Dec 2008

We left San Pedro de Atacama in Chile on a twelve hour daytime bus to Salta in Argentina. Salta is a pleasant town with a picturesque European-style plaza in the centre and it provided us with a good first impression of Argentina. We didn't have much time there though as we had to catch a bus to Puerto Iguazú the afternoon following our arrival.

We got off the bus twenty three hours later and immediately caught another bus to Foz Do Iguacu, the town on the Brazilian side of the famous falls. Most people only see the Brazilian aide on a day trip from Argentina but we decided to spend a night in Foz so we could at least experience something of Brazil on our trip.

After 6 months of being in Spanish speaking countries it was strange to be in a place where we had no clue how to speak the language. Despite the communication problems, we were invited to join some Brazilians in our hostel to share their BBQ and beer.

The following morning we caught a local bus to the falls. On the Brazilian side there is a walkway that has a number of viewpoints along it which provide panoramic views of the spectacular waterfalls. The final section of the walk is a bridge that takes you closer to part of the falls where you get a clearer sense of their power, and also get slightly wet from their spray.

After this visit, which only takes a couple of hours, we crossed back into Argentina and found a hostel in Puerto Iguazù. We went out for a decent dinner that night where we sat on tables on the street and drank some nice wine which was really cheap. The standard of food we've been eating has increased considerably since leaving Bolivia!

The next day we went to see the Argentinian side of the falls. There are a number of walks to do on this side, some of which take you really close to the most dramatic falls. There is also a boat that takes you over to an island where people swim in the water and climb to the top of the hill in its center for further close up views of the falls. The Argentianian side is much more varied and interesting than the Brazilian side so we were glad to see them in the order we did.

Towards the end of this day, whilst we were waiting for the little train that takes you up to the falls that are further away, we realised that our watches had been an hour behind for almost three days! There was a change in time zone between Salta and Puerto Iguazù that we were completely unaware of. When we were in Brazil we went for breakfast at 10.40am (they stopped serving at 10), made them give us food then we discussed how ridiculous it was that they had cleared away all the breakfast things when there was still 20 minutes left!

The day after we had seen the Argentinian side we had a night bus to Buenos Aires so decided to make use of the day and went to Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, which is a short bus ride away. Paraguay is the cheapest place in South America for electronic products so is a popular place for Brazilians and Argentinians to shop due to the proximity of their countries to Paraguay. Ciudad del Este caters for this and is quite a dirty and hectic place full of traders trying to sell almost everything under the sun. We could have got a good deal on a new camera there had we known that ours would be stolen two days later! Instead, we just bought a few cheap things from the market stalls. Unfortunately all our Paraguay photos were on the camera so we don't have any for this part of the blog.

The bus we got to Buenos Aires that night was luxurious as we got a good deal on cama (bed) seats. We were given two glasses of wine with our dinner and a liqour before we went to sleep.

The reason that we got down to Buenos Aires so quickly was to go to the last Boca Juniors game of the season (until a few weeks ago we intended to get there just before christmas). Going into this game Boca were joint top of the league with two other teams so it was possible they could become champions at the game we went to. As it turned out they won 3-2 but San Lorenzo and Tigre, the other teams at the top, also won so in the following week there was a three way mini league to determine the winner. Boca won this on the day we returned from Uruguay and we saw lots of fans celebrating on the streets by setting off fireworks.

The tickets that we got were for the second tier of the north stand which is where the most hardcore fans are. The atmosphere was really intense, and quite intimidating, with constant drumming, chanting and drug taking happening all around us. Because a number of people stood on top of the barriers that ran across the terracing hardly anyone (including us) could see the pitch, only the backs of those jumping on the barriers. It was a good experience but we only saw one of the five goals! We also had our camera nicked which obviously detracted from the day slightly. Fortunately we had most of our photos backed up and we bumped into Adam and Paula at the game so now have copies of their pictures. We also got some pictures from Kate who was at the match but in a different stand. Her pictures show the end we were in from a distance (the one with the massive flag).

After the match we went to a nearby pub with Adam and Paula and drank with them for the rest of the night, first at the pub and then later at our hostel. We had all bought fake shirts at the game and none of them were the same; this is particularly true of the badges and the colours!

The morning after this we got a ferry from Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay with Adam, Paula and Kate, where we had decided to spend the week before christmas. Colonia is a pretty little town with a relaxed pace and cobbled streets that are lined with trees. The appeal of the town is increased by the fact that there are a couple of beaches in walking distance from the centre.

It turned out to be a good choice of location to relax and it felt a bit like a mini holiday within our trip. We spent our time relaxing in the courtyard at the hostel, swimming in the nearby outdoor pool, waking up late and having long, late lunches with good food, gin and tonic, wine and beer. We obviously spent some time at the beaches as well where Mike and Adam would play football with the locals.

On our last full day we decided to visit Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay. After the two and a half hour bus ride we looked around a shopping centre for a bit before getting a taxi to Mercado del Puerto, a nice part of town, which is famous for its parrillas (BBQs). We got one steak between us because of the size of them. It would of probably been enough for three people! After that we wandered around the town center for a few hours. It is a pleasant enough place and is not without its charms but isn't somewhere you would go out your way to visit. We then bought a replacement camera before getting the bus back to Colonia.

We entered Bolivia on a rickety minibus after taking a night bus from Cusco to an undetermined point somewhere near the border. After passing through the farcically relaxed security and getting stamped in we took a second, equally clapped-out, minibus to the small town of Copacabana which sits on the shores of Lake Titicaca. It quickly transpired that there was no ATM in Copacabana that accepted foreign cards but fortunately we had enough Peruvian Soles and US Dollars to fund a stay of two nights.

On the second day that we were there we went on a day trip to Isla del Sol, an island in Lake Titicaca, and did the three hour walk from the Northern end of the island to the Southern end. Isla del Sol is the birthplace of the sun in Inka mythology and as such is regarded as an important site in the history of Inka civilisation and, predictably, is peppered with ruins. The walk itself was really enjoyable and had some amazing views but was marred to an extent by the amount of charges the locals levied on passing gringos. It got to the point that we were having to buy a new ticket every few hundred metres to be allowed access to the next part of the island. To be fair these didn´t amount to much but it did get slightly out of hand.

The following day we got a bus to La Paz, the highest capital city in the world. This was a fairly normal bus journey apart from the point, about an hour after leaving Copacabana, that we had to cross the lake. There was no bridge so all the passengers had to get off and take a boat whilst the bus was taken over on a separate, much slower, raft.

We ended up staying five nights in La Paz. We spent quite a lot of time just wandering around the city, especially in the area where there are hundreds of market stalls. There is one place, known as the witches market, that sells all sorts of strange things, including llama feutus´s. These are said to bring luck. On the second day we were in La Paz Clare and Maria arrived and we had a big night out with them and some others from the hostel. We ended up at the infamous Route 36 nightclub and stayed there until the early hours of the next morning.

Most other evenings we spent time at the hostel bar where they organized activities such as killer pool and a pub quiz. One exception to this was on the Sunday evening when we went to Cholita's Wresting. This is essentially a very poor imitation of America's WWF wrestling, whose selling point is that some female wrestlers wear the traditional Bolivian dress. The costumes worn by the men included Raphael from the Turtles, a skeleton and a red indian. There was even a midget getting involved at one point. They all put on a good show though and it was worth going to.

On another day when we were in La Paz we went mountain biking down the 'worlds most dangerous road', also known as the Death Road. The total length of the route was 62km, with a descent of 3550m. The first part of this was on a normal tarmacked road so the cycling was fairly easy. It was really cold though and we both wore two pairs of gloves! There was even snow at the top of the mountain where we started.

It was at the half way point that the Death Road itself began. It is a bumpy, gravelly, narrow road that corkscrews down the side of a large mountain. Fortunately a new road opened two years ago so now Death Road is used mainly by cyclists and the minibuses that follow each group. Our guide told us that on average 55 people died each month on Death Road before the new road opened. No one really knows how true any of these figures are though as every group seems to get told different statistics.

We left La Paz on a night bus and had a very bumpy ride to Uyuni due to the state of the roads. We arrived at about 5.30am (earlier than expected) and were shocked by how cold it was - it was definitely the coldest we´ve been since leaving the UK (although probably not as cold as it currently is in the UK)! We ended up going to a cafe where we had a very early morning fry up, then waited in the office of our tour company until about 11am when we set off on our trip to Salar de Uyuni (salt flats).

Our first stop of the tour, which came shortly after leaving Uyuni, was the 'graveyard of trains', a site next to the railway line that connects Bolivia and Chile where some of Bolivia's earliest trains, from the 1850s, have been left to rust.

Soon after this we found ourselves driving through the vast expanse of the worlds largest salt flats. The next place we visited was a salt factory where they processed the salt from the flats so that it was fit for consumption then bagged it up for sale in shops. They produce 2000kg a day. It is quite typical of Bolivia, the poorest country in South America, that the one thing they still have an abundance of fetches such a low price in the market.

After leaving the salt factory we drove a bit further to the salt hotel. This is a building that is made almost entirely of salt that has a few bedrooms and another, quite large room, that houses a number of sculptures which are carved, predictably, from salt.

After another hour or so of driving we arrived at Isla del Pescado (Fish Island). This island basically involved a lot of cacti, a lot of rocks, and had a path that led to the highest point. From the top there were amazing views of the salt flats but it was hard to see in what way the island resembled a fish.

We ate some llama for lunch then all took the opportunity, provided by the vast whiteness of the salt flats, to attempt some rudimentary trick photography.

The rest of the day was spent driving to the end of the salt flats then across some more rugged and rocky terrain to reach the hostel in which we were spending the night. The hostel was in the middle of nowhere so there wasn't much in the way of evening entertainment. We all had dinner, played Yahtzee (with dice made from salt), drank some wine and had a fairly early night.

Our first destination the following morning was a viewpoint where we could see a volcano that was half in Bolivia and half in Chile - still active apparently. The viewpoint, and surrounding area, was formed entirely of volcanic rock which was quite fun for walking and climbing.

We then went on a tour of various lagoons. All of these were impressive in their own way and were nearly all populated by flocks of flamingoes.

We also stopped off to see the Arbol Piedra (stone tree) which is a fairly impressive topographical feature. There were also more volcanic rocks to be climbed at this site, although climbing the arbol piedra itself was forbidden (and probably very difficult). That night we stayed at a very basic hostel which had neither showers nor heating. It got ridiculously cold and we all ate dinner in hats whilst wearing almost every layer of clothing available to us!

The next morning we all had to be up at 4.30am so we could see the sunrise and drive to Sol de Mañana where there are a number of geysers. It was all very beautiful but because it was so early in the morning it was ridiculously cold and we weren't keen to leave the warmth of the jeep for long periods of time! Our guide told us at this point that Salvador Dali had once visited the deserts we were driving through and had used them as inspiration for some of his famous pictures.

We then drove to some hot springs where there was a large man made bath to warm everyone up. We also had breakfast there, which was fortunately served indoors.

We had time to fit in one more lagoon before driving to the Bolivian border checkpoint where we said goodbye to our guide and the two Bolivian girls in our group. Our guide wasn't that good though as he wasn't particularly friendly and didn't speak English - Mike ended up translating quite a lot of the Spanish for those in the group who only spoke English.

At the Bolivian border we transferred to a bus and went to San Pedro de Atacames in Chile. This was actually a last minute decision based largely on the fact that going to Chile vastly reduced travelling time to get to our next destinations in Argentina. San Pedro is a laid back little village with dusty streets and a nice central plaza. We spent two days there enjoying the warmer climate as well as the Chilean cuisine and wine (well, we mainly drank boxed Clos actually!).