Into Bolivia

Trip Start Sep 22, 2006

Trip End Dec 2006

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Flag of Bolivia The Alti Plano to Tupiza, Bolivia
Monday, October 23, 2006

After leaving Salta we began to climb up into the Alti Plano where we spent our last night bush camping in Argentina at 3600m. The Alti Plano is bleak but stunning. It is quite barren tundra but the mountains have incredible stripes of colour through out them. It looks as if someone has taken several paintbrushes with different colours ranging from reds,violets, greens, yellows and greys and has lined them up alongside each other and made sweeping loops and curls across the rockfaces. There are parrallel lines of strata in every colour interspaced with formations like giant stalagtites worn into the mountains.

We are well practiced now with putting our tents up and we can usually errect them in about 5 minutes but a combination of the rocky tundra which is less than hospitable to tent pegs & gale force winds which blew sand in our eyes left us struggling to control flapping flysheets, meant that we made 3 attempts find suitable ground to errect them. We finally found a spot shielded from the wind but in a type of storm drain. We knew we´d be fine as long as it didn´t rain so the odd flash of lightening in the distance was ominous and disconcerting. After 1hour of struggling we managed to secure our tent pegs with rocks and settled back to watch another incredible sunset behind the mountains, followed by a clear sky full of stars. As the temperature plummeted and I was kept awake by the freezing numbness in my backside, the thought of the sunset and stars here in the middle of nowhere, high up on the Alti Plano made it all worthwhile.

The next morning we headed for the Bolivian border.

Altiplano

For the last 50 - 80km in Argentina you can see how the buildings and style of dress change and start to look more Bolivian. You can see the poverty levels increasing and you begin to see herds of llamas and alpachas beside the road.

The Bolivian border was the friendliest so far and a real culture shock. For the first time we were surrounded by women in the traditional Bolivian dress which is worn throughout the country. They wear full skirts, layers of cardigans, thick woolen stockings and either broad rimmed hats or bowler hats. They were bright coloured blankets tied across their backs in which they carry everything from children to the most enormous loads of potatos, palets of huge tins, all sorts. They are bent double and trot in a quick shuffle over the border with their wares.

Once over the border the tarmac on the road lasts for a couple of hundred metres and then gives way to unsurfaced road which covers most of the country. Traveling by road in Bolivia is punishing on the buttocks and we are in luxury compared to the open top trucks that we see everywhere packed full of standing people who can´t afford the bus. Often for hours on end we bump along tracks which at best make it feel like you are sitting on a washing machine on a fast spin, at worst you are thrown clear of your seat and repeatedly slam back down or against the window.

We drive for 2-3 hours through barren mountains which look like a moonscape. The buildings are ramshackle brown hotch potches made from mud bricks with either straw roofs or tin held down by rocks.

Finally we have errections!

They often have walls around a dry dusty yard in which livestock stand forlornly or kids play in the dust with the chickens, pigs and goats. Aside from the cacti there is just dry scub everywhere so it is hard to imagine how anything survives.

We arrived in Tupiza and went to have something to eat in a cafe called "El Garage" opposite our hotel. We waited for the lady behind the counter to bring some menus but after a few minutes went over and helped ourselves. We eventually decided what we wanted from a relatively extensive menu. When we went to order she told us that they only had sandwiches or omelettes. There were four of us, we were the only people in the cafe and we waited 2 hours for 4 omelettes. I´m not sure if they were out the back cajolling a scrawny hen to just pop out another one for the gringos, but this was our welcome to Bolivia. Don´t stress, we had no pressing appointments to be late for. Don´t worry about how long things take, just sit back and you might, eventually get something along the lines of what you asked for. Sometimes it bears no resemblance to what you ask for but hey, its pot luck, and most of the time it can be good fun to eat something that you can´t identify and try and work out what it is.

After my experience at the estancia in Argentina I was keen to get back on a horse again so two of us went out riding in the stunning rocky scenery around Tupiza. I was on "Laguna" and like my previous stead,Cheeseface, he wanted to always be at the front. Within 10 minutes of getting on him he was off at full speed.

Settle down and watch the show

Luckily he managed to find the walking gear aswell and we spent a pleasant morning, riding around the area. The red mountains are streaked with violets and greens and there are huge fin formations where the rocks are like giant stalagtites. One formation we pass is called "Bailar des Machos" - Dance of men. Our spanish may be limited but our guide George in an excided giggle and gesticulating gives us a one word explanation behind the naming of the formation. Peñas! The rocks are all remarkably phalicly shaped. I would have loved to have seen my nervous prim old geography teacher try and explain that to a class of school girls.

From Tupiza we head to Uyuni. Much of the journey is across desert where there isn´t a road to follow as such. For one stretch the traffic uses a dry river bed so I have no idea what happens in the wet season. Elsewhere we try and follow other tyre tracks in the sand. Bolivia you see, not only doesn´t do road surfaces, it also doesn´t do road signs but then when you don´t really do roads then there isn´t much use in wasting time with signs either - its quite logical when you think about it!

We pass bleak villages along the way. In one the only colour in the whole place came from the cemetery up on a hill. Bright flags, ribbons and flowers adorned all of the graves which are above ground. The fact that in death there appeared to be the brightest relief only added to how desolate life seems for the inhabitants. Elsewhere the cacti very occassionally have small pink flowers which show up from a distance. Otherwise the only colour comes from the herds of llama, alpacha and vizcuna (deer like llama relatives) which all have bright coloured wooly tassles or pom poms in their ears and on their backs as a form of Bolivian branding.

Yet an oasis amongst this was our hotel in Uyuni. Run by an American guy and his Bolivian wife it was great mixture of the comforts of home with a Bolivian feel. Chris the proprietor came from a family who run pizza places back in the US. The hotel had its own pizza parlour "Minuteman" which does the best pizza in Bolivia, not much of a claim you may think but it was superb. I can´t think of many places I´ve been to where you can have spicy llama pizza with roasted pepper, sundried tomato and gorgonzola. It was delicious!

I went to sleep on a full stomach with the sounds of Bolivian music gently wafting through my open window from the fiesta down the road. I was woken the next morning by a fog horn followed by a trumpet version of the national anthem! So who needs sleep anyway. The hotel was next to a military garrrison. The sign that I later saw by the front door read "If you hear the Bolivian national anthem whilst you are in the street, remove your hat and stand still to comply with Bolivian law. Alternatively just stay in the hotel"