Driest desert to shittiest town
Day 1:
Our Bolivian experience started out in Chile. From the hundreds of travel agencies in San Pedro de Atacama we choose Tierra Mistica to take us on a three day trip through the worlds driest desert. Our driver, Obed, was a thirty something Boliviano, a native Quechua speaker who let us take our time at each stop and who would explain to us and answer our questions in clear castellano, a nice change from the cryptic spanish called chileno.
The first day took us from 2400m to somewhere close to 5000m. On the way we had the chance to swim in thermal pools, talk to a group of ten finnish people traveling through south america in a matter of weeks (crazy finns) and see the most ungeyshirelike geyshires. These things resembled bubbling hot buckets of thick paint that smelt like rotten eggs. Nothing quite like the high bursts of water that I'd expected, but a nice surprise no matter what.
Our first day ended at a red lagoon filled with flamingos. I found the large grass munching balls of wool, going by the name llama, more interesting. There was one special llama that amused me quite a bit. I believe that individual thought that it was a flamingo rather than a llama - a very old, mentally handicapped and hungry flamingo. "Good fish everybodyy! :B"
Day 2:
The next morning was rough. We hadn't quite stuck to the rules of altitude. The night before we walked around llama watching, ate like crazy and drank wine, one thing you should not do when getting used to altitude. The cold night didn't help much with having a good nights sleep either, nor did my bladder shouting gogogo! It was too cold to go, so at 6am I finally got the courage to go and sooner then I knew it was time to head of again.
The second day consisted mostly of lagoons, flamingos, colourful but very dry volcanic landscapes and weird shapes of rock. We also visited a quinoa museum, perhaps the high point of the day. Not that the museum was too interesting, but in a town of perhaps 200 inhabitants, if that, you can imagine the joy on the faces of the town folk when their museum got visitors. Visitor number 27 and 28 left with a full belly and load of information about quinoa and with an even bigger load of quinoa products and leaflets about quinoa.
Our second day ended at a salt hotel on the edge of the uyuni salt flat. The hotel used to be located on the flat, but since the sewerage system basically just pumped all the shit under the salt, later somebody figured out it might not be too good for conservation and the hotels got moved to the edge of the flats. Still one hotel exists on the flats but nowadays all the shit gets pumped into a couple of large smelly metal containers.
Day 3:
Third day we woke up at 4am. For the Powernapper this was a struggle, reminding me of all those early summer mornings going to work. It was worth it though, big time, since the sunrise on the salt flats was something truly amazing. One minute you had red clouds and in a matter of seconds a great ball of orange kreeped up the horizon and coloured the whole white flat into a flaring orange. It was a magical moment, something that Niklas "third eye" Strangler wanted to catch on his Nikon D5000.
Later we continued to Inkahuasi or something like that. The island was in fact a volcano full of fossiles from the time that the flats were still a lake rather than a huge cake of salt. The scenery from the island reminded me of a frozen lake, or a white sea missing water and waves, and that's what it basically was, a humongous empty lake or inland sea of which only salt and fossiles were left. Sitting there, on the top of the island it finally felt like winter, but with a funny twist of high cactai and strange fauna & flora.
From that mystical island we continued to roam the flats. To drive from one side to another would, at furthest, be a drive from Helsinki to Tampere. And we drove quite a bit. At one point we stopped to fish for some salt crystals, mineral formations, from holes in the flat. These were two meter deep holes in the salt filled with the saltiest water I've come accross. Niklas the brave was the first to try due to owning the longest limbs in our group.
Our group formed of an Austrian couple and a French couple. All in their mid or late twenties, we were the youngest and strangest of the bunch, we weren't a part of the clique. Niklas proved his talents in fishing and got some oohs and aahs from the group. Obed was eager to find a crystal resembling a pyramid. Meanwhile Niklas got in a fist fight with ten armed banditos who were trying to steal his crystals to sell them on the black market. He showed them who's the king, but unfortunately the knifes sliced ugly cuts on his hand. Just ask to see the scars.
After some funny pictures, playing with optical illusions, we headed towards Uyuni. The sight of Uyuni was miserable: The weather had just turned to grey and stormy, the doomsday feeling was in the air as we drove through fields of garbage. Every living plant and bush was covered in plastic bags and surrounded by dozens of plastic bottles, dirty nappies and other crap. The town itself looked more like a building project than a tourist town from the outside and I was glad that the driver took us past town towards the final stop, the graveyard of trains.
Old rusty and crumbling steam trains that were once used to transport minerals from the mines to where ever wanted. There, in the middle of a storm and lines of rusty trains covered in graffiti and garbage (also feeling a big pressure to pee), I thought it to be a cold welcome to Bolivia. Where was my warm beach now, and most importantly the toilet?
Stuck and altitude struck
Uyuni wasn't much better from the center. Slowest internet ever caused me to have a facebook rage attack. Bad thing I swear in English, my outbreak wasn't so stealth causing giggles from the other gringos around us. Pizzeria Minuteman and Vilperi Viherpeukalo, Niklas' new best friend (green bag of coca leaves for making altitude sickness reducing tea or just for chewing as such) helped us through quite a bit, not to menture that they had all seasons of The Wire on dvd.
Our stop in Uyuni turned to being trapped in the town. We had not changed enough bolivianos, bolivian pesos, before entering Bolivia. The towns only ATM was constantly telling "I'm being serviced, I'll be back in a few minutes". Only minutes lasted for an hour. Not only was the ATM out of order, the bus company took none of our cards so we could't buy tickets out. After changing all our pesos from chile, we still had too little, just enough to eat. We weren't the only ones stuck. Outside the ATM there was a line of anxious travelers waiting for the ATM to get serviced. The first in line had a train to catch in an hour, the only train to leave in five days. It was 5.30pm when things started happening. We waited in excitement as the cash making machine started making noises, soon a man came out of the bank bearing keys and some credit card. He then opened the glass door, stepped inside and made his magic happen. Afterwards he smiled at us as we all took our posts in line with dollars in our eyes. The first couple entered: Card in, choose language, credit card, withdraw, xxxx bolivianos, transaction denied. Fuuuudge! As the girl fell hopeless the guy had a go, this time his Maestro. And so the money machine made money. The couple broke into cheers and hugged each other with smiles so wide their lips could have cracked. When they left they wished us luck and turned to take a picture of our desperate but hopeful faces.
The next evening we took a bus to La Paz. Another story all together with its free beer hostel of pod racer, overpriced christmas dinners and backyard bathtubs. The Witches Market was the place of splurge for alpaca wool products and souvenirs and the internet cafe's owner had a son in love with super mario. We had a bonfire on Christmas Eve, also the birthday of one guy working at the hostel. Viktor was turning 53 and got so drunk he wanted to keep the fire burning with anything wooden around. He then passed out in front of the first floor toilet, laying there in an x-position, until dawn. He had quite a laugh the day after.
Happy Christmas and a sunny New Years
La Paz was good for many things, but christmas in La Paz didn't cover it on the food frontiers. Tiers in our eyes we dreamed of our grandmothers' christmas cookings. All those delicious boxes, stews, fish, mushroom salads and whatnot. Mmmm... Deliciousness.
On the 27th it was time to leave La Paz and head to Lake Titicaca. Leaving turned out to be hectic since it was only 20 minutes to departure and our laundry still hadn't arrived. They were supposed to be ready at 11am, but it wasn't until about a quarter to two that the guy finally walked in with our clean clothes. We snatched our bag from his hand without too much apologies and stuffed it in the backpack, we then speedwalked up the hill towards the station with 20kg of weight at an altitude of 3800m. Just imagine the pain. When we arrived at the terminal, we found out the bus was half an hour late. Our "direct" bus ended up taking five hours rather than the promised three. It drove through the dodgiest neighbourhoods looking for customers going to "Co-co-copacabana!" or close.
We arrived around 7pm. My directions for our hostel weren't good enough for the taxi driver and he had to ask other locals for help in finding this hostel in a town of perhaps four streets. Numerous people had directed us to another hostel that was not the one we were looking for, but obviously in a location known to man, finally we found the right one. When we arrived we found out the hostel was full for the night and had to stay a night in the hotel next to it. Niklas was telling me to catch a flight home from Lima, that's how happy he was for listening to my advise about "this one cool hostel" and other stories.
To cheer up we tried to go over the top in the restaurant and got drunk with smoked trout and pisco sour. Happy for the night, dawn came quickly and the happiness ran away with the rain. We had to stand in the rain with our backpacks. Nobody at the hostel was answering. The previous night we had ended up booking the hostel for three nights, every night in a different room due to other reservations. Cold and wet we gave up, left our stuff at the hotel and went to eat breakfast. It was pouring with rain and the quinoa soup didn't cheer Niklas up with its tastelesness. After dinner we got back to the hotel for attempt number two with the hostel. This time they answered.
The moment we walked into our room changed our mood completely. I thought 13 euros per night was pricey, but when seeing the room, that was actually like a mini appartment, well, "muy bueno" - I thought.
Our room has two floors, each floor with one wall made of glass. The view is of the lake and there's a livingroom and a kitchen downstairs and a bed on the top. Our bathroom is more like a hidden temple than a room for potty action and we have a fireplace. On our frontyard we have hammocks and a table facing the lake, on the lower garden theres a hot tub. Best part: you can look to the lake while hanging in the inside hammock.
An hour later the sun came out and now life in Bolivia ain't that bad.
Looking forward for New Years on Isla del Sol.
Location:Cusco, Peru
No comments:
Post a Comment