Catch up.

So much to write. So many adventures. Too little time.

I´ll work forward.

Bolivia: Oruro to Uyuni

We should have listened to the guide book. It said not to take the bus from Oruro to Uyuni, but we didn´t think to check the train schedule before leaving Cochabamba. Bad idea. The only seats left on the train were third class of the second class train. We decided to take the bus, it had to be better, right? Probably not, I´m sure the train wouldn´t have had a flat tire, forded 4 large rivers, backed up a half dozen times, drove through a few farmers fields, tried to help another bus that was suck (that took an hour, and it didn´t get unstuck), all equalling a 7 hour ride turned into 12. Oh, and Joel and I booked seats at the very back, where instead of the usual four seats (two each side of the aisle), there were five. The bus had an extra seat placed in the middle, which wasn´t the size of a regular seat (much smaller). Of course it had to be the smelliest (manure - gross), largest old man ever. I tried to protect my bubble by holding my elbows out so he got a jab in the kidneys every bump (note that Bolivian roads are actually a series of potholes). He then tried to get even by pretending to fall asleep - half on me. Soooo uncomfortable. I´m trying to purge my mind of this bus ride, but I´m still haunted. Anyways, lets never speak of this again.

Salar de Uyuni and Lagunas Tour

I looooveeeddd the 4x4 tour! See pictures on Facebook. And this is a small number of them, I think Joel took 500 or so photos. The tour cost $70 each, for 48 hours (3 days, two nights) of travel, food (some questionable) and accomidations (also questionable). We were told that our tour guide would speak English (he didn´t) and it would be a newish silver Landcruiser (definately wasn´t). But Pedro, our guide, ended up being a rad Bolivian guy with a great sense of humor, who spoke slow enough Spanish that Joel and I could understand. When we didn´t catch what he said one of the 4 other people in our vehicle (all multi-lingual) would translate. We ended up with a great group, two other couples, one Swiss pair, and an Argentinian-Swiss couple. Everyone was up for exploring, chasing llamas, climbing rocks, and playing cards at night. We couldn´t have asked for a better group.

I have a hard time putting into words what we saw. The first day was the Salt Flats, thousands of hectares of a dried up inland sea covered in salt. It´s the rainy season right now, so most of it´s submursed, but we were able to see parts of it. The water creates a perfect reflection for the snow capped mountains and dazzles the eyes with the suns rays. We had a fun time playing with optical illusion shots, with people being big and small since the land is perfectly flat and no vegetation. But it hurt to walk on! Like I said, the ground is covered salt, which are crystal forms. It was like walking on little shards of glass. And our legs were covered in dried salt after. *yum*

Next was the laguna tours, we visited 5 or 6. They´re all very different from each other due to different chemical or biotic make ups. On is borax, another is red coloured planton (that the flamingos eat, making them pink), and some other stuff that I can´t remember. There was one lagoon with hundreds of thousands of flamingos, which made me very very happy (and Joel´s photography happy).

Chile

The trip had the option of hopping over the border to Chile at San Pedro de Atacama. Us and another couple chose this route...what a culture shock, and budget shock! Everything was the same price as Canada, cars stopped at intersections, the baños were relatively clean. We caught the bus the next day for Santiago, 24 hours. That bus ride was mostly pleasent, as pleasent as 24 hours on a bus can be, really. The seats reclined almost the whole way, and were huge and cushy. They showed videos, in Spanish, with Spanish subtitles. Oh well. I still think I caught most of Shrek 3.

Then we spent 2 nights in Santiago in a rambling old mansion. We went on a mission to find Nalgene water bottles (we brought 3 down and lost all of them *grrr*) and English books. However, Chile has a 19% tax on books (lame) so 2 cost us over $50. We tried to find white gas for our stove, but mission unsuccessful. No one seems to know where to find it down here (Craig! Help!) I don´t know what we´ll do if we don´t find any.

So now we are in a little surf town called Pichilemu. But we haven´t surfed yet due to sunburns, but for once it´s not me! Joel crisped himself quite nicely yesterday on the beach. I remembered my sunscrean, Joel didn´t. We hope to get out on the water tomorrow, but a sunburn and rubbing wetsuit don´t match well. We are camping at a little campground, well, really a woman´s yard. She takes her role as a hostess very seriously and boils me water for tea (no stove, remember). It´s very cute.

Sorry for the novel. That´s all for now.