: dusty, unpaved streets lined with tiny houses, surrounded only by desert and mountains on either side. Unfortunately, we ran into some major money problems... the ATM wouldn't accept our bank cards and the money exchange wouldn't accept any Argentinian or American bills with slight imperfections, which made almost all the money we did have useless!! We had almost no money and needed to survive for a few days in this town AND get a bus out of there! We ended up eating at a very cheap local restaurant we found that was very popular with the Chilean workers (believe me, we got some strange looks). It was the kind of place where you go up to a man who standing in a kitchen and ask what he has to eat. He says his one dish and you say how many of it you want and sit down. Also, we made friends with this guy Carlos who worked at our hostel, and he cooked us some amazing food.
We went on an excursion to the "Valley of the Moon" one afternoon, which was incredible. We climbed over sand dunes and through caves, saw snow-capped mountains, incredible rock formations (which the locals claim all look like the Virgin Maria praying, holding a baby etc.... we weren't so convinced). Finally, we watched the sunset from the top of the Valley of the moon, which was absolutely breathtaking.
That night our money problems only got worse, as we discovered that neither of our credit cards worked in the machine at the hostel, so we had to spend every last peso we had just to pay our bill. We had managed to find a bus to Bolivia that would let us pay with a credit card, but we were scared about venturing off into Bolivia without ANY money... but what could we do?

We took a slightly unconventional route to Bolivia. We decided to take a three day tour in a car that allows you to experience the diverse natural wonders of Bolivia. It was honestly one of the most amazing, but also one of the strangest experiences of our lives.
We were in a small van driven by a Bolivian couple who spoke no English. Also in the car was Tova and I, the English girls and a young couple from Germany. There were no seatbelts, all out luggage was tied to the roof and we headed for the Bolivia border. On the way to the border, the driver pulled over at the side of the road to pick up some Bolivian migrant workers who were making their way home. We ended up chatting with one guy who sat down beside us, who told us that he hadn't spoken to his family in over six months and he was going home to surprize them. He was sure they thought he was dead.
Finally we arrived at the Bolivian border where we had breakfast outside (despite the fact that it was incredibly windy and absolutely freezing cold) and switched cars. In fact, it was so cold that I (Alice) wouldn't get out of the car to eat, which had consequences a few hours later. We drove to the Andean National Reserve, where we saw some amazing lakes coloured white and green and absolutely filled with flamingos. However, we were extremely high up in the mountains, which can be very dangerous for your health. Everyone had a special tea at breakfast made out of leaves that prevent serious altitude sickness, but I (Alice) hadn't had any because it was too cold outside. When I got out of the car to see to lakes, I fainted. Tova describes it as: I walked up to her and was just looking at her, but my eyes were blank and my lips and hands were blue. Then I just fell. I guess it was quite scary, but I blacked out and can't remember it at all. I went back into the car and chewed on the leaves from the tea, which made me a lot better.
Next, we went to these wonderful hot springs where we bathed in the steaming hot water before eating lunch out the back of the car. The Bolivians were washing their entire bodies and hair in the hot springs, which should have given us warning about the kind of accomodation we would be given that night...
After lunch we drove really high up into the mountains until there was snow on the ground and it was well below zero. Then it started to hail and the car's engine died and wouldn't start for about fifteen minutes, and we were absolutely freezing, especially because they had had all the windows open to stop the windsheild from fogging up. We were all pretty scared and the Bolivian woman was praying, but the man managed to get the car started we made it out alive. We were actually up there to watch the geysers, which are giant cracks in the mountain where steam from the earth's core rises out. They were pretty incredible. Oh, and there were no roads in this park, just tracks in the dirt to follow, which made it the bumpiest ride of our life! Also, the Bolivians had about four tapes of this local pop music that they kept playing over and over again. By the end of the day, we knew all the words to all the songs and were singing along... I still can't get them out of my head!
That night our accomodation was in the park itself, essentially a lodge with no heating, no showers, no toilet paper or toilet seats and almost no electicity. We were all in one room (we think the Bolivians slept in the car) with one tiny lightbulb, which wad no switch. We were beyond freezing: we were all wearing every piece of cothing we had and were still cold! They served us dinner at 7:30 and then made us go to bed just after 8 p.m., and what could we do anyways in the dark? Also, we had to be up at dawn the next morning. Oh, and we got no drink with dinner once again and when we asked, they said to wait till the morning.
The next day was filled with more lakes, mountains, and a breathtaking valleys of rocks. In the afternoon we arrived in Uyuni, the town in Bolivia where we stayed the night. Uyuni was really small, but the women were all dressed in colourful traditional cothing and carried the babies around in cloths on their backs. It started to pour and eventually half the town was flooded, but we made it to the bus station (well, a room with a 17 year-old girl and a screaming baby selling bus tickets) to buy our ticket to La Paz, the Bolivian capital, for the next evening. We couldn't believe how cheap the bus was: $9US fr an 11 hour bus ride! We couldn't actually buy our own bus tickets because the banks were closed and we still didn't have any money, so the English girls lent us some cash. The next morning we set out for the final part of our three day tour, which was the trip to see the salt flats just outside the city. Essentially this is a natural area hundreds of kilometers long filled with salt. You can drive through the salt (which kind of looks like snow), walk on it, its amazing, but the pictures speak for themselves! Oh, and we were finally able to take money out of the bank: what a relief!!
That ended our tour and we left that night on the bus to La Paz. This bus was so bumpy (because it was night and there are no roads or street lights) that at times, we LITERALLY hit the ceiling. There were tons of people lying in the aisles and babies crying as well, which made it virtually impossible to sleep, despite the fact that this was an overnight bus.
So now we are in La Paz. Until next time....

love

Alice and Tova