Bolivia

We are now in Uyuni, Bolivia in a dark internet cafe, spending time as we are waiting for a train to Oruro which leaves at midnight... I will try to catch up from where I left with writing last time...So, from Cafayate we headed north to Salta - a city of beautful colonial building with streets swarmed with people...there we visited the most interesting and disturbing museum I think I've even been in...it was about Inca sacrifices of children, and on display were two of the real actual children found at the top of the highest peak near Salta (can't remeber the name now...), it was such a bizarre feeling to see these doll looking characters of actual real people of more than 500years old...the first child on 'display' was a 15year old girl who looked like she was sleeping away peacefully, where the next one had a frozen cry on her face with mouth wide open...I'm surprised I haven't had nightmares as I normally can't stomach anything like that...however, it was an interesting visit and just incredible to imagine a life so different from our that existed not so long ago...

From Salta we headed towards more small towns, firts stop being Purmamarca ' a town of 500 people hidden away in a valley of Humahuaca. The town lay surrounded by a hill called 'the hill of seven colours' - which tells it all, the hill had shades of green, red, orange, yellow...add a few more to make it seven and you have it! Such a beautiful wee setting for the town, where all the houses were built of bricks made of the very ground they stood on, thus blending into the nature perfectly. Here we were lucky enough to find a camp ground, which however turned out to cost almost as much as a hostel - go figure, but there's nothing quite like camping is there...well, with thunder closing in on the town we were thinking the hostel wouldn't have been such a silly choice...luckily it did just brush past and only after we had retired for the evening... the town was covered in craft shops and people selling scarves, gloves etc on the streets, and as we arrived there was a small concert of some sort on the plaza which was cool, though by the time we had sussed out the camp ground it has finished...

The next stop after Purmamarca was Tilacra, pretty much a clone of the first except in larger size. Very pretty and peaceful, and it also had the first campground with grass that we've witnessed in Argentina!! What luxury... Brett unfortunately got sick from possibly some salami that was a bit old he had for lunch...and we ended up just taking it easy not doing much but relaxing at the camsite - which actually was quite nice after being on the go for 3weeks.

The next morning we caught a bus to La Quiaca, a town which seems to exist only for the purpose of border crossing to and fro from Bolivia. Which was also the very reason we found ourselves there. As Brett was still recovering and there was really not much to do in this town of empty streets and closed down stores, we ended up spending a bit of time in our wee room with cabel tv...haha thats exactly what we came here to do right...but oh well, Blades of Glory along with other cheesy - the only type - of movies in English that were on offer...

Early saturday morning we once again lifted our packs on our backs and started our walk to Bolivia. Was such a weird feeling to be able to just walk down the road, cross a bridge and be in another country. At the border we had to actually ask to get our passports checked, it would have been just as easy to walk across without anyone blinking an eye. Also as we got to the side of Bolivia it was merely a quick stamp in the passport, no-one was interested in checking our bag or anything - which we cursed as being used to NZ border control we had left all our fruit behind...

After 7hours wait at the train station on Villazon we finally hopped on the train and started our shaky journey towards Uyuni. The scenery was beautiful with hills filled with cactuses, mountains far in the horizon and the occasional pack of llamas munching on nonexistent grass. We arrived to Uyuni at midnight - the same train that we are waitig to catch tonight up north- and visely for once had booked a hostel just across from the train station, to prevent a laborous walk around looking for a place in the middle of the night...yeah no.

The next morning as we walked out of the hsotel we were literally surrounded by people trying to get us to go on their tour of Salar de Uyuni - we had to just brush past from all of them as it was way too overwhelming...we took our time to go into travel agents and talking to people trying ti find the best company to go with - but in the end decided to go with the first company we talked to and eneded up getting a nice discount of 100B as they were desperate to fill the group. Before we knew it, we were crammed in a 4x4 heading towards the salt flats... and how to describe it...I think we will have to put up photos to speak for themselves, as the scenery was just indescribable...just something out of this world. Just whitness and complete flatness as far as your eye could see, and in the horizon everything looked as if it were not touching the ground but floating in the air, it was not untill we got closer when the reality of it all was visible.

The first night we were pleasantly surprised to stay in salt hotel - yes, everything was made of salt including the bed, tables etc...it was amazing. On the tour we had our own cook who prepared the meanest meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner - its the most we've eaten since been away!!

The second morning we had a wake up call at 6.30 to head towards laguna colorada where we would spend our next night. Along the way we visited an active volcano, which however has not erupted for over 400years. We were also lucky enough to see flamingoes in many of the lagoons that we visited along the way. The landscape was just amazing, and a feeling of being in the middle of nowhere like never before. The size of these countries is just so immense, its hard to grasp... We spent the second night in a veryvery basic accomodation with all of us on the tour in one room. The night was freezing and I found it cery hard to breathe with my nose blocked and being at the altitude of 4200m...the wake up call for the next mornig came at 4.30am...wow, that was hard. It was pitch black and freeeeeeezing!!! I would guess it was at least -5C, our snowboard jackets - which had annoyed us with their size and weight in the heat of Argetina - came in handy for sure.

The reason for the early wake up was to catch the sunrise by a site of gheysers (how to spell...) which was amazing - and even more amazing was the fact that you could actually walk rigfht up to the gheysers and touch the hot air coming out of them! There were people jumping through them, but I was only brave enough to warm my frozen fingers on the hot air. From the gheysers we headed to another lagoon, had a bath in natural hot pools and started our longlong journey back to Uyuni. We arrived back at 6pm, exhausted but happy. Had dinner with our co tourers, two British girls and a couple from Oz - and crashed into bed...

Hopefully we can catch a few winks in the train tonight, as we arrive to Oruro at 7am having to find our way to La Paz from there...there's a game of soccer on at the mo - Argetina vs Bolivia, and its getting a bit heated...lets hope for the best!!