Bolivia. Wow.

Okay a lot to catch up on, using the free computer in the hostel dining room while everyone else is eating their free breakfast (coffee and bread as per usual down here).

The jeep safari (actually a Toyota 4-Runner safari to be exact) through the Bolivian desert was amazing. 3 days, 2 nights, all meals covered, the jeep and very very rustic accomodation in the desert came to about $160 per person. It fills out the top three highlights of my trip so far (with working at the winery at number 1 and Patagonia at number 2). There were 3 cars with six people per car plus the driver. We stayed together, in a caravan of sorts, with the drivers at times trying to race each other and taking different off road routes trying to beat the others to whatever was our next destination.

In my jeep were Yvonne and Ian (the two I have been traveling with since Mendoza), Lucy and Pete (a couple who got married a year ago and for their honeymoon are traveling the world and had met Yvonne and Dan back in Nepal, hiking Everest), and rounding out the sixsome was Victor, a Chilean who is currently living in Australia but back visiting his homeland. Victor is an agronomist by education, has been a beekeeper, mountaineer tour guide, semi professional snowboarder, trained cook, has worked on an Aussie winery, yoga enthusiast, current bike mechanic and a vegetarian. Clearly we had a lot to talk about and became immediate pals for the trip. The other 2 jeeps were full of 20-somethings from all over the world: Australia, Germany, Belgium, Mexico, the UK, NYC (two really fun girls who had just graduated from NYU and were traveling for 3 weeks before starting their jobs. I told them to resist as long as the could, forget corporate America!).

After stopping through Bolivian immigration about an hour outside of San Pedro (the adobe border town with ridiculous tourist prices and where I got sick on myself), getting breakfast of bread, cheese, jam and instant coffee, I learned that because I am American, I would have to pay $135 for a visa upon arrival in Uyuni, our destination town. Fine. Damn American foreign policy, you suck. No other nationality has to pay this visa. A drop in the bucket though, when considering my whole trip down here, eh?

The first day was spent stopping at different colored lagoons, volcanoes (some still active and smoking), some geysers and a hot spring, where we all jumped into the not too hot water and stared at the Andes and surrounding desert for about 30 minutes. Not a bad start to the trip. We ended the first day relatively early, around 3, at what might be the most basic ´hostel´I have ever stayed at. No hot water or heat or electrical outlets, and we're in the middle of the desert where the temperatures dropped to below freezing at night. Dinner was around (spaghetti, soup, bread) and by 9 I was bored of the card games (seeing as we weren't drinking because of the altitude) and called it a night. We rented sleeping bags to go under the 2 blankets provided on the beds, and slept in all our clothes. Thankfully my nausea had passed (I made sure to stock up on coca leaves and coca candy to prevent any more altitiude sickness) but I did suffer from rapid heart beating and shortness of breath throughout the night, and kept having to take long deep breaths through my nose and out my mouth as Pete had instructed (he having hiked part of Everest). The next morning many people were sick with headaches and nausea but luckily my worst of it had passed in San Pedro.

We were in the jeeps by 8am and off to the Red Lagoon, full of flamingoes, surrounded by mountains, and full of color. Some of my best pics are from this morning, with the early rising sun reflected off the red water. I pretty much ignored the flamingoes I was so taken with the red water. The landscape this day (Siloli Desert) was breathtakig and drastically different every few hours. Dali had apprently traveled through back in his day and the melting clocks painting was inspired by one particular area, desert dotted with various rocks. Side note: By this time people had started doing certain poses in front of each place, rather than the standard smile in front of the mountain to show I was here picture. There were Karate Kid poses, kung fu fighter jumps, yoga poses, etc. I started doing back bends/ wheels, as if I were seven again. My back is definitely feeling it now. We lunched by the Laguna Honda (deep lagoon), bringing all new meaning to dining with a view. There was the Rock Tree, surrounded by massive rock formations I scrambled up and took too many pictures of, and lava formations that from far away looked like the cracked top of a brownie pan. That night we stayed in a tiny town of San Juan, population: 300 people, in a salt hotel, the walls and floors completely made of, yep, salt. Not sure why, if it was a touristy gimmick, but it was interesting. I have read of some salt spas in NYC that are supposed to do wonders for your skin. Hmm. Of course there were pictures taken of people licking the walls, and jokes about flavoring the food by rubbing it on the walls. Oh, and one shower for more than 18 people. A system was created by placing your flip flops outside the shower to hold your place in line. I was 17th. So I went for a walk with Victor before dinner, just as the sun was setting, and we caught some amazing shots of the small town. We found a woman who was pouring quinoa from a bowl into a blanket, then from the blanket back to the bowl, a few times. Victor asked what she was doing. She was clearing the dust from the quinoa so she could make some sort of quinoa dish. Of course. She also didnt want her picutre taken because she thought she looked dirty. Luckily I had snapped one before she said this. Sleeping in the salt hotel was surprisingly warm, and I must say my skin is looking better.

The next morning we were up at 4:30 so we could drive an hour and a half and catch the sun rising on the salt flats. Simply amazing. We drove through a few inches of water as the sun was rising, and the pcitures of the reflections are impressive. Can´t wait to have WiFi so I can upload some from my computer. Sometimes you couldn't tell if you were driving through a desert or water, the mountains looked like islands, the salt looked like the sea. We stopped at a small hill (or island, I'm not sure) that was chock full of cacti, big and small, and a huge coral formation. 40 minutes were spent taking way too many pictures of cacti. Breakfast was served around 8:30 outside the cactus island, and then another hour was spent taking the infamous pictures the salt flats are known for, playing with perspective, having one person or object close to the camera and others farther away, making it look like your eating someone on your toast, or holding someone in your hand,... things got creative and eventually people were mock peeing on each other, and other perverse things I'll spare you the details of. The salt was actually very sharp and I found a large scrape on my backside this morning that I had no idea I got. Must have been from one of my many back bends. We stopped a few more times, taking pictures of the ridiculously surreal surroundings. One stop was salt mines, where we saw little mounds of salt being piled up, to get processed in the nearby town and shipped off to Europe and the US. Of course I took a little pile for a keepsake. Finally ended in the border town of Uyuni around 2pm, at a train cemetary, a resting grounds for old steam trains from the 1940s. More backbends, more photos.

Uyuni was quite unimpressive, with trash all over the place, ridiculously ovepriced tourist restaurants and hostels, but a very fun market full of my kind of foods. Cereals and nuts of varities I have never seen, and the women dressed in traditional Bolivian garb, with 2 long braids tied with tassels, big pleated skirts, the bright colored shawls carrying babies or goods, and the requisite hard bowler hat. Before the market, however, I had to pay my visa. I had been told I could pay Chilean pesos so I brought $135 worth of Chilean pesos. The immigration guys, however, tried jacking up the exchange rate about $20 too much. So Victor, being the only fluent of the group, stepped in and told them so. They shrugged and told me to get US$ then. FIne. I went to the change house, got $135 US and went back to immigration. One of the men started eyeing each bill, putting them in separate piles. Apprently any bill with the slightest, and I mean SLIGHTEST fold or rip was not accepted. I had to go back to the change house. Okay. The lady there was nice enough to exchange my slightly ripped bills for newish ones, and I went back to immigration. This time, the pile of bills that was previously okay was now not okay and were refused. I tried arguing, saying they were okay 10 minutes ago, but they were stubborn. The banks won't accept those bills they said. Back to the change house. I was fuming, on verge of tears, but held it together. The lady again gave me more new bills. Back to immigration. Finally rescued my passport, got the Bolivian visa (handwritten of course) and found Yvonne and crew having lunch. Upon seeing my friends, the tears came out, along with the frsutration. 5 minutes later all was good and my composure regained.

It was time to plan the next phase of my trip. From Uyuni, people usually either go to La Paz (the capital) or Sucre. Yvonne and crew had told me before they did not want to go to Sucre, a town about 9 hours away known for its gorgeous colonial buildings and good hiking. Mike and Jurgen, my friends from BsAs, are now living in Sucre for 91 days and I was looking forward to seeing the town and them. Victor was going back to Chile, but had met some other backpackers from a different jeep safari and we met them for pizza that night. Luckily 2 of them, an Austrian and a German girl, were planning on going to Sucre the next morning at 9:30 am. It was about 8pm. Game time decision. I decided to go with these new friends and try to meet Yvonne in La Paz on Monday for her birthday. So here I am, having arrived in Sucre after almost 11 hours on the bus yesterday (yeah right, 9 hours, thanks bus agency). We took the local bus, not a tourist coach, to make the experience all the more authentic. Everything you´ve heard about South American buses, this was it. Small, bumpy, locals who haven't showered in days and smell like the spices they eat, babies crying, stops in the middle of nowhere, no bathroom on the bus, people sitting in aisles. But it really wasn't so bad. We treated ourselves to a relatively pricey dinner at a French tavern last night, having eaten only fruit and cookies and snacks all day. A bottle of wine between the three of us, I got trout in papillote with a delicious blue cheese sauce, garlic bread... I paid about $14. Hostels are about $7 a person with private bathroom. The 11 hour bus was just over $8. I´m thinking I like Bolivia.

More to write but I think the girls must be done showering by now. Time to start the day in Sucre. I'll try to add more later!