Tim_Day 39 - 43 (Uyuni/Potosi)

Day 39 (Continued)
We spent that day pretty much just taking care of details. We caught up on the internet and ate pizza again that night. Was better than the previous place and cheaper as well. We went to sleep at a reasonable time since we didn’t we wanted to be rested as well as not be out in the war zone city. The locals were getting pretty aggressive and it was getting irritating. They got me pretty good one time with about two buckets of water. Luckily it didn´t wet the camera. Punks. I was so wishing I had a paint gun to gun a couple of them down. The kids were cute and fun. But the teenagers were aggressive and I was about to kick some ass a few times. I held back and tried to just remember I´m in there home and I´m game.

Sleep pretty good that night. The bed was one of the better beds we´ve had. When I say that I mean it was flat and not massivly bend in the middle.





Day 40
We got up in the morning and packed. Headed out for our 3 day trip to see the deserts of Bolivia. When we got to the the place we were to leave from an old land rover drove up and that was going to be our ride for the next 3 days and 800 miles? We´ll see is what I was thinking. It did have a wench on the front which was promising if we got caught in the mud. But it was exteremely rusted and didn´t look like it had been used to often.

We loaded our bags and met the people we would be riding with for the next 3 days. There were a couple of English guys (Matt and Mark) which were really cool guys. We ended up having a blast with them the whole trip. Then there was another French guy (Benjamin) who was also pretty cool. Then there was an Isrealian girl who really was a pain in the ass the entire trip. She had to eat Kosher food the whole trip. Which basically was a pain in the ass. She had to cook with her own bowls and couldn´t eat anything that came in contact with meat. She also was very demanding and a free loader. We were trying to get the driver to leave her in the desert but he wouldn´t go for it. We were all the tourist and we sat 3 in a row in the back two bench seats. Was pretty tight for me but I made due with it.

The driver and cook were another story. They were interesting. I think in the end I didn´t really like the driver but I was back and forth the whole trip. He was a small round dark Bolivian guy who only spoke english. His name was Fernado and he loved to tinker with the truck. Everytime we stopped he was either taking the wheels off, tightening something, or draining fuel from the fuel tank into a bucket to give to other drivers. Very interesting guy who at times would liven up but overall was pretty quiet and determined on getting to the next destination. His wife the cook also was very interesting. She wore the traditional Bolivian clothing and her cooking was really bad. She sat in front with the driver and would start randomly singing to her bolivian music she was playing. She at times seemed a little wrong upstairs and would burst out laughing like a kid then throw her head into her lap. Was very interesting to watch her.

The first thing we drove to was the salt flats. Actually we went to a house where a local women who harvest the salt and refines it to sell. She showed us her factory. It was very simple and composed of a place where they dry the salt over a fire then put it through a machine that grinds it finer. Then they bag it. That´s it. The salt on the flats could be used straight on your food if you wanted. Pretty cool. The only thing that sucked about the tour was the driver keep saying you need to tip the guide. It was such a tourist trap and I was getting a bad vibe already about the trip. It´s not the money but the feeling that your being tricked and lied too. I know it´s how things work down her but it still pisses me off.

After the tour we drove over about 1 foot deep water to the dry part of the salt flats. It was briallant to see. So white it burned your eyes and with the deep blue sky it was amazing. There were pilles of salt that were draining and being taken to be processed in the little factories. We spent about 10 minutes taking pictures and eating the salt. Was really cool but what was annoying was the driver. He sat on his fat ass hoking the horn for us to keep going. I was getting frustrated and he continued to do that on the trip till we all just stopped listening to him and let him honk the horn.

We saw the salt hotel. Was made of salt bricks. Interesting to see but again the frustrating thing was the signs that said if you take pictures you have to buy something. That it soooo annoying and it´s hard to shrug it off and just enjoy the place. I just took pictures and would tell the guys to shut up if they demanded I buy something.

We went back and ate lunch. Was ok and that´s saying allot. The meal made me wonder about the next 3 days though. My suspicions were correct at that point and the food was the worst we´ve eaten the entire time we´ve been traveling. Oh well. I need to loose some weight.

Right as we started to leave to the next destination Franco says were going to do a different route than what was sold to us in the agency? I still don´t know fully if his reasons were correct or he was lying to make more money by having us sleep in places that were less nice. I think he was pocketing the difference in price in the accommodations we went too. Anyway we pretty much drove the rest of the day and saw nothing. It kind of sucked and we were in the truck about 8 hours and saw only the salt flats. We got to the city where we were going to stay and it was a simple mud brick city. It did though have gas showers which were really hot and were wonderful.

Me and the two English guys got into a soccer match with some of the local kids. It was really fun and they were almost kicking our asses since the altitude was so high and we were all out of breath. We finished the game and headed back. We had seen about 4 guys walking down the street drunk as hell and stumbling around. When we got to our place we realized that our tour guide had just punched one of the drunk guys in the face for backing into his car. It was pretty funny to see. Luckily only the one guy who got hit was really mad and his friends were smart enough to realize they were the idiots and better leave. They dragged the guy away stumbling and cursing. They all fell down at one point they were so drunk. I though I might have a chance to use some of the ninja training I got in the states. But everything cooled down later and we all laughed.

The stars that night were amazing! They twinkled so bright. There was no power there and at 9 they turned off the generator so it was pitch black. Very beautiful to be out in the middle of the Bolivian desert and see a sky like that. Very magical moments and you understand why so many people wrote and talked about the stars in earlier times.

Sleep ok that night in a dormitory room filled with all 6 of us. Only got about 6 hours of sleep though and I was a little cold. I think we were around 10,000 feet high so the nights get pretty cold.




Day 41
Woke up at 600 in the morning. The driver and the cook were already up and working. The driver was revving the engine and doing I don´t know what to the car. We ate breakfast which composed of some really hard old bread with jam and some tea. Yummy. That´s the kind of meal you need to start off a big day. The driver continued to tinker with the car till about 800. He was very serious the night before when he said we need to leave right at 700. We joked and gave him hell for messing with the truck for an hour past the time we were supposed to leave. We hit the road and headed to see the red laguna. When we got there it was really amazing. The water was really red and there were thousands of flamingos. It was really surreal and amazing to see. It almost made the two days of travelling worth while. In hindsight it will be but at that moment I was pondering if it was worth it. It was spectacular but I was tired and starting to not feel so hot. We stayed there for a little while and watched the flamingos. They keep pretty far from the shore so we didn´t get any good up close shots of the birds. It was really magical and surreal. I won´t forget that environment and I´ve never been or seen anything similar in my life.

We took off and bumbed and boobled down the old dirt roads. Occasionally the driver would stop and get out and tighten something under the truck. He changed the tire one time as well. I couldn’t see anything wrong but he sure did.

We stopped at the geysers at one point. Was really interesting to see. I´ve never seen so much constant pressure and steam spewing from a guyser. It was so loud it sounded like a rocket. The steam was pushing out of the sideways into the rock. There were mud pits bubbling everywhere and different colors of mud and intensities of power. The cool thing was there was no one there and we could walk right to the edge of the mud pits. In fact I got some mud spat on me. It was a little hot but only really dirtied my cloths. Was cool and at the same time really kind of dumb.

We also stopped off at the laguna verde. Which was amazingly green. It really looked like it was lighted from underneath. The green color of the water was penetrating. Spectacular to see with a beautiful mountain in the backdrop. I won´t ever forget that and I hope the photos do the place some justice.

For lunch we sat in some hot springs. The water was nice and would be our shower for that night since our lodgings for that night didn´t have any heating, showers, or running water. Nice. We had some cold pork chops that were cooked in the morning for lunch. It wasn´t too good but we ate because it was that or the Oreo cookies and candy we brought.

That night we got to the accommodations around 4¨30. They had a little stove in the room where you ate that they burned this dried really hard mos type stuff. Was interesting and would give good heat for about 5 minutes then die down. The driver fixed the tire using a pick to get the tire off the rim. Was interesting to watch.

We ate the worst spaghetti I´ve ever eaten. I didn´t know you could mess up spaghetti but you can. I ate it and it stayed in my stomach for a few hours. After dinner we started playing cards with the other British guys. We got into some Texas holdém games and it was really fun. They had never played and we used skittles as money. 10 per person. It ended up being me and Ana vs them. America vs England. Chips vs Freedom fries. It was really funny to joke around about freedom fries. Especially with the French guy.

We started drinking beers that night. I had about 5 and was feeling pretty drunk and my stomach wasn´t liking it. At 900 they turned off the lights and we finished the English vs American Texas holdem tournament by candle light. Was really fun. American´s took the gold of course.

We went out and layed under the stars for a while. We were so drunk the cold didn´t seem to bother us much. We laughed and told jokes. I told a bunch of bad jokes I remembered. Was good times. But the whole time we were out there me and my stomach were arguing. I was saying I wasn’t sick and he was saying I was. We went to bed and I sat there to drunk and dizzy to fall asleep and my stomach to painful to turn on my side. I just sat shaking and freezing.

The hours passed and I sat there wishing I could do something other than sit there freezing. That night turned out to be the worst night of the trip for me. The beds were so bowed that I decided it was better sleep on the 4 inch thick pad on the ground. So the cold ground came through the mat and made my back cold. The little bag we had and the one blanket wasn´t close to enough to keep me warm and I spent all night shaking and feeling absolutely horrible. On top of being cold I had the cold fever shakes that you get when you have a cold. In the beginning I thought it might be the altitude or the beers. But in the end I think it was a virus and the other things only helped fuel the virus.

I had to get out of bed twice to puck. Freezing under the beautiful glimmering stars I returned all that I had eaten that evening to the earth. Was really funny because even as sick as I was the stars were amazing. I sat there feeling horrible under the most amazing stars you will ever see.

Finally after what felt like six weeks the sun started to break the horizon and our driver knocked on the door to get up. I gladly got up and walked around feeling like a zombie. The rest of the day pretty much sucked for me. I didn’t each anything till dinner and the bouncing down the road made my stomach feel even worse. I was freezing while everyone else was hot. I just focused on what was at the end a nice bed in the place we had stayed the previous nights. That vision helped me through the day. Good stuff.

We say some more lagunas which were amazing but I was sick and getting tired of seeing the same things. We saw some unusual rock formations which were ok. I guess the sickness really greyed out the day for me. I just wanted to get back to the hole in wall place I would call home for the night. Right before we got to Uyuni we stopped at the graveyard of the trains. Was really interesting to see such an elaborate collection of rusted old trains in the middle of nowhere. They were constructed of thick steel and were really amazing to climb on and check out. We tried again to convince the driver to leave the girl since she was messing around and we all wanted to leave. We waited about 15 minutes for her dumb ass and Ana wanted to punch her in the face. She was such a pain the ass the whole trip and always had a problem with something. Nothing was ok and the world was wrong.


Anyway we left the driver and decided to meet up with the English guys for pizza that night and say good bye. We took showers first and they were great! Felt so nice to loose the dirt tan I had. Pizza looked great that night. I barely ate some bread since my stomach was still not done fighting with me. I went to sleep early that night and sleep for about 12 hours. That really helped me feel better. I was considering cancelling our tickets to travel to Pucon the next day but in the morning I felt good enough and we decided to go.

The one thing that was really nice was the room had a tv and got one English channel. It was so nice to sit in bed with a tv. Man the simple things are becoming soooo nice. A clean flat bed, a hot shower, and food that taste half way good. That´s all I need and I´m flying high.



Day 42
Woke up feeling better and we decided to take the bus to Pucon that day. We got to the bus and it looked pretty good compared to the one we took to get to Uyuni. It was a little smaller and our packs would be secure on top of the bus. If anyone tried to steal them we would probably be able to see it.

We got on the bus and were surprised to see group of French tourist. Was really nice since the odds of our bags getting stolen were lessened due to the fact that they were carrying a ton of baggage and crap. Just before we started to leave they let all the local people in the door to fill up all the walking space. Since none of the windows opened it was extreamly hot and crowded also the locals don’t smell too good and usually bring about 12 bags per person onto the bus. It was a mad house. The French guide was getting all pissed off. Which did stop the flow people into the bus. If they didn´t I´m sure that they would have crammed every square inch of bus with bodies. Of course me and Ana were in the front and I was getting pushed and shoved. People were pushing by with bags hitting my head and they smelled as well. Good times. It´s also amazing how relaxed me and Ana were. I didn´t realize it till I saw the French people getting all crazy.

Bottom line was we took off with some locals in the aisles. The French were yelling at the driver and the guy helping him saying take us to the police station now. Let us off. But they were only about 18-20 years old and didn´t care much. In the end I had an old smelling lady sitting next to me for about 4 hours. It was actually really sad to see but at the same time understandable. It´s the bus companies that are trying to make as much money as possible from every bus. Every extra body on the bus equals more money for them.

That is one memory I won´t forget. Driving down dirt roads in Bolivia with the sweat smell of the locals burning your nostrils. I actually worked really hard and travelled very far to experience that. I´m starting to question my sanity.

Anyway we pushed on to Potosi. 8 hours later we arrived right as a rain and hail storm was bearing down on the city. Great we didn´t seal our bags for rain and they were on the top of the bus. Luckily the rain didn´t penetrate and our stuff was fine. As we drove through the flooded streets I started to realize it was hail that was coming down. By the end of the storm there was enough hail to make it look like it had snowed a few inches. Was very cool to see but it sucked that we didn’t know the city and we didn´t have a place to stay yet.

We sat for a while and eventually got our bags and a taxi to a near by hostel that had some available rooms. The hostel was great and we shared the room with some really nice Australian girls. The room was heated and the beds were the best we´ve had the entire trip. They were actually the quality of the beds we sleep on in America. Was VERY nice.

That night we braved the streets covered in hail, and wet with water to get dinner. Most of the streets in Pucon are only barely wide enough for a car and one person. So when they honk you get to one side and let them pass.

After a bit of hunting we found a restaurant that was recommended to us. It was the best meal I´ve eaten in weeks. The chicken and mashed potatoes were amazing. I probably moaned the whole time I was eating it. My stomach finally felt good enough to eat and the dinner was so good I didn´t care if I did get sick. That food was so good I might have not minded it coming back up later. Just kidding.

I floated back to our hostel that night and put Ana to bed. She wasn’t feeling to good and I was afraid she caught my flu. She went to bed early and I stayed up and watched a movie on the tv down stairs. Nice clear picture and with subtitles in English. Was really nice.

Sleep good that night in my cartoon sheets. I think it was Felix the cat. Ana slept good but her stomach bothered her during the night.



Day 43
Woke up in the morning and had a wonderful breakfast. They had sliced peaches and apples. They also gave us an egg with toast. I love the food so much more here in Bolivia. Argentina’s food just all seemed like fast food with no variety. Would be fine for a week or so but after a month it was nasty. If I never eat another sandwich in my life again I´ll be happy. Especially that nasty cheese with ham. Bllaaah.

After breakfast I scheduled my dynamite trip for the next morning. Were also going to see the mine for three hours which should be amazing but my heads focused on the dynamite. It´s pretty funny the guy at the couter of the hostel called me Chuck Norris. So we´ve been joking around. I told him what was the largest blast anyone has done. I was Mr. Norris and I needed to represent. Ana stopped him from answering but I´m thinking I can light off 5 at a time. We´ll see. I don´t want to freak out the other people on the trip.

We also scheduled our overnight trip to La Paz for the next night. We leave in the night and get to La Paz the next morning. Should be interesting. We´ll see.

Were off to finish some errands and see the local museum which is supposed to be really amazing. I hope Ana starts feeling better soon. She´s hurting a little.

Stay tuned for more.
T*