Bolivia – snow, salt and hot springs

ARGENTINA (AGAIN)

To get from Brazil to Bolivia, we first had to venture back into rob-tastic Argentina (plus we wanted to see the pretty waterfalls of Iguazu Falls). It was a sleepy week and half… Hez, Nik, Ty and I ALL got sick at some stage so a lot of time was spent sleeping, weakly requesting glasses of OJ and putting damp towels over our inflamed foreheads. But we survived and saw the absolutely MAGNIFICENT falls… I’m not one to throw about words like `magnificent´ but it really calls for it here. They were enormous and so powerful. We also encountered a rare little animal that looked like a cross-breed of a racoon and an anteater. It was very alarming when 20 of them came galloping towards us first thing in the morning, however, by the end of the day we saw them so often we were shooing them away like mosquitos.

BOLIVIAAAAAAAA!!

I hope the dragging of the letter `A´ conveys just how in love we are with the beautiful little country of Bolivia. I´m going to put it out there… it is the best country in the world! Ooooh bold claim, I know, but there you go. We saw and did so much that its going to be tricky fitting it all in here (there might have to be a sequel people! You’ve been warned!)

Tupiza

At the border crossing into Bolivia, we realised we didn’t have any money so we asked these two Canadian girls to borrow 20 bolivianos (about $5 aus) for a cab, which turned out to be a monumental mistake as we then had to spend the next week with two of the most boring girls in the world. Their names were Tammy and Tina and if I never see them again, that would be lovely. Anyway we caught a train to Tupiza, a small little village that remarkably resembles the wild, wild west… red desert, cactuses (or is it cacti?) and men who tip their hats at you in the street. We relunctantly followed the awful TammyTinas to our hotel (we had already booked) where we were roped into doing a four-day tour of Tupiza to Uyuni with them. NOOOO!!!! We didn’t know how to politely say ‘no, we dont want to do the tour with you as your actually the most boring people on the planet’, so instead we just meekly said ‘sure! that sounds great!’

The next day we went horse riding!!! It was sooo much fun! In line with tradition of me getting the faulty forms of transport, my horse was, of course, the naughty one, constantly swerving off the track to eat shrubs and nipping the other horses who tried to pass him. Hayley’s horse was a fat lady horse named Sewa who had a severe case of wind. Nikola took to horse riding like a fish to water. She was always the one up front, her feet nearly touching the ground (for some reason they gave the smallest horse to the tallest person???). TammyTina tagged along as well, but it was worth it when Tammy’s horse broke into a gallop and she fell off, hahahaha! At one point the horses had to cross a river and my horse did a jump over it!! Sooo exciting! By the end Hez, Nik and I were letting out yee-ha’s and making our horses canter every 5 seconds. TammyTina got off their horses and were like ‘well, that was o-kaaay I guess’.

Tupiza to Uyuni Tour – Day One

Bright and early the next morning, we got all rugged up and loaded our packs on top of our jeep. We were introduced to our driver/guide Alberto, who didn’t speak a word of English and our chef, whose name we all forgot so she became simply known as ‘chef’. We spent the morning driving up mountains, spying goats and llamas and the most beautiful views. We chewed coca leaves to help with the altitude sickness ,which made our mouths numb (not surprising considering it is the stuff they use to make cocaine). It tasted a little like chewing grass, but it definitely worked. We stopped for lunch in some old ruins, but it was too cold so we just ate our sandwiches in the car and oooh-ed and ahhh-ed from the safety of behind the window. After lunch we went to an indigenous village where they didn’t even speak Spanish, but a native language calld Quechua. We attracted mucho staring, especially from the children who peeked shyly around every corner. One brave soul (who we’re fairly sure was retarded) came bounding up to us and stood so close to our faces; it was soo hard not to laugh. Hayley gave him her lolly wrapper, which he seemed to treasure as much as if we’d given him a 100 dollars. We saw him showing his friends it as we drove off. Later we arrived at our sleeping quarters, which were absolutely horrifying but hilarious. A cluster of small, thatched huts with cement slabs as beds and dirt floors. Then, to make matters more extreme, it started SNOWING!!! We were sooo excited. All the other people in tour groups (mainly a collection of Brits, Canadians and Scandinavians) all looked at us like we were crazy as Hez, Nik and I pressed our noses against the chilled window and squealed with delight at the sight of white. I wasn’t so cheerful later when I had to sleep next to Hayley, the human vibrator. It was absolutely freezing!!

Tupiza to Uyuni Tour – Day Two

It felt like we’d barely shut our eyes when Alberto was rapping on our door shouting “amigas! amigas! vamos!” It was actually painful getting out of bed and getting ready. It was 5am, pitch black and still snowing. We were heaving and puffing just from putting pants on… we were at an altitude of 4200m above sea level, which makes even the most mundane things seem like a marathon. I actually witnessed Hayley red-faced and trembling in the arms as she tried to put her hair in a ponytail. It was worth all the pain though when we got to see the sun rise over a beautiful snow covered scenary! It was glorious! We drove for ages, Nik, Hez and me chatting the whole way, probably annoying the Canadians, but not giving a shit. They were probably too busy air-guitaring in the back seat anyway… they were both really into “mental, man”. We stopped at Laguna Celeste where we saw flamingos!! They were a bit far away, but so amazing. I find it really weird that flamingos live there, where it is sooo cold. I always imagined them to be tropical creatures. We saw heaps of other lakes, lagoons and gorgeous scenary that day. At lunch we stopped at a hot springs! It was pretty rock bottom putting our dry, white and hairy bodies back into bikinis but the hot springs were sooo nice. One guy nearly fainted though from the heat at such an altitude. We befriended four Scandinavians that day. There names were Pear, Jacob, Hega and Kristy (at least, this was the nearest we could get to the hocking sounds they were making when introducing themselves!). Our last stop for the day was at the Geisers Sol de Manaña, these amazing geysers that come from a volcano. They looked like big, bubbly vats of mud and emitted an eggy-fart smell that had Hez, Nik and me running back to the car, scarves over faces. We got to new place, which was a slight improvement from last nights accomodation but still had no heaters or showers.

Tupiza to Uyuni Tour – Day Three

The next morning we actually got a sleep in – 7am!!! Our first stop was Laguna Colorada, which is normally a deep shade of red but was actually the colour of dried blood when we saw it, as it was too early in the morning. Next we went to the Valley of the Rocks, which is all these weird rock formations, including one shaped like a tree. They were awesome. We spent the rest of the day driving through the desert. We even saw some mirages! We thought we were looking at big lakes, but it was really just the naughty desert playing tricks on us! We went to a few more lagoons, which were beautiful and we pretended to be flamingos which was fun. We had another delish lunch then set off to see a real live volcano!! Now, when I heard this was next on the itinerary, I imagined we’d be side-stepping lava, dodging magma and fogging up in the sunnies from all the steam. Really we just parked at a random spot and Alberto pointed into the distance at a thin flume of smoke travelling gently into the sky. I was a little disappointed, to be perfectly honest. We took a couple of photos then just sat on a rock and bitched about TammyTina. Tina is a siliac, which means she can’t eat wheat and no matter how hard poor Chef tried to accomodate her plus two vegetarians, Tina would shriek “DOES THIS HAVE TRIGO (spanish word for `wheat´) IN IT??? NO TRIGO, NO TRIGO!!!” That was seriously all she said for those four days “no triiiigoooo”. We wanted to punch her. Anyway my disappointment at not being Volcano Joe was short lived when we kept driving and saw… a TORNADO!!! It was only small, but still! We were so close to it too. Alberto was just like “oh yeah, a tornado”, but we were all going wild! I felt like Helen Hunt in `Twister´!! We had a baño (toilet… see everyone, you’re getting a blog AND an education!) break in a small town where I befriended a little boy named Horsey. He challenged me by counting one to ten in English and I reciprocated by counting in Spanish and from then on, we became firm friends. As we were driving away he chased after our car, trying to give me a wet bar of soap! It’s the thought that counts, Horsey. We finally got to our last resting place, a `hotel´ made entirely out of salt where we got to have our first shower in 60 hours! We had an absolutely outstanding dinner that night, Chef really outdid herself. Vegetarian pasta PLUS soup! We applauded her and shouted “múy bien!!” as she blushingly cleared the table. We played cards with the Scandys for a while before rugging up in our sleeping bags and going outside to look at the stars. There were sooo many of them!! I think it’s because we were closer to them then usual they looked so amazing. It was freezing though so Hez and I went back inside, which I later regretted because the Scandys gave Nik an impromtu performance of a typical Norwegian dance. Apparently there was lots of kicking involved. I was very jelly.

Tupiza to Uyuni Tour – Day Four

We were woken up at 5am again, this time so we could go watch the sun rise over the salt flats. It was sooo glorious and we took the BEST photos. We had breakfast at the Isle del Pescado which was this weird island in the middle of the salt flats, absolutely COVERED in cacti. They were massive and we read that they only grow of a rate of 1cm per year! Some of them were over 10m tall! Prehistoric! We spent pretty much the entire morning taking awesome photos on the salt flats, which create an illusion that things are smaller the further back you go (see Hayley’s photos for further details). We finished off the tour in the town of Uyuni where we visited a train graveyard. Bit of an anti-climax to what was the most amazing four days EVER! We gave Alberto and Chef tips and said farewell and good ridance to TammyTina as we set off to a town called Sucre. TO BE CONTINUED….

Argentina – land of the flying ice cream

ARGENTINA
Buenos Aires

I’m assuming you’ve heard this story by now – we told EVERYONE we met this story, friends, taxi drivers, the lady selling fruit on the street. But if you haven’t heard it, or you didn’t see it on the news (because yes, it made headlines) this is the story of how Hayley and I were robbed, not once but twice in our first week in South America. I hope you won’t leave feeling bitter about Argentina – despite the effed up things that happened, we still fell in love Argentina (especially the people… the most beautiful race in the world? I think so…)

Robbery #1

The first robbery occurred on our very first day in South America. Well, technically, it was our second day but considering we arrived late in the afternoon and fell asleep at 6pm the day before, we counted this day as our first. We had moved to a new hostel, the most wonderful hostel in the world, The Clan. Unfortunately we couldn’t check in until 1pm, so we decided to leave our big backpacks there and go to the Brazilian embassy in the meantime, to get our visas.

This was unsuccessful however so we returned to our hostel. On the walk back (please, everyone remember this was our FIRST day and that was why we were such gullible fools) we felt something wet hit us on our backs. We turned around and there was something like chewed up ice-cream cone all over our hair, necks, clothes and backpacks. Behind us were two young local girls, about 20 years old. They looked normal, were well-dressed (well, as well-dressed as Argentinean girls can be… the fashion there is hideous!) and they were about 5ft tall. Hardly dangerous looking human beings! Anyway, one of them had this mushy stuff on her face as well and they were both pointing upwards towards a balcony and basically insinuating (we couldn’t understand a word they were saying as it was in rapid Spanish but we got the gist) that someone up there had just chucked this stuff on us. They beckoned us to come underneath the balcony where they were pulling out tissues from their pockets. They started wiping at our hair, our shirts, all the while distracting us by speaking in Spanish, even though we clearly couldn´t understand them. One of them went round behind me and started ‘cleaning’ my backpack which copped the most amount of mush. I feel so stupid now thinking about it but it was really confusing what was going on, especially with the other one talking and touching my hair. Anyway, the little c-bombs then gave us a kiss on the cheek, we thanked them profusely for all their ‘help’ and we walked away. We were so flabbergasted over what happened that we walked too far, past our hostel so we turned around and saw the girls again. We didn’t think anything at the time (having not realised what happened) but they ducked their heads when we walked back past them and sped up their walk.

The next morning I woke up to discover my passport, my credit cards, my flight tickets, my bus tickets, every single form of I.D. I owned, all stolen out of my backpack. We figured out pretty quickly what must have happened and I burst into tears and didn’t stop crying for the rest of the day. I went to the tourist police where they didn’t speak a word of English. I had to wait three hours while they got a translator in. She translated my sob story for the police, only for them to go, “oh yes, the ice-cream scam, we know all about that!” Apparently it’s common!

We had many things to organise so luckily I’m travelling with Miss Organisation 2009. Hayley cancelled all my credit cards, rang the Australian embassy and generally got proactive while I wept in the corner, feeling like I’d never be able to trust anyone again. We went to the Australian embassy where a heavily pigmented but very kind woman issued me a temporary passport. I had the ugliest passport photo alive taken and off we went.

The Clan

We were so lucky that our hostel was amazing otherwise I think we would’ve just curled up into little balls and never left our room. By dinner time that night, everyone knew about what had happened to us and made it their mission for Hayley and me to forget all about it. We got onto the vino (our first in two months… Asia was lacking in the wine department) and we all went out dancing at a club called Crobar. In traditional Argentinean fashion (although we hadn’t realised it yet), dinner wasn’t until 10pm so we didn’t go out until about 2am and got home at 6am the next morning. This behaviour pretty much continued all week. Our days were spent organising my life, our nights spent drinking and being boisterous with our hostel friends.

Robbery #2

 

Our friends Kelly and Anna were going to Mendoza, a little wine village on the other side of Argentina. We decided last minute to join them, thinking we would like a nice little break from all the going-ons in BA. Twenty-four hours later, we were in Mendoza. Kelly got food poisoning after some dodgy ham sandwiches on the bus so we put her to bed and Hayley, Anna and I set off to explore Mendoza. We read about this big beautiful tourist park that had a zoo and, after reassurances from our overweight, car-salesmen-style hostel manager that the park was “very safe”, we set out for it. We had taken three photos when suddenly a man stepped out of the bushes in front of us. He had a gun. Pointing it at us, he instructed that we hand over our bags, cameras, everything. Not believing our luck, we did. He got US$50 and a brand new camera off Anna and he took Hayley’s entire bag which had her camera, phone and all our other nick-nacky things that he would have no use for but which we loved. Like our Spanish phrasebook, our paw-paw, our flashlight etc. We tearfully asked him if we could please have our memory cards out of our cameras back. He obliged, sweating bullets and shaking like a gum tree. I think he was more scared then we were. Then, once we were all set, he actually thanked us (he had manners, at least) and ran away. Hayley and I were about to have a nervous breakdown when a police car drove past us, less than three minutes after this all happened. We got in the car and they drove us all around the park, looking for the guy. It was ridiculous, we drove about two streets away and we were in the slums… how on earth could that be considered safe? Why would a tourist park back onto a place where Mendoza’s most desperate people live? It doesn’t make sense to me. Anyway they couldn’t find him so we drove back to the police station, filled in yet another police report and then were driven home by a lovely policeman who stopped at a grocery shop on the way because we were hungry. We seriously couldn’t believe it happened twice to us… in one week!! We are seriously the most unlucky travelers in history.
The next day we had journalists knocking on our hostel, begging us to be interviewed. We said no at first… we didn’t want to be on Argentinean TV! But they made us feel guilty saying it would help Argentina if more awareness was brought to the subject. So we were interviewed (I was elected the main speaker) and we were on the Mendoza news that day. We missed it, as we were out at the vineyards but our hostel manager (who featured in the news clip as well, explaining how he TOLD us it was dangerous, he WARNED us… what a wanker!) told us we looked good. Later I got an email from a boy I met in Buenos Aires, saying he had just saw me on BA news!! It made national news! We were famous!

Mendoza

So that was our first day in Mendoza. Again, we decided to drown our sorrows by going on a vineyard tour and getting lovely and drunk. Our group of about seven all hired bikes and we rode around all day in blistering heat to the various vineyards Mendoza had to offer. It wasn’t quite the picturesque-Tuscany-in-the-springtime bike ride we had imagined… we basically were riding down the main street of some dusty old town, with big monster trucks roaring past us every five minutes. But the vineyards themselves were beautiful. We even did an olive farm tour which was delish!

Back to BA

We headed back to Buenos Aires, feeling a little bit worse than when we left. We were paranoid messes walking down the street by then. It was so frustrating. All our friends were going out by themselves, with handbags flailing about and cameras clicking on every corner. Hayley and I redefined the word ‘minimalist’ and still cringed every time an elderly woman with a walking stick and poodle walked past us. It sucked. We were looking forward to getting to Uruguay, where we would be meeting up with our friends from home, Nikola and Ty. Safety in numbers, we chanted to ourselves. Safety in numbers.