Hi Everyone,
Because I had overstayed my welcome in Argentina I had to leave the country and re-enter in order to have another 3 months trouble free time here. Lots of friends had said that Bolivia was amazing with spectacular scenery. Salta is relatively close to the border so this seemed an obvious choice. The coach dropped me at the border town of Chiaca at 6.30 in the morning so I sleepily found a cafe that served my naraja sprimida and media lunas and gradually came too. No idea what I was doing but finally found my way to the border guards on the Argentinian side. Long queue waiting for customs to open at 8.00. As always you end up chatting in these queues and met 2 charming easy going guys from Chile who became my guardian angels. They helped interpret when I lost my way with the officials, helped me find the right coach company for the next leg of the journey and and checked when the bus left. I had the pleasure of giving the Argentinian government $300 for the pleasure of having mucked up on my visa. That´s about 60 pounds but at least it is done and I am now legal again. While we were waiting in the Entry to Bolivia office I was just reading the notices and was quite shocked to see one that basically said that children were not objects for sale. Trafficking across the border is common and later in a conversation with a lass in a tour company office we were talking about contraception and she said that people know about it but they just dont use it so they have 4 options. Keep the child, have it put up for adoption, sell it or chuck it on the rubbish heap for the dogs! I was shocked.
So I am now in Bolivia and have about half a day till my bus leaves. When I am finally on the coach I realize I am in for an interesting ride. It rattles and shakes like a real sharabang and hurtles along the dirt roads at high speed. As the night draws on it is also freezing cold. I fall into conversation with a lovely couple from Uruguay and we commiserate together. By now it is also raining. We arrive in Ayuni at 1.30 in the morning in the pouring rain to find a lot of the town is flooded. Luckily Eliana spotted a hostel so we just get out of the coach and ran for it. We don´t even undress but just fall into bed exhausted. This hostel did have hot showers but the electricity was very dodgy and apart from our bedroom the rest of the place seemed to be a permanent wind tunnel. This was our introduction to freezing cold Bolivia. Next morning Matias moves us to a slightly ungraded hostel at least with an ensuite bathroom.
Bolivia is very colourful. The women wear extraordinary bowler hats and and shawls of red, turquoise, pink, yellow. Skirts are voluminous with warm leggins underneath. However the people on first meeting are far less outgoing and generally seem timid and cautious about making contact. We realized quite quickly that having booked our 3 day excursion that we were going to need some warm clothes. So we bought local woolly hats, warm woolly leggins to go under our jeans, another alpaca jersey for me and a pair of gloves. I no longer cared if I looked like a Michelin man/woman.
Our excursion was in a 4 by 4 with 2 lasses from the Cech Republic, one delicious wild child from Australia, myself and the 2 Uruaguans. What Bolivia does so wonderfully is its natural beauty. The Salt plains were magical. Because there had been quite a lot of rain recently they were all under water. But you then had amazing reflections of snow capped mountains and volcanoes edging the area. People just played with crazy photographs of jumping groups, some having meals with picnic tables and so on .......... it reminded me of Lowry´s paintings. The lagoons we visited were all colours from green to red to turquoise. The red one also had flocks of flamingos feeding on it. We visited geisers that stank of bad eggs and drove through miles of desert. Rocks had landed at random from volcanic explosions making thousands of potential Japanese gardens. Most of the time we were driving off any known tracks, no signs just local knowledge. Our lunch time spot on one day allowed us to try a (very) hot water spring - amazing. The lagoon near by was yellow, green and pale red pastel colours. So strange but hauntingly beautiful. Bolivia also had wonderful areas of rocky outcrops that have been formed into extraordinary shapes by erosion. The only problem I had with this it that everyone wants to climb all over them and I just wanted to photograph rocks without bodies - hey ho the dilemma of successful tourism!
Two strange hostels - in one we froze to death - and the second one we only had 2 hours of light in the evening! I think I would describe Bolivia as much more primitive than Argentina. But I was still glad I went. Not least for meeting some lovely people - the wild child from Australia and Matias and Eliana from Uruguay. We also kept bumping into another excusion with 3 Brits in it who were great fun apart from poor things having ghastly altidude sickness. We were at just under 5,000 feet a lot of the time. Our carload seemed to escape any real effect except most of us had colds.
We all then went our seperate ways. Matias, Eliana and I had a farewell meal together. I feel we shall stay in touch. I don´t feel that about everyone I meet but these two were great. She´s a photographer and he´s an artist and they are very in love!!!
The coach was as bad returning to the border. The only improvement was that it didn´t rain. Someone told me today that 10 years ago most of the bus drivers in Bolivia drank as they drove and that there was a national strike when the government banned drink driving. There were moments on this road were I just shut my eyes as the drop was so precipitous but I am here to tell the tale.
I palled up with two Japanese lads who, like me going into Bolivia hadn´t a clue and spoke no Spanish at all. So my turn to be an angel and help them. Our bus back to Salta saw us changing at least 3 times. One was just on a stretch of road with buses lined up along the side and people sitting in groups all over the road, playing cards and having picnics. Go and Masa (2 Japanese) came back to my lovely hostel and were a huge success. Masa was so funny and had us all in stitches. One thing about travelling you do seem to meet the world without going everywhere.
Tomorrow I go to Tucuman, then on to Rosario where Mabel comes from (for those tango friends) and ending back in Buenos Aires to complete the circle around Argentina. If I can I shall go to Uruguay for a few days on a beach to completely veg out but who knows nothing is ever set in stone.
Loads of love as ever
Sal xxx
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