Across Bolivia in 12 days

After a long and really fantastic time in Peru we finally made it to La Paz in Bolivia. All our attempts to miss the English winter have failed miserably as it definitely caught up with us in Bolivia! La Paz is a cool (literally) city - not too big, not too small and plenty to do. A bit of shopping therapy went down very well, after more than 3 months in the same clothes, and of course it was really cheap! After the shopping though, we felt a bit directionless and couldn't really be bothered to do very much, so we just hung around for a few days eating, drinking, and chewing coca leaves (to help deal with the altitude, of course ;) until we had managed to formulate some sort of plan. The coca museum in La Paz was excellent: I didn't realise that Coca-Cola still used coca leaves for flavouring and they buy 200 tons of leaves every year from Bolivia, despite the fact that Bolivia is not legally allowed to grow the stuff! Being at high altitude for so long (maybe a month?), with cold and/or rainy evenings and sporadic breathlessness had managed to beat us down a bit and so the plan was very simple... Head south, take a tour around Bolivia's Altiplano and then get the hell back to sea level and Argentina!

The Altiplano is really very different as far as landscape goes and the tour from Uyuni was excellent. At first we didn't think our driver was going to turn up but in the end he did and we roared off across the desert in a banged up 4x4 at considerable speed. I thought, at first, that he was your typical S.American tour guide: certifiable! My opinion was soon to change, however, when his rally like driving proved he was actually highly skilled driver... Phew! We soon settled in to the bone-shattering ride and quickly arrived at the salt flats at Uyuni: Really strange - A vast expanse of brilliant white as far as you can see and, because they were flooded under about 2 inches of water, with a beautiful reflection of the sky and the mountains far in the distance. The second day of the tour took us further south to a national park, which I can't remember the name of, where there were weird and wonderful bubbling geysers at more than 4000m and a very large and trippy bright red volcanic lake! The whole area contained very beautiful and unusual scenery which actually reminded me a little of driving south through the Atlas mountains into the Sahara, Morocco, a few years back. One the third and final day of the tour we spent the morning soaking in some hot-springs and then dropped our four jeep companions at the Chilean border; then started the long bone-shattering drive back to Uyuni. On the way we picked up two French and two Canadians to fill the empty seats. I soon overheard the 63yr old Canadian guy teaching Heather how to chop down trees, haul them back with a tractor, and finally build a house! At every toilet, photo or snack stop I dreaded the reshuffle might treat me to an equally interesting conversation: I was soon to learn all about tractors, which has the most indestructible transmission, the various plough attachments available, and finally a lesson on how to calculate the power produced by a steam engine using one of Einsteins formulas! Ah... they say it's the people you meet!!! Boring old men aside however, the tour was really fantastic... check out the Photoblog.

Straight after the tour we got the train south to the Argentinian border which was a refreshing ride: After soooo many buses, apart from the Machu Picchu train, travelling by train was a real luxury! Crossing the Argentinian border however was the slowest border crossing in history - There was a crazy number of Bolivians trying to cross and, as usual, nowhere near enough officials to deal with it! Exhaustive bag searches didn't help the matter, though to be honest I could have had two kilos of cocaine in my pack and they still would have missed it!

So that's really it for Bolivia, just 12 days, and mostly cold ones at that. I had been led to believe that the Bolivian people were amongst the friendliest on the continent, but I didn't find this to be the case - I felt a certain amount of resentment towards foreigners (outside of La Paz) and the majority of people seemed to only squeeze a smile when I had my wallet out. I understand that Bolivia has been hugely exploited by the west and that it continues even today, so I suppose the resentment is justifiable, but it's a shame to have only achieved a fairly cold 'client only' relationship with most of the people I spoke to - I mean, it's not like I exploited them, so there's no need to take it out on me! That said, I still enjoyed Bolivia loads and of course not everyone was like that!

So here we are in Salta, Argentina after the most indirect direct bus in the world and one bag search at a police check point on the way, run by a very abrupt, stern and one-eyed soldier! The weather is warmer though raining at the moment :( and finally I can move a muscle without suddenly gasping for breath! It's a much bigger city than we're used to and the regular inhalation of toxic smog is quite welcome. We're both really looking forward to a (best in the world) steak and a good bottle of wine... I mean come on, we've had it hard... we deserve it! :)