Day: 380
Not a lot happens when you are too sick to climb out of bed. So guess what happened to Felicia and I today?
Not a lot…
Day: 379
I normally have a rather strong gut, but unfortunately Bolivia might have viruses which can compete with the assortment of worldly enzymes in my belly. Worse than that, while I felt uncomfortable, it downright destroyed Felicia, leaving us both in bed to drink 7-UP (a remedy which she had never heard of) and wishing for some soup.
The worst part is that we booked a two day overnight horse ride for tomorrow morning, so I sure hope we are allowed to push it back a day and not lose our $35 each.
Day: 378
The woman at the bus station told us in an unsure voice that it was 4 hours from Uyuni to Tupiza; turns out my instinct was right and after 7 hours in a over crowded bus we arrived in the tiny canyon town of Tupiza, Bolivia. We found a hotel and proceeded to do very little for the rest of the day.
Day: 377
Up early (aka the unholy time of pre-6am) to catch the sunrise over the Salar de Uyuni, the worlds flattest place. Our group made it out quicker than the other groups and proceeded to spend and hour and a half taking all kinds of assorted pictures in a land with no prespective.
The day passed quicker than one would have thought and before we knew it we had driven all over the salar, visiting the cacti covered Isla Pescado (it supposedly looks like a fish, although I didnt see it), more random salar pictures, visits to where they harvest salt for export to Brazil, and a visit to a train graveyard, which grandpa would have throughly enjoyed.
The later afternoon passed, with a little time on the internet and finding how to make it south to the desert town of Tupiza, which turned out to be a 6am chicken bus loaded with people who havent showered in longer than me.
Day: 376
Lots more time wandering the Bolivian Altiplano, and checking out the assorted lagoons full of flamingos and the little town of San Juan (where we were unable to buy any snacks because of our lack of Bolivianos, which the guy who sold us the tour told us we could get at the border. This turned out to be a lie.)
Day: 375
Sorry about the lack of writing, but we have just spent the last three days crossing the desolation of the Bolivian Salt Flats, Salar de Uyuni (with myself, Felicia and 4 british girls (poor Rob)) The worlds largest salt flat, the lack of electricity and time has lead me to picture only posts.
Day: 373
One of our primary reasons we came out to San Pedro de Atacama is that it is the driest place on the planet and you can see the stars clearer here than anywhere else on earth.
Needless to say, after we got here and checked into our hostal, the clouds rolled in and a place that gets 2mm of rain a year decided to rain right then. We spotted a bar that was screening a football (soccer) match with Felicia´s favorite team, Arsenal, and Liverpool. I calmly drank a beer while she screamed at the screen along with all the other raging soccer fans. Afterwards it had stopped raining and we signed up for an astronomy tour with french astronomer, Alain Muary, who runs stargazing tours here.
(getting kicked out of the internet cafe for siesta hour, nmore to come)
Day: 372
One last excessive travel day for the next few weeks started today, with the goal of making it from Arequipa, Peru to the San Pedro de Atacama desert in northern Chile where we plan to make our transition into southern Bolivia.
A cab pulled up at our hostal at 6:35am and we headed to the bus station in Arequipa where we caught the 7:30am, for a 5 hour ride to the border town of Tacna, Peru. After an hour and a half or so of getting the next two legs of our trip settled with a local travel agent, we piled with 3 other people and a driver into a big Ford and headed for the border. We were easily stamped out of Peru and just as easily stamped into Chile, the driver guided us through the whole process taking us right to the agents he seemed to know.
With the time change it was after 5pm when we got to the bus station in Arica, Chile where we waited another 5 hours for our night bus to Calama, where we would have to change again for one more short ride to San Pedro de Atacama.
Essentially it was an entire day of travel, but at least nothing awkward happened, as sometimes does in border towns (other than the two shady guys who watched me take money from the ATM in the Chile bus station and proceeded to stake out Felicia and I while we sat in a cafe for 5 hours. Finally the security guards took notice and checked them for bus tickets, when they didn´t have any they were kicked out of the station)
Day: 371
As I said in the last post, I am currently exhausted as I write both these posts at the same time. To make my extremely hard life (sarcasm), harder, I have a bus into the driest desert on the planet (in northern Chile) tomorrow morning with the sunrise.
You picture hungry people out there in blogland will just have to be contented with some photos from us watching the worlds second largest bird (the condor), fly doughnuts around the worlds deepest canyon (Colca Valley, Peru)
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