After spending nearly two and a half weeks in our apartment in Cochabamba it was time to say goodbye to the hotel staff, buffet breakfast, cooking for ourselves and what we wanted to eat, the great shower and of course the bathtub. Haven´t had one of those in a while.
We decided to take an overnight bus from Cochabamba to Sucre as we wanted to go an see some dinosaur footprints that had been left in the mud and then petrified. It was a 10 hour trip and we were booked to leave at eight. Just another bus ride in our opinion, we have done so many now that even the thought of a 16 hour flight isn´t daunting. Although you do get to see more on a bus than in a plane. The trip was uneventful apart from I knew the road we were going to be travelling on wasn´t asphalt but I didn´t expect it to be cobbled. I thought it would only be the first bit out of town but after staring out of the window for a few hours, I realised it was still cobbled. When I woke in the night and the morning it was still cobbled. I thought this was crazy, the road was about eight meters wide and we must have averaged about 40 miles an hour for 10 hours. That is a crazy cobbled road for four hundred miles or more. It must have taken ages to build.
Anyway enough of my ranting about cobbled roads, we eventually arrived in Sucre at 6.30am, late as usual, we jumped into a taxi and made our way to the apartment we had booked the day before. We were met at the apartment by Ruth, a lovely lady who looked after things. We had booked with the owner who had forgotten to tell us that the whole hotel was being renovated and the place was covered in dust. Ruth was apologetic about it all and the room was clean enough so we went with it. It had a kitchen, lounge and our own bathroom so we were happy. It was only 6 pounds 66 pence so who cares. We got some food for breakfast and lunch and decided to eat out in the evening, after this little chore we set about finding ourselves a guide as we wanted to explore the surrounding area for three days and organise our own trek so we could see what we wanted at our own pace. This proved to be tricky as it was already Saturday afternoon and a lot of agencies and museums were closed. We gave up and went for a drink. After reading the guide book it seemed that Sunday in Sucre is worse than Saturday and would be a non starter. We looked for things to do on Sunday and basically we could only visit a few churches or the dinosaur park. We opted for the park.
Sunday morning came and the bus from the center to the park left at 9.30am. We arrived early, as we weren´t sure, and sat in the plaza. After 45 minutes of chatting with the shoeshine boys and a local man about where we were from and doing, as best we could in our Sapnish, a geography lesson about Europe and England with the children, our bus arrived.
We were the only English, the rest of the 30 people on the bus, apart from an Italian, who lived in Mexico, were Bolivian. One lady, from Cochabamba, spoke good English and told us all about herself and her family. She also claimed Bolivia as hers, we didn´t even ask to speak with her, she offered all the information freely. Back to the point, dinosaurs. We arrived, paid more because we are gringos, paid for the right to take photo´s and went in. Immediately we were ushered into the Audio Visual Room. Ooooooohhhh. What do we find in there but a BBC documentary on “Walking with Dinosaurs”. Knowing Bolivia, probably a copy. Sitting down we thought we would get to watch all of it but it turned out that it was only to familiarise people with what a dinosaur is. After we had seen a few and heard a few names, the DVD was stopped and then we were ushered out. I asked the guide what was going on and he confirmed that the movie was to show you what dinosaurs are. I guess they do not teach that in schools in Bolivia.
As we were gringo´s and only spoke a little Spanish we ended up with our own English speaking guide for free, that´s nice. She was great at her job and had a real passion for anything Cretaceous, Jurassic and so on. After explaining what it was all about she left us to our own devices to explore on our own. We looked around all the life size models of dino´s, based on the largest skeletons ever found of their species. All pretty impressive. I wouldn´t like to be in the way of a 40 meter long Diplodocus. Or any other dinosaur for that matter.
We then went to look at the “Highlight” of the park. Let me explain. The park is part of a cement factory, in 1985, while mining for lime they uncovered some strange tracks. After more investigation and more excavation the found the worlds biggest site of dinosaur tracks. Over 5000 teacks from 400 species. Unfortunately, due to the new park you can no longer go right up the tracks and have to be content with looking at them through binoculars. Not quite as impressive. We found out later that the whole limestone face is going to be covered in latex, to protect the footprints. As you can imagine, 23 years of rain, wind and erosion have taken their toll on the prints. We saw photographs of the face in 1990 and then in 1998, the difference was outstanding. It is a mean feat to cover the face in latex as it must be about 100 Meters high and about 500 Meters long. They estimate it will take about three years to complete and plan to start this year. Once it is complete they will start to take groups of people back up the face to see the prints in detail, so if you go in about 10 years time, it might be complete (Bolivian Time )
Monday!!!!!, in Sucre. At last something was open and it was time to find a guide. We investigated a few agencies, but they didn´t want to help or deviate from their standard trip. It was time for new tactics. We had read about a guy on the internet and decided to give him a call. We got through, met up, went with him to his mates house so he could help us translate through English to Spanish, agreed the price, route and date of departure. We were all set and it was easy, we would be leaving the next day. We got some supplies, had a fairly routine day and were ready at the meeting point at 8.00am the next day.
Freddy turned up in his Jeep, with Alex the translator and informed us that we would be having another guy join us for the trek. We explained that as long as we were walking the route we had agreed, we didn´t mind. We met out guide and our new trekking companion, Steijn, from Holland, jumped in the jeep and set off for our first destination, a small church where local people have a stone dressed up as Mary in a small church on top of a hill. The place is Chataquila.
After here we stopped a little further up the hill to start our walk to two sets of rock paintings, I can´t remember the names of them, read your Lonely Planet. After an hour of walking we reached the first set of paintings. The ticket man rushed up to us and took us on a little scramble and climb to get to them, where he then unlocked the gate. Not overly impressive but a thousand, or so, years old. Difficult to photograph, I´m surprised it was allowed, as it was dark and the flash did nothing for the photo. After descending, it was on to the next set of paintings. About the same age but much more impressive. Painted on a huge overhanging rock. Me an Steijn laughed as we went in, the sign by the entrance had some do`s and don’t´s on it. You were allowed to light fires, for obvious reasons, but you were also not allowed to have or use fire extinguishers. That means if there was a fire, you couldn´t put it out. I know it doesn´t translate very well in text but it was funny at the time.
After more photo´s and a brief stop it was time to walk out. The walk out took about three and a half hours, plus a stop for lunch. Freddy was meeting us by a bridge down in the valley, ready to take us onto our accommodation for the night. We met him about 3.30pm, stopped a couple of time for Clare to be sick. I can see a habit forming. We trek and Clare is sick. In all fairness she was sick a few times and looked very pale. Better out than in.
We arrived in Potolo at about 5.00pm. Out guide, Pablo, went and found the keeper of the Cabana´s. We were staying in these for the night. Potolo is a small community of 300 people who decided to embrace tourism. They got together with community money and built some fantastic cabana´s, with electricity, hot showers, good beds, kitchens. The works. Just like a small apartment. The only small problem is that no-one has helped them with marketing and agencies in Sucre only want to do standard tours, none of which cater for the serious trekker. Only Solarsa Tours, who rarely use the cabana´s.
We settled in, went for a walk and then negotiated with the local “Restaurant” for a meal and breakfast the next morning. Clare still wasn´t feeling great and opted out for food. She went for Coca Tea, which she threw up outside the restaurant about a half hour later. We laughed afterwards and though it must have been a great advert for the restaurant. People coming to eat while Clare runs out and proptly throws up. Mmmmmmm, come and eat here!!!!!. When I say reastuarant, I use the term loosely. Basically a woman cooking on a hot plate, three standard meals. All with rice, what else!!!!! Chiken, Salchicha ( like a sausage, but not as we know it ) or egg. You can´t have mineral water, as no locals can afford to buy it. Just coke, not real coke either another local brew and beer. The place could hold about 10 people on three tables and you could watch DVD´s, I´m sure this one of the only places of entertainment in the village, judging by the people stood outside just watching “shaolin football 3”. Ooohhh it was bad and dubbed in Spanish. Me and Clare left Pablo and Steijn to watch the movie and go in for a second course as Clare was feeling lousy, we paid and left for our lovely room in the Cabana.
Clare was shivering a freezing, it was cold but she was sick. She jumped into bed with all her clothes and extra duvets to try and get warm, still feeling sick. I went to my rucksack and as I moved it, there it was, my worst nightmare. A huge black hairy spider crawling across the wall. I froze and when I had got myself back together I asked Clare, yes my sick girlfriend, if she could get rid of it. I know she didn´t want to do it, as she was feeling shit, but she agreed and hoofed the ugly brute out of the window, in a cup fashioned from a bottle with the aid of the mighty Swiss Army Knife. I know she was feeling crap and the last thing she wanted to do was get out of bed and get rid of the spider that her pansy boyfriend couldn´t cope with but she did and I was eternally grateful. She did say that I owed her big time and I´m sure she will pull that out on me sometime in the future.
Spider gone, rested and up at 7.00am, it was time for breakfast, back at the “restaurant” and then of to trek to the dinosaur footprints at Nińu Mayu. This time we would be able to get right up to them. We set of Potolo at around 9.30am after packing and sorting out shit out. What more can I say about the trek other than it was up, then down, then up, then down. We passed a few local people on the way, some animals but not much else apart from amazingly diverse scenery and geography. Unlike anything I have quite seen before. The sun was extremely hot, we were about 3000M A.S.L. and having drunk a fair amount of water we were all running low. Pablo asked a few locals and they said there was a shop in the next village. We arrived there only to find that the owner had the key with him and he wouldn´t be back until 3.30pm. We decided to try the school.
Pablo talked with the teachers and she said it would be OK for us to fill our bottles from the sink. It was a really strange experience. We started to fill our bottles and sterilise the water with the Steripen. All the time we were at the school, nearly all of the school children were just stood around staring at us. We tried to interact but they were all silent. If we got too close to them they would schreech and run away, all shy and laughing. Not one of them would interact. Nearly the whole school was around us, about 80 children. We carried on filling up water. After a while, one of the teachers came out and talked with us, asking questions about us and we returned the questioning with her about the kids and the school. We were probably there for 40 minutes or so and left to carry on with our walk to the footprints. As we left the school, the kids followed us to see where we were going, we said goodbye but still none of them acknowledged us. There was no malice in it all, it was just very strange.
With water bottles full we carried on with the up and down. Steijn was getting tired and the sun was taking it´s toll. We were walking up a slope when two local women approached us and wanted to sell us flint arrow heads. We had heard you could find these on the trail as well as Obsidian. Steijn negotiated the price to 6 Bolivianos ( about 40 pence ), they agreed and he handed over the money. When they had the money, they wanted to give a different, smaller arrow head, to what they had negotiated on. Steijn´s Spanish was good and he talked with the women. They weren´t budging, so he took his money back. Agree a price on one thing and then get another. Like paying for a truck and getting a mini.
Just before we had met these women, we had stopped to look at the climb ahead. I looked down and spotted a 2cm cube of raw Obsidian. It looks like tar block in it´s raw form. Naturally I picked it up and gave it Clare, who is now carrying it until we post the next box of goodies home. Give things to your girlfriend and then she can carry them. Good idea I thought.
After a few more hours of trekking and lunch we came across a group of people who were separating wheat from chaff. We stopped to watch this spectacle as it was crazy. Basically they had two huge piles of wheat and chaff. They stood on a hillside and then threw some of the mixture into the air with their hands, they waited for the wind as this was their tool. The wind blew the chaff into the background, while the wheat, being heavier than the chaff, fell to the ground in front of them. One of the mens wives, mothers then swept the chaff up with her brush, which was basically just a branch of a local bush. It was fantastic to watch but if there was no wind then the task could not be performed. I am annoyed that I didn´t get any photo´s of this as it was great to watch, like going back a few hundred years. Pablo traded coca leave with them in exchange for some toasted wheat. We left and headed for the footprints.
The footprints were a lot more impressive than we anticipated. There were two sets, a Diplodocus and another three toed carnivorous animal. Taking photo´s was tricky as the sun was in our eyes and they don´t do the prints justice. We stopped for only a short while as time was getting on and we still had another couple of hours to get to our next bed. We would get there after dark.
We arrived at around 7.30pm for our next bed in Irupampa, in the Maragua crater. Pablo made food, we ate, tended to Steijn blisters and went to bed for the night, ready for our next days trekking. It had taken us 11 hours to get from Potlo to Irupampa. Good job the next days trakking was only 5 hours from Irupampa to Quila Quila, where our driver would be waiting to take us back to Sucre as we were leaving the next day.
Our last days trekking was uneventful, apart from the usual great scenery and heat from the sun. We arrived back in Sucre at 4.00pm and agreed to meet for dinner. After some food in the Dutch Café, with Steijn, and a few drink we retired about midnight as we were leaving for Potosi the next day. If you want to organise your own transport and guide in Sucre then you call these people. FreddyMuńoz, Telephone 64-37358, Mobile 76128546 / 73400052 / 73425012, Email p_e_t_e@hotmail.com or Pablo Avila Cruz, Mobile 77117245, Email pablito_guiaturismo77@hotmail.com
We arrived in Potosi early in the afternoon, checked in and went out for some exploration. It didn´t take long as Potosi is not very big. Ate some food and retired. Unfortunatly our hotel room was opposite a local café with local traditional music. It was loud and continued on to two in the morning. Having not slept well for the past few nights and again not tonight we decided to check out and find another hotel. Saturday morning I was on it. I checked us into the Hotel San Antonio with Tico, the friendly owner.
We returned to the hotel on Saturday afternoon and Tico asked us what we had planned for the day and the rest of our stay. We explained we were going to visit the mines and maybe the thermal springs. He explained that he was going to the thermal springs with his son this afternoon and if we wanted to we could join him. We agreed but didn´t realise he meant that he was going to the springs with his whole family. It all turned out to be fine, as Tico and his family were very friendly, we had a good time in the hot water and the family company was great. Tico was also a fan of 60`s and 70´s English roack bands so we had many loud tunes to sing along and listen to on the way there and back.
Monday came and it was time to visit the mines. We had been given a recommendation from the lovely Flo, who we had volunteered with in Huaraz Peru, so we went with Willy from Marco Polo Tours. If you want a great guide and time in the mines then go with Willy. He is an ex miner from generations of miners and his contact details are Wilfredo Bracamonte, Address Calle Bustillos 1036, Telephone 62-31385, Mobile 72426378 / 72421079, Email wilyguide@hotmail.com or marcopoloagency@hotmail.com
This is Wily exploding dynamite for us, or preparing it for explosion otherwise the picture would be very messy.
We left in a bus with a French family and a Canadian woman. First stop was the miners market to buy some dynamite, coca leaves, alcohol and fizzy pop. Necessities for all miners. Then to Willy´s store where we were kitted out with wellies, overtrousers, jackets, hard hats and lights with battery packs. Back into the van for our trip up to the mines entrance.
The entrance to the mine was covered in Llama blood from a festival held a few weeks earlier. Lights on and then into the dark hole, that these people call the entrance to the mine. Our first stop in the mine was at a statue of the Devil ( Diablo ), the miners never say the name devil ( Diablo ) they prefer to use Tio ( Uncle ). As with all places we have been to in South America there are the sacred areas of the upperworld ( Heaven ), the middleworld ( Earth ) and the underworld ( the place beneath the earth ). Tio is the keeper of the underworld. All miners pay their respects to Tio on a regular basis to ask that their haul of minerals be good and plentiful and their work be safe. They say prayers, offer coca leaves, alcohol and cigarettes to him. He also had llama blood splattered on the wall behind him from the festival.
We continued on into the mine and after stepping aside for mineral trucks going in and out we came across a miner who we sat and spoke with. Don Carlos had spent the last two weeks forging into a new mineral belt within the mine, blasting dynamite, laying tracks for the carts and generally hauling useless, profitless rock out of the holes he had made. This meant he had not been paid for anything in the last two weeks as he had not mined any useful ore. We chatted for a while, took some photo´s, left him some dynamite, fizzy drink etc and continued on. We explored different areas of the mine, Willy explained about the mining, the rituals, his own life in the mine and the lives of the men still working there.
It only seemed like a an hour had passed when Willy said it was time to turn around and head back out but after checking my watch I realised we had been in there for nearly three hours. Time flies when your having fun. It was good to get back out in the air. The mines are full of sulphur, asbestos, silica and other nasties. No wonder most men working in the mines develop silicosis of the lungs within 15 years and die, if they are not hurt or killed in the mines beforehand. It is harsh in the mines. Basically the government used to own all of the mines in Potosi until they closed them in 1985. There was a worldwide recession which deemed the mines to be unprofitable due to the value of their content. This was about the same time all of the coal mines were closed in England and the miners went on strike. Up until this time the conditions in the mines were good. Good pay, good machinery, good working conditions, SAFE!!!!!!.
After the mines were closed some of the miners had no other trade so decided to carry on working in the mines and set up co-operative companies to share the profits. Having no money to invest into their companies they started with basic systems, which they still use today. It is basically the same as any company. The person who owns the co-operative gets rich for the least amount of work, while the workers struggle to make a living. The owner makes about 2000 dollars a month, the miner makes 200 dollars a month. The guys pushing the ore in and out make about 100 dollars a month. Out of this they have to buy everything. Tools, clothing, food for families, healthcare, dynamite, cocoa etc……….. It is a very hard life but all the miners we met were extremely proud and happy in their work. They use no real machinery, even the holes for the dynamite are made by hammer and chisel as to rent a drill would be expensive even though it would take a quarter of the time.
After a quick dynamite explosion at the mine, back to the store to get changed and then back to Potosi for our vist to the Casa de Moneda ( House of Money ) in the afternoon. The Casa de Moneda is an old mint used for making silver coins. The Spanairds conquered Potosi in the late 15th century when they invaded the rest of South America. They discovered silver and tin in the hill where the miners still work. The grade of silver was the best in the world at the time and the hill was full of it. In these times the amount of silver to other minerals was about 90% silver, today it is less than 1%. It is said that in the 40 or so years that the Spanairds took silver from Bolivia and transported it to Spain, there would have been enough silver to build a bridge between the two countries. That is a hell of a lot of silver. Where has it all gone!!!!!!!
The Casa de Moneda is one of the best preserved museums I have been to in a long time both for it´s content and it´s architecture. The problem with it though is that each room is unlocked and then locked as you go round on the guided tour, and you have to go on the guided tour. The other problem is the guide seems to have learnt the whole tour in English from a textbook and rabbles on at a hundred miles an hour, quoting a million dates, facts and figures. In the end we both switched off. It is like he is put on charge overnight to make sure the battery is full, press play, point him in the right direction, press play and let him go. It definitely ruined it but it is the only way you can get inside the building.
Rant, rant, rant, rant, blah, blah, blah, blah, off to Uyuni. Lets get out of Bolivia we have had enough. Bring on Chile
Arrive in Uyuni at 7.00pm and it is freezing. Brrrrrrr. Check in to the hotel to find someone else has our room, we have no heating as they said we would. Not too much of a problem but why lie. Go out for some food and meet Daisy and Sibbs on the way, we met them on the Casa de Moneda tour. They are trying to find a tour to the Salar de Uyuni with three irish people haggling about 10 quid. Painful. We find out they are going to the same restaurant so we say we will see them there.
Minuteman pizza, located in the Tonito Hotel was recommended to us by one of our neighbours, Pip, from two doors down. We sat down and ate and then Sibbs and Daisy arrived with a proposition for us to join them on their tour. It seems that the irish were a bit tight and couldn´t get past the 10 quid extra. We had thought about going with them when we were in Potosi, so we instantly said yes. We would be leaving on the tour the next morning, which was good because Uyuni is small and any more time in that place would have driven us mad. We arranged to meet at 8.00am to pay and sort things out and then leave around 11.00am.
We left Uyuni at 11.00am with Sibbs, Daisy, two more Belgians to make our group six (Hilda & Stef, our English speaking Guide Oscar and our driver Rover, or Grover, that´s what it sounded like anyway.)
First stop was the train graveyard, loads of British built steam trains left over from mining, after the bottom fell out of it in Uyuni. Most of them have been robbed of what ever useful steel is availiable. Back in the jeep and off to the salt flats, some pile of salt and the Island of fish for the main event before lunch. What can I say, the salt flats are unlike anywhere I have ever been on earth. Oscar explained all about the life and culture as we went. We visited a salt refinerery. When I say refinery I use the term loosely as the salt is dug up, heated on metal plates to remove impurities and then mixed with iodine to purify it. Unfortunately this all takes place in a salt house and is very basic so the refined salt doesn´t meet international standards so the salt cannot be sold anywhere else other than in Bolivia. Ironic, that Bolivia has the worlds largest salt flat but doesn´t have the money or resources to sell it to an international market.
We stopped in the middle of the salt flats to take lots of silly photographs using the infinite white expanse to alter the perspective. So much fun we all agreed we could have spent a lot longer messing around with objects and cameras. We left here and went on to the Isla de Pescado ( Island of fish ). On the way we passed some crosses, on the salt flat, where people had died in car accidents. We also passed the sight of the most recent that had happened about two weeks before we arrived. There was a cross and all of the white salts were coloured black, where there had obviously been a fire. Thre tourists had died in this crash. I wondered how you could hit a another vehicle in this expanse of space but as the circuit can be done both ways rounds it seems like two drivers were playing chicken with each other as they were racing towards each other. Stupid , stupid, stupid.
The Isla de Pescado was impressive. An island stuck in a white expanse with petrified coral as the whole salt lake used to be a sea, many years ago. Full of huge male and female cactus that grow at 1m per year and loads of petrified coral. The ascent was only 80 meters but seeing as we were nearly at 4000M already, it took our breath away. Just enough time at the top for and explanation from Oscar, a few piccies and then down to the salt flat for lunch at the edge of the island.
After lunch it was back in the jeep for our trip to the next and last stop of the day before we got to our accomodation in San Juan. We travelled for a while and then stopped outside the edge of a salt flat at a small hill. This hill contained two caves, one was an old burial site from a few thousand years ago and the other one was a very wierd place. The galaxy cave was full of pertified sea algae, it felt like it was straight out of Alien. A strange but fantastic place. The sun was setting so onto San Juan, our bed and dinner place for the night. Cold but not too cold. The sky was fantastic at 4000 meters, so many stars that I couldn´t find the normal constellations I can normally see as they were swamped by thousands of stars. A great view of the milky way though.
After a good nights sleep and breakfast we were off on the second day of our tour. Today would be filled with landscapes and lakes from Star Trek. We started our day in the jeep with all of us having freezing cold feet. I can´t really remeber what we saw in this second day as there was lots of driving, wierd lanscapes, flamingos, the rock tree, lakes and deserts. There I managed more than I thought. Our last stop was laguna colorado, a red coloured lake near to the refugio where we would be spending our second and colder night. We arrived, unloaded our gear , had tea and biscuits and waited for food. In the cold. Luckily everyone in our group knew the cardgame “shithead”, so we settled in for a few games before dinner and bed. There was also a shop at the refugio so we had a few beers. Dinner was a bit raw and everyone forgot the vegetarians, Oscar then redeemed himslef by producing a bottle of wine for us all, which wasn´t too bad. At the ungodly hour of 9.30pm ( mountain time ) we all retired as we were off to the geyser field the next morning for sunrise and would be woken up at 5.30am.
After a cold night in the refugio we were woken up at the time said and proceeded to pack our stuff. Clare picked up the bottle of sprite next to the bed only to find out it had frozen solid in the night, all two litres of it. We found out later, from Oscar, that the temperature in the night had been minus 25 degrees centigrade. Good job we had our super high tech sleeping bags. Back in the jeep, more cold feet and off to the geyser field. We arrived at sunrise and jumped out to view the smoking ground and bubbling mud. It was strange to see ice next to and on top of mud that was bubbling at 250 degrees celcius. The wind was bitter and we were all freezing. It was an amazing sight though. I can safely say that the whole trip, takes you through wierd and wonderful landscapes that are literally out of this world and unlike anything I have ever experienced before. It is all volcanic, there are volcanic rocks everywhere, the deserts are volcanic and with the amount of volcanic peaks you know that bubbling molten rock is not far below the surface. This theory is confirmed when you visit the geyser field.
Back in the jeep and even colder than before we were all glad that our next stop was a thermal bath, where we could all slip into our swim stuff and get into 35 degrees worth of water to warm the parts we could no longer feel. This was also our stop for breakfast. We arrived and slipped into our swimwear. Nice getting changed in the open air at a temperature below freezing but well worth it when we got in. The parts of our bodies that were cold burnt at first but soon the feeling was back in our fingers and toes. After a relaxing half hour soak it was time to get out for pancakes and tea for breakfast. Probably the best breakfast we´ve had so far. Then back in the jeep to head for the last stop, for us at least, Laguna Verde before we headed for the Chilean Border, our exit point from Bolivia.
The lake was, as we expected, greenish. We didn´t have long here as me and Clare had to get to the border crossing to meet our connection for San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. We left swift with our companions and headed to the border. It was the remotest border crossing we have done. Just a hut in the middle of the desert. We thanked our guide and driver and said farewell to the rest of our group. Just for the record we had a load of fun with all of you and couldn´t have wished for a better group. We hope you are all having fun.
The jeep we had been using had broken a belt a few hours earlier and Grover ( I wish I knew how to spell and say his name properly ) had made a new one with a strip of tyre that had managed to get us to the border. The rest of the group changed jeeps and we said farewell and they went on their way back to Uyuni. We boarded a posh Mercedes bus and went on our way to Chile, after checking out of Bolivia. The bus driver told us what we could and couldn´t bring into Chile and gave us alll the forms for immigration, which he drove us to, no more than two hundred meters from the border we hit our first asphalt road in ages. The difference was amazing between the two countries. I can only say it was a bit like going from the 18th century to the 20th centruy in England in about 10 minutes. We arrived at the office about forty minutes later and proceeded to go through the most thourough checkpoint we have been to so far. They opened everything, looked through and asked questions. It was all very friendly and funny to hear the customs officer say to Clare that he could understand the American next to her but couldn´t understand a word she was saying. He then proceeded to tell her she looked and sounded like Liz Hurley, charmers!!!!!!.
The first thing we noticed about Chile, or this part, after looking for a hotel for a while was this. It was bloody expensive for what you get. We found and old shed to sleep in and went out for lunch. Twenty quid later, how much!, we decided to get into Argentina ASAP. The only real things we wanted to do here was look at the night sky with an astronomer and go sandboarding. We booked in for the night sky tour and went to find a bus out of the Atacama desert. The driest place on earth. To our horror all the seats to Salta, Argentina, on Tuesady were booked and the next bus was a week away. What the hell were we going to do. A week in San Pedro would be expensive and there is not much to do in gringo central. We looked for an alternative and that seemed to be, go to Santiago on a 24 hour bus and then go to Argentina. We went for it.
The night sky tour the next day was great, highly recommended. If you want to go then take a look at ADDD LINKKKKKKKK. The guides were informative and funny, they have loads of telescopes so you can look at different galaxies, stars, planets etc, all the usual stuff in the night sky. We saw Jupiter, learnt some constellations, dying stars, Toucan 47, the sobrero galaxy and many other things. For someone like me, who bought their own telescope as a kid and spent many nights freezing in the garden watching stars and the moon, it was GREAT, GREAT, GREAT. For more information log onto http://www.spaceobs.com/
Jupiter, through the telescope. A bit blurry but it is over 300 million miles away when it is in it´s closest orbit ot earth.
Next day, check out and get ready for 24 hours on the bus to Santiago. Fairly uneventful apart from at one stop around 7.00pm in the evening we were joined by 14 sixteen year olds and two teachers from England on a World Challenge trip of Chile for four weeks. Lets just say that they needed a hygiene lesson as a lot of them had BO and smelly feet. The bus drivers and conductor didn´t know what had hit them as the whole coach filled with stench. It was funny watching the driver come through spraying the areas around them to help the other passenger breath, namely us as we were in the thick of it. Then the conductor came round and asked them all to put their shoes back on. They did but after he had left simply slipped them off again and the lovely fragrance of smelly feet filled the air. The best thing was that he came back four times to check and if he found some teenages feet with no shoes he ordered them to put them back on. If they were asleep, he woke them. We were eternally grateful to him as we sat there resting without our shoes on, noses tiger balmed to the hilt to avoid the worst of the smell.
Santiago came into view around 1.30pm and we were grateful. Time had passed quickly and we had got a fair amount of sleep so the journey wasn´t too bad. We left the bus, jumped in a taxi and headed for our new apartment we had organised. HOTEL VEGAS, sounds posh doesn´t it, and it was. We decided to book an apartment as it was only a few pounds more than a double room and we could cook to save money. So far it has worked out well and we have broken even on our budget. We have also been able to go to the supermarket, buy, cook and eat what we want to, which has been great.
As you can see from me in the kitchen of the apartment, we are really slumming it
We haven´t done too much in Santiago, visited a few museums and parks, very civilised. Written this blog and updated the website. Tomorrow, Sunday, we are on another bus heading for Mendoza in Argentina where we hope to try and go snowboarding for a week. I am hoping not to break anything if we do as some of you will know my track record with snowboarding is not great. Clare says third strike and I´m out.
That´s about it for now. We have about five weeks to cross Agentina and Uraguay before we get to Buenos Aires in early September. Then we are off to the states for three weeks work, a brief 5 day stop in Los Angeles on the beach before we head to New Zealand and our campervan. Bring on some English speaking people and warmer weather.
Hope you are all well and having fun where ever you are.
All our love
Jason & Clare XXXX
