Bolivia Part 4: Salar de Uyuni

Apt I should be writing about this as I peel the last of the dead skin from my lips to reveal a brand spanking set. The sun's a little stronger than I anticipated down there. Though why I did not anticipate strong sun in summer, in the driest place in the world is a mystery to everyone, myself included. I said I did not expect anything else of note to happen and it didn't. Apart from a desperate scramble to not eat chicken. Fuck they love their fried chicken in Bolivia. It must be the national dish and the national motto is probably 'that will be 15 Bolivianos please.' Their propensity to rip people off and make you eat chicken was so legendary that the Brazilians with whom I travelled across Uyuni would constantly make that joke. Its an onrunner that carries on to this day and will probably be resurrected in Sao Paolo and Rio. Anyway all the restaurants in Oruro were shut. Presumably because Bolivians only need to eat on six days of the week and this super power enables them to starve foreigners on a sunday. After about 40 minutes of searching I finally found some generous soul to give me salchipapas (very unoriginal, but at least it was not chicken). I took the train. Ah trains make me miss Europe. One of the first times. They are so much better than buses. Why do buses even exist? Dirty, smelly, shit traps. Ah the keyboard is eating my letters again. Have to be careful I don't make mistakes. Leg room, relaxation and great trailers. Oooh a good film. Not quite. My sister's keeper. Not bad though. Then we got the Manchurian Candidate. Made me remember Boston as I saw it there, when my dad would not watch it with me as he did not want to go back to our hotel in Roxbury at night. Its a better neighbourhood than most Bostonians think. How did the Saints lose 20-17 to the fucking Buccaneers today. Oh well. Let's see how we do in the postseason. Hopefully Chicago do us a favour monday. For the postseason will have to find some bars and do Hunter S Thompson betting to fund my budget for Chile. Expensive country this one. Some religious group was on the train with me. They all lit candles to pray before we left. Mental cases. They were praying for a safe passage, but the biggest danger was them setting fire to the train. They don't think much in these countries. I wanted to get bin and hopefully get a tour the next day as I had had enough of Bolivia. The similarities with Nicaragua of being a nice place with fuck all to do and very cheap are many. Also the moving into a better country afterwards (Costa Rica and Chile respectively) and realising how bored I was before and how much better despite being expensive these countries are. Nicaragua and Bolivia are officially very dull. Costa Rica and Chile both rock. 'Everybody Dance Now.' Yeah this is a rhythm for writing. I arrived in Uyuni. Its very cold and small and nothing is open at 2am. After doing some Joseph biblical wanderings I found a place to stay the night and get a tour in the morning. It had no light (really it did, I was just too stupid to work out how to turn it on until too late).

I overslept as I ignored my alarm because there was no light outside so it could not have been late enough. Not sure where my thinking was. There was no light because there were no windows and how can the alarm go off early. Nevermind. The brain does not always work at full speed. I chatted with a tour company and paid 550 Bolivianos (Hd no bargaining power and that was to include the transfer to Chile. Yeah of course it was. Fuck these little lying fuckholes). Can't see myself ever bothering to go back to Peru or Bolivia. Maybe I may cross to Arequipa if in Chile. As for Ecuador. They are lucky they have the Galapagos to make me have to go back once again, though I would probably nip to Cuenca. Except for those places, these countries are effectively useless shitholes. Had to pay 21 Bolivianos to exit the country. Good job they don't put it on entrance. I pity the Yanks having to pay $130 to enter mighty Bolivia. Money not well spent. Although the people are better than Peru (except the north) and Ecuador. They know you will want to pay to exit. I got breakfast. At last good bread. Where were they hiding this stuff? Chile, probably. I was grouped with three Israelis. Seemed like a nice bunch. They went to get breakfast and the slavery chattel market kicked in again. I was instead sold to a group of Brazilians for 2 lies, 15 Bolivianos and a Pollo. Fuck me 106 year TD return for Jets on Colts. End their perfect record and appease my jealousy. Hmm a rare tour I get to (have to) practice my Spanish as my group did not speak English. Nice bunch. Portuguese is easier to understand from the south of Brazil and I could make out about 40% of what they were saying, but when we spoke together it was in Spanish. Enzo (guy from Rio) taught me how to samba in the middle of Uyuni. Class. Others were taking the obligatory on top of a bottle photo or other such nonsense. I was learning samba lol. First stop was the train graveyard. Not a bad little place. Loads of junked, rusting trains on the edge of town. All the tours were going the same way and to the same places, so we were like a military convoy. I left the main body and went to chat with some local kids who use the train yard for playing. Bit dangerous maybe, but also what a cool playground if you were a kid. Me and my sister would have loved it. We had a half hour stop to look at local artesanal craft (or the latest shit they have knocked out of a factory to pass off as hand made). Makes me laugh how so many hand made crafts are meticulously identical and how these hours of labour manage to generate enough goods to seel all over the country, as you see the same old shit everywhere. They are as hand made and original as I am blonde and short. I spend half an hour drinking a fruit juice. Then I was told we had to pay 30 Bolivianos for a national park that noone had told me. Fuckers. I did not have enough Bolivianos, so would end up borrowing from Enzo. The Brazilians told me that Rio carnival was for only tourists (ver Ingles, which I knew), but also that Salvador was as well (which I did not know). Apparently around Recife is the best place. Hmm. I'll trust them. They live there. After this tour with the Brazilians I have more or less decided I will live in Brazil and work before going to New Zealand. Though I like Chile as well. Need to learn Portuguese first though. We visited Ojos de Sal which was not bad. Then we went to Isla del Pescado. Fucking spectacular. You have to climb this place. Superb. They wanted 15 Bolivianos (what else) to climb the hill. Yet they are retards. There is a way up and another pass down. Now what would you do if you wanted people to pay? Put only people on the route up and leave the route down unguarded? Excellent. If you answered yes, you are as stupid as the people on Isla Del Pescado. So the route down in unguarded. What would you do? We just did not bother paying and went up that way. If you are going to rob someone, at least do it properly. So we climbed up to the top for free and the view is superb. Its like a white sea in every direction. Truly unique from what I have seen so far, though Franny informs me they have them in Tunisia as well. That's the problem with travelling a lot. You compare everything and if you have seen the best, everything else is rubbish. Jaded is the right word for it. Still the new stuff is top class. Salar de Uyuni itself is top class. We were travelling in a Toyota. One class up from the Highlander, but I was still fondly remembering the US road trip. Transport nostalgia all over this trip. Ah one thing completely unrelated. People say how Avatar the film is an analogy of the Iraq War etc. Idiots. Its clearly and very obviously a take on America's colonisation by the English. Similarities are too striking. We went to some blocks of salt. Yep a bnunch of blocks. There are a lot of stops at pointless places to to pad out the tour itinerary to make it seem you will be seeing more. There was a big block saying don't touch anything (and a load of others spelling Kiwi, showing a Jewish candelabra and saying fea to demonstrate people were paying attention to the big block). We got to visit the 'illegal' salt hotel, which is quite cool. The seats are very uncomfortable but the statues inside are cool. They want 5 (not 15) Bolivianos for the toilet. I reckon someone should shit on the doorstep of the toilet. Will thye then let people use it for free. Might persuade them. People should never have to pay for a damn toilet. Then again they don't even have them on buses in Bolivia. We arrived in the little town and found a local kid with a football to play. Marcelo. He supports Chile. Oh well. They are better than Bolivia. Playing football with Brazilians was cool and I took goalkeeping duties. We went hunting for computers that night with Enzo and Rene, but we had no luck. Enzo is actually on a mission to sleep with a woman from every country in the World and has 20 so far. If he makes it, he wants to write a book. Interesting concept. More juicy than mine lol.

Hmm plum jam. My favourite. Don't think I had any though. We got up early to go to a rocky outcrop to see a volcano. Excellent. That was worth getting up at 6am for. If you can't detect the sarcasm, its there. We had a lot of 70s and 80s music which they love in Uyuni. They had AC/DC 'Back in Black' and we were in a convoy of SUVs in the desert. Ironman moment. I cranked it up and that was a cool little vista. I decided for the road trip across Europe I want to buy a giant bus and decorate and paint it before driving all over Europe on a cool little road trip. There were a lot of lakes filled with flamingos. Was nice to see. Saw some vicunas. We went out over some rocky outcrops and saw some green stuff on rocks. There would be a stop later just to see this 'unique' green stuff. They said it only grows there. Bullshit. I had seen it and touched it in the morning. Hmm was an Aussie with a cute arse. We saw the mountains of many colours. They were quite cool. Very Bryce Canyonesque. Deserts are lifeless places. Makes me like them as much as beaches. Actually I prefer deserts. We then went to the Valley of the Rocks. That's a funky place. Lots of rocks carved up into different shapes. Wandered around there a bit. By this point I had been incinerated by the sun, for which I am just recovering, so I had to wear a towel on my head all day to limit further damage. We arrived at the Lake of Colours to stay the night. Was red from minerals blown into it and so windy it was unbelievable. It was like walking in a wind tunnel. It whipped gravel into your eyes and kept slapping you with a constant barrage. So damn cold. There was a fair bit of fitness in this hotel. Also the Israelis were here. They asked what happened and I explained I was kidnapped. Everyone drank a lot of wine, but me and two of the Brazilians did not drink so the others got a little hammered and we all played an Israeli game of Uno. One of the Israeli girls had had a Colombian boyfriend so we were reminiscing about Colombia etc. I went to sleep eventually listening to people talking shit about stuff they do not know about. Usual travel stuff.

In the morning we got up at 4am to go and see some geysers. They weren't bad, but again after Yellowstone they were a bit shat. Not sure why so many travellers don't want to go to the US. They truly do have some of the most spectacular national parks out there. It was fucking cold out there as well. I have just realised I have no real cold weather clothes and no real warm weather ones either. I have generic middle temperature clothes. Useless. We went to some thermal baths and they were luke warm but welcome after having to suffer through lack of showers. Second place did not have them. First place you had to pay 10 Bolivianos. In the thermal baths Enzo intorduced me to two Brazilian girls from his home town and we all did this weird Brazilian humping dance in the thermals on film. Brazilians are class to travel with. We then demonstrated English bump and grind, before some samba in the pool. I think the others thought we were nuts. We visited Laguna Verde. That's a really pretty lake. Kind of like the five coloured lakes near Comitan in Mexico. Afterwards they drove us to the border and we said goodbye to three of the Brazilians. The included transfer was not included. It was Ripley Tours by the way. So avoid them and if you end up in Uyuni go and complain to them for me so they know how shit they are and that their actions have consequences. The guy did not check tickets until we were about to leave. Then he realised I did not really have one. Great. i had to move buses but he promised me a seat on the other one. Then I got off and got on the other bus and he told me there was no space. Lying little shit. I called him a liar and he said I could not use his bus. Stupid little fucker. He said for my own security I should use the third bus. Hijo de puta. My security. He was 3 foot nothing. I was dreaming of breaking his nose on the van and wondering if the jurisdiction would not cross the border, but then again a border was not the best place to pick a fight. Little shit. At least he lost money and the other bus was much faster at crossing the border. I hope something awful happens to him. Oh well. Farewell and fuck off Bolivia and your lying bastard tour operators. Onwards to Chile.