Hightailing It Back East

Peru...Bolivia...Argentina...Ecuador?? Currently in Quito, after a "character building" trek cross continent over the past few days.

My parents are flying in tomorrow night to Quito, Ecuador. Which means I need to be there to meet them. The issue with that is, I was in Córdoba, Argentina: 4 time zones and a lot (a lot) of miles away. And for some unforseen reason, it is ridiculously expensive to catch a flight from Córdoba to Quito. $1200 round trip expensive. Whoops! Didn´t see that coming. Luckily, I found this out about 5 days before I had to be in Ecuador, so I had some time to recalculate. I spent one afternoon and most of an evening trying to find a less expensive alternative to the flight. After exploring the option of Bus from Córoba to Lima (3.5 days, $500 r/t) and dismissing it as A) Masichistic, and B) impossible, since it only leaves twice a week and I had missed the it by about 12 hours. so, after quite a bit of sweet talking the online airfare search websites, I found a flight from Buenos Aires to Lima for $450 round trip. Sold. Flight out the 18th, purchased the 16th. Night of the 17th I caught a 12 hour bus that brought me into BA around 830 the next morning. At 3pm (11am Eastern time) I had a flight out of there, connection through Sao Paulo, and landed in Lima at 9pm Eastern Time. From the Lima airport (where again I was disappointed to find that a round trip flight to Quito was $800), it was straight to the only bus company in Lima that I knew of that had a bus running all the way to Quito. No buses that night, but there was one leaving for Quito the next day at 5pm (lucky, lucky, apparently these long (real long) buses only leave twice a week, and I had hit it perfectly). After a quick 3.5 hour delay of departure (during which I was unwillingly engaged in conversation with a certifiable paranoid schizophrenic American who had been traveling around SA on false documents trying to avoid the Ecuadorian government agents who had been tapping on his windows and knocking on his door at night), it was a short 38 hour jaunt from Lima to Quito, and after about 26 uncomfortable sleeping positions and one 300some page book, I was in Quito before I knew it. The bus was continuing on to Columbia. They had another 14 hours or so until they reached their destination. I guess I can´t complain too loudly...someone always has it worse than you, right?

But, don´t worry about me, I´m sure I´ll find a little time to unwind on the 8 day galapagos cruise. 8-)

The Long Road to Argentina

When we finally got back to Uyuni after the Salar tour, we really, really wanted to get out of that city. Besides about 27 pizza shops and more tour companies than you can count, Uyuni doesn´t have much to offer. The night we got back we booked seats on the first bus heading out of Bolivia, leaving at 6:00am the next morning. For 80 Bolivianos ($11) we would spend 12 hours bumping down a single lane dirt switchbacked moutain road all the way to Villazón, the border town between Bolivia and Argentina. The switchbacks were tight. Very, very tight. There were times when I would watch the front tire come precariously close to the edge and hear the shifting and groan of the loose rocks that formed the boundary between life and death for us. I would hold my breath, and either we would creep by, or the bus driver would have to reverse in order to make the corner. I am impressed by those buses though...I saw that thing navigate creek crossings and take on terrain that looked fit for a 4 wheel drive jeep.

Early in the morning, a couple of Argentinian girls who were sitting in front of me got robbed. They had put their bag in the overhead storage area, and one of the many locals who was walking on and off the bus snatched it. In her bag she had her passport, camera, wallet, all her credit cards, everything that is near and dear to a traveler. All gone. She was an emotional mess.

Around 4pm we pulled into the other (semi) major town in southwest Bolivia, Tupiza. The bus driver had collected our tickets, which was weird. Usually they come through and tear off the stub, but this time he took the whole thing. Something fishy is going on... He then told us that the roads were too dangerous for the bus to continue on to the border, and we´d have to find another way. What!! We paid for the whole journey, the lady who sold us the tickets said we´d be to the border by 6pm!! The Argentinians went ballistic. And I´m glad they did. After a shouting match about how her family is worried, they don´t know where she is, she needs to get into her country, TONIGHT, blah blah...I will be eternally grateful for her tirade, because it got us (8 of us) packed into a teeny jeep, packs strapped to the top, and on our way to the border. We pulled in a little past 6.

Crossing the border was another mission. After waiting for 45 minutes for a scramble of Bolivians with hodge podge documents (true Bolivia style) to try to get exit stamps, a quick chunk chunk of the stamp got me out of that country (about time, too, there are only so many times I can take being ripped off and lied to before it´s too much). Getting into Argentina took another 2 hours, and one rain storm. After the line hadn´t moved for 1.5 hours, an Argentinian official came up and collected our passports. We just handed them over, watched him walk away, then thought, wait a second...that probably wasn´t very smart... But, it all worked out, after about 5 minutes he came back out, documents in hand, and we were through. Wandered around the border town a bit until we found the bus station. Luckily found an 11pm bus to Salta, our final destination. Layover in a small town from 330am to 6am, then another bus into Salta, where it was pouring rain. Finally checked into a hostel around 830am, a mere 28 hours after we set off from Uyuni. Haven´t really done much since then, just kind of hung out in Salta. Leaving tonight for Córdoba, pretty much just killing time until my parents come to visit on the 20th and I fly out to meet them in Ecuador.

For the mean time, I am just enjoying being out of Bolivia, and drinking tap water for the first time in a month and a half.

The Salar de Uyuni

After Potosí, I headed down to Uyuni to visit the Salar de Uyuni. It is a huge expanse of salt flats (the area used to be a salt ocean, or lake or something) it is approximately 12 square kilometers. It is white and flat for as far as the eye can see, and is surrounded by the desert of the Bolivian southwest. The salt is approximately a meter deep, and is intrusive. In the first hour of the tour everything I was wearing or carrying (including the 4x4 jeep that was our home for the next three days) was covered in salt.
I traveled from Potosí to Uyuni with a few Australian boys that I had done the mine tour with, and we arranged the Salar tour together, since you need groups of 6. Uyuni, like Potosí, is a bunch of nothing. A few pizza shops and lots and lots of tour companies. So, we got in, found a hostel, and went to book a tour. We picked one company kind of at random, and made a bit of a mistake. Although I´m sure all the companies kind of sucked, ours was pretty bad. Promises of english speaking guides and pancake and egg breakfasts were forgotten once we got out into the desert. Our tour guide was less than to be desired...We had four flat tires in one day (and one spare, which also went flat in the end). At one point, alone on the road with the tire completely flat, the guide tried to fill it up with LP gas from the grill. Simultaneously the four of us yelled NOOOOOO!!!!! In spanish I said "What are you doing?? That´s really dangerous!" To which the guide replied "I know what I´m doing. It´s gas, it´s fine." And we put our foot down. No way were we getting in the jeep if he put that gas in the tire. No way. Eventually he must have realized how stupid it was, because he stopped and then asked us to delete the pictures we had taken of him doing it. No. Eventually another jeep came along and we used its engine and air hose to pump up.

The Salar and surrounding areas are beautiful, though, and I enjoyed getting out there to see them. We stayed in hostels built of salt and got to climb rocks, see flamingos, chase llamas (that wasn´t exactly part of the tour), and soak in some hot springs (at 6am in the morning, it was pretty cold outside of the 100F water). When we got back to town we had all sorts of plans to complain about the service and get some sort of a refund. However, our story was trumped, big time. One of the other jeeps had a driver who had been drinking, and managed to roll the jeep. Nobody was seriously hurt, thank god, but one guy was bleeding. Needless to say, they got a refund. That actually wasn´t the only case I heard of drunk drivers, either. I´m glad our major mishap was a potentially explosive tire.

Potosí, the highest city in the World

I´ve been in the Bolivian desert for a while (where internet cafes are hard to come by), so I have to do a little catching up. After I left Sucre (in a huff, although the ATM card fraud seems to be sorting itself out), I headed off to Potosí, who´s claim to fame is being the highest city in the world. It is also a major mining town. In fact, that is about all there is in Potosí. So, I did a mine tour. Wow. I´ve been in mines before, but this one was a challenge. The conditions were horrendous. Ventilation was nearly nonexistant once you left the primary level shaft. Fluffy white asbestous lined most of the ceilings, and the silica dust was overpowering. Most of the miners don´t wear any sort of breathing protection, they just chew coca leaves to ignore the dust and irritations. They find it hard to ignore the silicosis of the lung that inevitably occurs around age 45 (most start working between the ages of 11 and 14, there are no other jobs in Potosí). The miners get to set their own schedules, but since they work on commission only, most work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day (or more). On Friday afternoons they drink Ceibo, which is pure 96% alcohol (ouch, it hurts to drink). Crawling around in the shafts (at times we had to army crawl to make it through) was as much of a mental challenge as a physical challenge. The clausterphobia (and I´m not clausterphobic) was hard to control. The air is hot and dusty, and breathing hard makes a small panic set in. To say the least, I was very happy to see daylight again. Very happy.

As much as I hate Bolivia (see next post, and previous post), I do love the fact that anybody can go to the miner´s market and buy explosives...for under $3. The first stop on the tour was a small shop where you bought one "completo" (a stick of nitroglycerine and a packet of ammonium nitrate, along with a detonater), all wrapped up in a shopping bag. Of our group of 8 people, 6 bought the dynamite. After the tour, we got to blow it up. It was awesome. Our tour guide let us combine the 6 into 3 big explosives. He taught us how to assemble them, then asked for volunteers to place the explosives (ME ME ME ME ME ME!!!), I got picked, maybe because I was the only girl. Either way, it was really cool. That picture over there is me holding the lit explosive. The fuse lasts for 3 minutes, so after about one minute of playing hot potato with three lit bombs and a bunch of cameras, the three of us who volunteered to place the explosives and the guide took off running. We were sprinting down and across a hill (loose dirt, borrowed boots, and 4200m elevation, running was a challenge). The guide kicked off small flats in the hill for us to place the bombs (the other guys got to place theirs first, I was running around behind them freaking out because I could feel the fuse getting shorter in my hand). Finally it was my turn to put down the dynamite and RUUUUNNNN!!!! Sprinted back to the group, and maybe 15 seconds later BOOM! BOOM!! BOOM!! ...It was really cool.

Two Wheeled Touring, and Some Thievery as Well

Sucre, Bolivia. A whole different world from La Paz. The streets are much less chaotic, the markets remained contained in the market places and do not spill out onto the sidewalks, and the buildings have an understated beauty that differs from the hodgepodge charm of La Paz. Spent the first day in town just exploring, and the evening cooking the first homemade meal I´ve had in a while (beef roast, zuchinni, green beans, and diced potatoes). Started the next day at 10am for a mountain bike tour of the surrounding countryside.

The area outside Sucre is beautiful, and after a grueling 45 minute climb out of town with dusty busses and choking exhaust fumes, we were suddenly surrounded by green rolling hills. The climb was finally rewarded with a 3k downhill, a switchbacked road that snaked it´s way down a mountain. (Granted, we then had to climb UP the 3k on the way back, but I´ll be honest and admit that I walked about half of it.) About halfway down the road there was an option to do a jaunt of single track or to continue down the road. Of the 5 in our group, only me and one other guy opted for the off road route, and I´m glad I did. It was about half a mile drop of arm jarring, loose rocks, almost skidding off a mountainside fun. At the bottom of the hill we came to a country club house, where we left the bikes and set off on foot. After an hour or so of scrambling over rocks and shimmying along teeny ledges (this hike would definitely not be sanctioned in the US), we arrived at a beautiful and deserted little waterfall. The pool the waterfall emptied into was about 20ft deep, and so we all partook in a little cliff jumping. After some uncomfortably technical climbing to be doing in a bikini, I stood staring over the edge of the rock at the water about 20ft below and listening to the guide reassure me that it is plenty deep to dive off, depsite the fact that it was opaque and I couldn´t see anything. Besides the mildly serious case of swimmers ear that plagued me the whole way back, it was awesome.

What was not so awesome is what happened the next morning. Wanting to get an early start, I headed out to find an ATM to pay for my hostel. Stopping at the first one I found, I inserted my card. After the transaction, I ended up getting an error message, no cash, and no card. What?? The ATM machine just ate my card. Called the service number, no help. They told me to go to the bank. Went to the bank when it opened, no help. They told me I wouldn´t get my card back until Wednesday. Decided to cancel it and have a new one mailed to my parents, who I´ll be seeing in just over two weeks when they come down to Ecuador. On my walk to the internet cafe, I saw a cop and a Brinks man standing by the ATM that ate my card. I walked up, and told them my situation. The Brinks man says "Oh, is this your card?" My hopes soar. I look at the card. My hopes plummet. No. I continue on to the internet cafe where I call my parents and initiate the cancellation. On a conference call with my bank, I ask if any charges have been made that morning. Yes. $1900 worth. WHAT! Apparently the ATM machine was a fraud, and the theives used it to steal my card and pin, and then proceded to make over 8 withdrawls in the next 2 hours, totally nearly $2000. I don´t know why the bank didn´t think that 8 withdrawls in 2 hours in Bolivia wasn´t suspicious behavior, but it was allowed. A fraud affadivit has been submitted. In 10 business days the money will be temporarily replaced in my account, pending the results of the investigation. After 45 days I get to find whether or not they have determined it to be true fraud, and therefore get to be refunded the money. Hopefully this happens...otherwise that is one horribly horribly expensive life lesson about Bolivian ATMs.

La Paz, Bolivia

I´ve spent the last few days in La Paz, Bolivia. I really like the city. The bus ride here was a rather uneventful passing of farms and hills, but once we began the descent into the city it was beautiful. A sprawling valley metropolis fenced in by craggy mountains on every side. The city itself is a hectic clutter of market stalls, murderous busses (I actually got hit by one!!), and little oddities like dried llama fetuses (the Bolivians bury them under their porches for good luck). The sun, as it is all over the altiplano, is deceiving strong. The weather has been beautiful the entire time I was here. High 60s to low 70s and sunny.

As an early birthday present to myself I went dirt biking in the sourrounding countryside, which was eerily reminiscent of the canyonlands of Utah. I´m currently traveling with a friend I met in Puno, Peru. The off roading (I got a little Honda 200 dirtbike, he rode a quad) cost a ridiculous 80 Bolivianos an hour (approximatesly $12). We spent three hours on tiny winding roads with beautiful scenery and huge drop offs on the sides. We shared these roads with no one but a few locals hauling materials in from the countryside and, surprisingly, huge dump trucks which barely fit on the road. It would be an utter disaster if two of them met head on, there was hardly even room for us to pass without making a dangerous move along the cliffs (don´t look down!). It was an awesome time, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Afterwards I was sweaty, covered in dust, a little brusied up, and very happy (although that may have been partially due to the ice cream that they had waiting for me when I got back).