Day 17- Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

At 4am John, Emma, Jo and I woke up and struggled to pack our backpacks up in the darkness. Luckily everyone had a flashlight! We walked outside and it was surprisingly cold considering we were basically in a desert. Andrés loaded up all the bags and we headed out from the hostel. There was a really disgusting, moldy smell in the car though. I'm still not sure what it was, but it was sick! Us girls in the back had to cover our faces for most of the ride. It was still dark, and that was because our first stop was at an area of geysers known as the Sol de Mañana geyser basin, and the geysers are most active early in the morning (hence the early wake up call). My guidebook describes the area well: "The main interest here is the 16,000 feet above sea-level geyser basin with bubbling mud pots, hellish fumaroles, and the thick aroma of sulfur fumes". We all stood around and watched the geysers shooting up steam and water with the sunrise in the background- it was amazing! This area is known as the "geothermal hotbed of Bolivia" due to all the underground activity from the volcanoes and such. It reminds me a bit of Yellowstone in the US. It was also the most crowded place I'd seen in days, many of jeeps were there in addition to our own.

Geysers in the morning

After the sun rose, we drove on to another area filled with active geysers. I was a bit surprised at the lack of rules or restrictions around them, because they could potentially be very dangerous. People were stepping on them and getting uncomfortably close, and some people got splashed. Also if you stood at certain parts, the sand would start to sink in a little, and it would be all too easy to slide down and fall onto one. My guide book says "approach the sites cautiously; any damp or cracked earth is dangerous and cave-ins do occur. Serious burns have been reported by tourists." People never listen! Anyways, these geysers were even taller and more bubbly than the first ones, and despite watching dumb people be risky, it was amazing!

After that, we were off to our next destination- the natural hot springs known as Las Termas de Polques. Although everyone was talking about bathing in them, it was so cold us girls couldn't imagine putting on a swimsuit, plus I didn't have a towel handy. When we arrived there was a decent crowd of people, and at 6am all the Brazilian girls climbed in the water sporting their lovely not-leaving-much-to-the-imagination style bikinis. Actually that choice of swimsuit seemed to be the trend there, haha. Some of our group ended up swimming, and the rest of us just put our feet in. It felt great, plus the view was fantastic. After a quick breakfast consisting of stale rolls, we were back in the car for another long stretch of bumpy driving.

Most of us slept, somehow, during this portion of the trip. Our next destination is known as Laguna Verde, and it is another beautiful multi-colored lake. In the background was the giant Volcano Licancabur. It is very popular for people to climb actually. We learned that in pre-Incan times the top of the volcano was a site where the locals made human sacrifices for the Pachamama (Mother Earth)! Crazy stuff. After we took a group photo, we drove on through an area filled with randomly placed, crazily shaped rocks everywhere. They're known as the Rocas de Dalí since they look like they came out of one of Salvador Dalí's surrealistic paintings. They look like someone just stacked together several individual stones, so it's weird to think they are naturally formed. We also drove by a rock that looked like the Devil's face, it was a bit creepy actually. The area we drove through after Laguna Verde is described as one of Bolivia's "harshest wilderness regions", and I can see why. Our next stop was at the Chilean border. At the border crossing office travelers had the option to take the jeep back to Uyuni, or to continue on to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. At this point Yuri left our group to go climb the volcano with some friends, and Emma and Jo left on their way to Chile. I was sad to see everyone go, we all had so much fun together!

After that, there were only four of us passengers left in the car. It was much more spacious, but still an incredibly bumpy and long lasting drive. We continued on past more strange and interesting sights until we arrived at another tiny town for lunch. I find it interesting that throughout this whole trip, whenever you have to pay to use a restroom (the majority of times) you never get paper or soap. When it's free though, you usually do. Odd. After we left, there were hours more of driving. We didn't stop at all, except to help other stranded broken jeeps along the way or change tires. Once we were nearing Uyuni again a storm set in. Because of the flat terrain of the altiplano you could see how far the clouds went on, and which way it headed. It looked like a bad storm, and with the heavy rain I was a little worried about our bags on the roof. Despite the bad weather, we stopped at one last place called the Train Graveyard, or Cementario de Los Trenes. Out there un the middle of the Salar there are just tons of abandoned trains sitting there. No tracks. It was a little creepy feeling. John loved it. As he put it "there was a large silver boom at the turn of the century causing explosive expansion in Bolivia, but once the silver mines 'dried up' there was not a need for the large train network they built. The leftovers were then parked in one place to spend eternity. This allowed for some creepily awesome pictures."

The storm finally died down, and we arrived back in Uyuni. The streets were all uneven and there were massive puddles everywhere- walking was interesting. We headed to an Internet cafe with the world's slowest connection, and then had lunch at this little place. For some reason, it was really dark in there. Also, our server was a 10 year old boy, and John got his food and ate it before mine was even brought out, haha. Our next task was to find the bus station in the town. We started walking, and realized it wasn't where we thought. We were a little lost, and continued wandering around for a while until we finally found it. As usual, it was a place of confusion and disorganization. It was very crowded, and local traditionally dressed women were loading multiple giant bags of seeds and crates of food into the storage compartment at the bottom of our bus. I was surprised they don't have bag limits.

Finally, John and I sat in our seats. During the whole ride people were standing in the aisles of the little bus though. I think it's a normal custom in Bolivia to let people without tickets just stand up in the aisle on the bus if they pay the driver a little bit. It was aggravating, plus being that close to someone's armpit who doesn't use deoderant can be pleasant. Our overnight bus, en route to Oruro, also stopped continuously about once every 20 minutes it seemed to pick up random locals and drop off the people in the aisles. To top it all off, they had loud and cheesy hispanic music blaring on the bus speakers all night. Luckily, it kept cutting out. Also the bathroom on our bus broke, and we never made any stops or breaks, so at one point I had to get creative. This "creativity" involved the middle of some dark Bolivian street behind the bus. Anyways, as you can imagine, sleeping was a bit tricky. As a side note, John and I hadn't showered in about 3 days, so I know that we looked and smelled amazing, haha!

To sum up our time at the Salt Flats, John's journal entry does a good job: "The Salar is home to many salt hotels and adventure seeking tourists. There were not many older people on the Salar, I believe due to the bone rattling 4x4 rides. This was three days of the bumpiest ride of my life (I couldn't even read a book it was so bumpy). Everything was covered in salt and dust, but I loved it."

Day 14- Copacabana - La Paz, Bolivia

At 7am we left our hostel; the owner and his wife said goodbye to us and the woman gave me this cute mini Peruvian style hat that said "Inka's Rest" on it. I thought it was a cute gesture. We headed to the bus station and boarded for our journey out of Peru. By some weird chance, the same group of Canadian students we chatted with on our bus in Cuzco were sitting in front of us! We talked to them and found out they were robbed in a restaurant in Puno and lost their wallets, cameras, passports, etc. A man placed his coat on their chair which was behind him, and when he got up to leave he picked up his coat and the bags too. They looked for him but no luck, he had left several minutes before they noticed.That would be so so awful! It reminded me to be extra vigilant about my belongings- as if I wasn't paranoid enough already!

Our bus was headed towards La Paz, the Bolivian capital. After a while we got off the buses at the Peruvian-Bolivian border and walked towards a long line that led to a building where you get your exit visa and passport stamp. Nothing was labeled so it was just a guess, but luckily we were right. Then, we walked under this little arch that symbolized we had left Peru and were now in Bolivia. We walked up a hill and basically just followed the crowds to figure out where to get our entry visas. We got in another line where you had to stand on concrete next to a 3 foot ditch. Due to my strong coordination skills I somehow slipped and my foot fell into the ditch. I twisted my ankle and it really hurt. It was later swollen and purple. Only me... haha. Then we got into another tiny building where our passports were stamped and our visas and yellow fever vaccination cards were checked. We left the building, hunted around for our bus for a bit, and then finally after the disorganized struggle known as "border crossing" we were ready to conquer Bolivia! If you don't know, Bolivia is considered the most isolated country in South America, and also its highest. The city of La Paz is the highest capital city in the world (12,000 feet above sea level). It is also the poorest and least developed country in South America, partially because it is landlocked due to some bad luck in wars over the years.

After an hour or so we arrived at the city of Copacabana. A random man got on the bus and said we had to buy "city entrance tickets" for 2 bolivianos. Everyone bought one. Then we got off the bus and I realized it was a scam because no one was checking for the tickets- they were totally unnecessary! We were then told we had an hour for lunch. The touristy city of Copacabana is located on the shores of Lake Titicaca. We walked down the road to the overlook of the lake- it was a pretty sight as the area is very scenic and the lake was specked with various colorful boats, but once we began walking around, we realized there was really nothing to do. It is always billed as a popular tourist destination and place to go, but beyond the fact that you can take a boat from there to the Isla del Sol, we're not sure why. It was extremely touristy, filled with street vendors and overpriced restaurants. The beach area was very littered and the hotels all seemed a bit rundown. We decided to go up towards the 16th century Catedral de Copacabana though, and we saw many people kneeling and intensely praying before a shrine to Mary. As we walked around we noticed many giant flower arrangements and various flower necklaces were being sold everywhere. Even the cars were decked out with flowers! Everyone around was buying loads of them, and I didn't know why. I later looked it up and realized it was because that day was the feast of our Lady of Copacabana, and since Bolivia is strongly Catholic, everyone was preparing to buy flowers in Mary's honor. It definitely made our walk very colorful!

We then got to a street filled with more vendors. Since I lost my sunglasses somewhere in Puno, I decided to buy cheap knock off shades. John got some aviators, and then I found a jewelry stand where I bought myself a cheap yet unique ring from a 10 year old boy. It was then time to walk back to our bus. We stood by it thinking we were going to get back on it, and then the workers started throwing our big backpacks out into the street. We found ours and assumed this meant we were changing buses. We tried to ask where the next bus we were supposed to get on was located. There was a lot of confusion, no clear instructions, and nobody really knew what to do or where to go. Frustrating! I did not want to be stranded in this town so I directly confronted the worker and he finally gave me a straight answer. We were completely changing bus companies apparently (way to tell us). Our new bus was at the top of a steep street, so we rapidly walked up there hoping to get on before the bus left us. Since the altitude there is so high, I was really struggling. Carrying the big backpack up a steep hill at high altitudes caused me to honestly have moments where I couldn't breathe. Sitting down on the next bus was a huge relief, as it was a very irritating ordeal trying to figure out what in the world was going on! (This was my first taste of the business practices of Bolivian bus companies, and if you think this is bad, it only gets worse in days to come).

Once we left, we drove through narrow mountainous roads hovering near the edge of cliffs until we got to another part of the lake. There was no bridge in sight. The bus stopped and they made us all get off and said something in Spanish about buying a ferry ticket and riding it across. John, the Canadians and I were a bit lost and just followed people who looked like they knew what to do. Once we figured it out we got on the little crowded ferry boat and rode to the other side of the river. We then waited for about 30 minutes for the bus to be ferried across too! Finally, we began the last leg of the journey towards La Paz. This final part was very bumpy, windy, uncomfortably close to cliffs, and thus slightly nerve-wracking. Somehow, we finally arrived. We were dropped off at the large bus terminal, and stepped out into the narrow and hilly streets.

Once there, we needed to find our company for the bus we had lined up to take us to Uyuni that night. It was called Todo Turismo, and we couldn't find it on our map. After some unsuccessful wandering I ended up asking la policia for help. We were directed to their office, which thankfully was nearby. The bus company was very professional and organized, and they offered to store our bags until our departure that night. We then began to walk around the city.

La Paz is hard to describe, but basically it is a bustling, busy city with tall buildings scattered around a very steep and hilly landscape. The sidewalks are cobblestone, narrow, and very packed. Vendors and loud honking cars are everywhere. It is very noisy and full of commotion, definitely a very urban setting. There are also several open-air markets in the plazas and squares in front of churches. Also, as there are no crosswalks, crossing streets is both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. It is like playing the game Frogger, and you are the frog. It is also interesting to see the contrasts. One minute you see a businesswoman in a suit chatting away on her phone while hopping into a cab, and you turn around and see an old woman in a colorful woven skirt knitting on the street corner where little barefoot children are playing. At one point during our walk I felt a tugging on my backpack and I turned to see an old lady trying to unzip it. Luckily my backpack was locked shut!

After we explored the area around the cathedral we came across a building offering tours of the Salt Flats. We went in and spoke with a nice English speaking man about our options. He offered a good price and an all inclusive trip, so we booked our 3 day tour! He told us we would have a guide who spoke basic English, and stay in a decently nice hotel for each night. We then had to get online there and cancel a hostel we had previously booked due to the schedule change. We also had to find a hostel in the city of Oruro, which was hard to do since no hostels there had websites and we didn't know when we'd get Internet access again. We then hunted around the city for an ATM because we had to change our remaining soles and dollars into the Bolivian currency, bolivianos. After a dinner on the go, we went back to the bus company's building.

At around 11pm that night, we boarded our "luxury bus" towards Uyuni. The bus was very nice indeed. It had TVs, its own introduction video which comically showed the bus in various settings with exciting music in the background, reclining seats, blankets and pillows, and free dinner and snacks. I was very happy about the comfort of the bus, yet it was a bit ironic because despite the fact the bus was amazing, the ride to Uyuni was extremely bumpy and crazy. We drove on non-existent roads, little stony paths, and did some off-roading as well. They changed the tires 2 times over the course of the night, and after a while I got used to the constant bouncing and hitting my head on the window.