Unboliviable Places

Current destination: Uyuni, Bolivia. Current activity: coming up with ingenious punns and jokes on our long bus journeys across the Siloli desert.

After crossing the Bolivian boarder, we went on a 3 day tour (just getting back this afternoon) around the highest desert in the world (5000m above sea level), seeing flamingos, red, green, black, yellow and white lagoons and amazing mountains. Yesterday, we were reclining in a 35degree hot spring, looking over the flamingos mooching around in the basin and the surrounding snow peaked mountains. If you'd have told someone where you were they wouldn't have Boliviad'ya.


One of the most striking things upon leaving Chile is the way that the locals dress, and the difference in prices. Bolivia is a lot less developed than Chile - one night in a hostal is roughly three pounds, and whilst this doesn't always include a hot shower, Chile was more around ten pounds. Secondly, the locals all wear the traditional uniform of Latin America. The women have metre long plaits which are half brown and half grey, revealing their age in the same way as the rings on a tree stump. They wear bowler hats, wide puffy skirts, shirts and crochet jumpers. They carry around kids on their back in big blankets, and wear stockings and black leather shoes. This is all in a rainbow spectram of colours and materials. The llamas (seen LOADS now!) even have colourful socks attached to their ears so each owner knows which llamas belgon to who. The colourful, Pachamama woolen blanket that mum knitted for me has been greatly admired!

This is in stark contrast to the women of Buenos Aires. They wore jeans, a nice top, fancy bag and shoes with a minimum of a two inch heel. Sophia and I regretted not bringing a luxury item of wedges to try to fit in more with the buzzing, well presented community.

Apologies that I don't have any photos to upload but this internet cafe doesn't let you use USB :(. Shame, given that the photos of the lagoons I've just taken are the best so far - the red lagoon was nominated as one of the 7 wonders of the world! Not sure why it didn't win, and neither was our cool tour guide, Al.


Tomorrow we are taking the bus to Potosi, a mining town, and then on to Sucre to stay for a few days and finally wash our clothes (can't wait!).

Pictures to follow xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Update on clothes and costumes: I lost some of my clothes on an overnight bus, and have had to stock up on a llama and alpaca mix sweater (so. soft) and some green hareems. The travellers try to look indigenous and the locals look how we noramlly do!

Getting Lost in the Desert

Over the past six days we have travelled from Santiago to San Pedro De Atacama through sandy deserts, boulder fields, mountains and rural towns. We were in a group of 13 people (all from various parts of the world but with English as the common language), moving from point to point by mini bus and blasting out the trance music of our Chilean guide, Ariel. We saw cave paintings that are around 8000 years old, swam in natural oases and saw the sun set behind the sharp, pointy peaks of the moon valley salt caves.

Since being mostly in cities, this was our oppotunity to see some exotic South American wildlife. On our first day we saw a Pelican catching fish in the town of Pichidangui ('small raft' in Mapuche language). It was our first stop along the way and featured a church perched on the cliff that didn´t have any walls, instead leaving it open to the fresh sea air, and had ivy and creepers growing up around the alter and pews. Totally a place of peace, man.

On the second day Ariel spotted a desert fox lying in the shade of a cactus. We slowed down to look at it and watched it run away when it got startled, slinking between the rocks and sporting a similar camouflage to Echo. The same day we took a boat ride out to a rocky formation called Isla Damas, to spot some sea birds and creatures. We saw: Red Beaked Cormorents, Penguins (sweet statues), Peruvian Boobies, Sea Lions, ´Jotes´ or Vultures, more Pelicans flying in a formation, Black Oyster Catchers, One-eyed Cormorents and Olivacious Cormorents. Our guide explained how Cormorents go blind after two years of diving to catch fish, because the impact is so great when they hit the sea. We also looked out for a resident Sea Elephant and Bottle-nosed Dolphins but we didn´t see any, sadly.

A few days later we arrived at the salt flats. Before crossing them, we stopped at a look-out point on top of the coastal mountain range, Cordillera de la Costa, and before us lay the expanse of the valley and beyond that the Andes snow-capped peaks. It was such a breath-taking view, definitely added to the yoga 'happy place' list. Ariel said there aren't many villages or nomads in this area, so I wasn't expecting there to be much wildlife. However, we descended the mountain and turned into the National Flamingo Conservation Park and watched the pink birds hanging out in salty pools of water. There were also a few lizards and little birds, but the organisms living in the water were probably the most diverse ecosystem. A particular pool we saw was 300m deep- not sure what kind of animal can survive that much pressure as well as living in a liquid that contains more bromine, lithium and salt than actual water (probably).


I still haven't seen a Llama or an Alpaca!


We were with a really fun bunch of people, and in the evenings we drank beer and chatted about our experiences and where we´ll be going next in South America. They left us this morning to return to Santiago, and will see some more sights in Chile.
Sophia and I are still in the desert, deciding how to get to Bolivia.

Love xxxxxxxxxxx

Don't cry for us, Argentina!

Later on this evening we'll be pulling out of the Cordoba Omnibus Station to start a 16hour bus ride to Santiago. However, we'll be going over the Andes under the morning sun, and I've got my ipod ready to provide a soundtrack to stunning views. Our tactic for surviving this has been to eat lots of ginger, drink fizzy water, and go out dancing the night before for optimum sleep deprivation on the bus.

We went to see a Salsa band yesterday, and quickly learnt a couple of other people's moves, after being told that the British are rubbish dancers! The music was fast, feverish and you couldn't help but join in.

On one of our last few nights in Buenos Aires (we were very sad to leave both the city and our eclectic group of amigos at the Hostel) we went to see a spectacular Tango show. It was a very beautiful form of acrobatics: the costumes, live music, spins and lifts made us want to uproot all of our plans and stay in Buenos Aires to master the dance. Just walking along San Telmo market on Sunday, street artists would invite locals to join them for a spontaneous exchange on the cobbled streets.



Paula suggested we go to an Afro-Carribean gig too, which we went to without hesitation on Thursday night. The Drums and the Clarinet got faster and faster throughout the evening, as did the crowd despite the humid evening and the 'intimately sized' venue.

Another musical evenings was Groovestock at a place really close to our hostel. It was a line-up of local bands all playing cool Indie music and each with their own dedicated team of hard core groupies. They had flyers, flags, mosh-pit-starters, t-shirts, and people to sing along louder than the main dude. A Senor at San Telmo market who had a stall dedicated to selling horse riding equipment told us about how in Argentina, you have to find your passion and spend your life working on it. His is horses- and these guys' one was their band.


This Senor's stall was really interesting, he could have kitted out a little group of horse-back travellers. However, I was most interested in the 'Don't Touch The Guns' sign because after carrying our backpacks around our arm muscles are getting in to serious shape!

Wish us luck tonight :)
Chao x

Buenos Aires First Steps

Sophia and I are chilling out on the roof of our hostal. It's a grey day (unlike the past two) but the streets are hot and the Spanish is flowing. Well, for Sophia anyway - my language is more of a shameful Frespanol...

So far we've been seeing the city by foot, but our tired legs are telling us that we have under-estimated the size of the city. Buenos Aires is pretty massive. Each barrio has it's own community and personality attached: leafy, posh Palermo or expenisve, glamorous Recoleta. Having said that, we walked past a great bit of graffiti yesterday telling us that even if you're leaving one barrio to go home to yours, then you've already arrived - BA is one organism.

There's colour everywhere- orange, green, blue buildings. Even parliament is pink. This is especially the case in La Boca, where we stumbled across a little village of Glastonbury-esque street performers and music. Very cool. Very Bohemian.



Paula, our kind, local portena, invited us to her place yesterday. From there, we went out to a Tango class and learnt some (really complicated!) moves. The proffesional dancers make leg crossing and backwards walking look easier than it is! Felt a bit out of place in my schoolboy daps and shorts combo next to the ladies with red-dresses, but we're told the sentiment of passion is the most important aspect. In South America, dancing is an art.

I have sampled an Argentinian steak, which brought me close to Dad's Banana and Chocolate Pancake Epiphany (p.s learnt the word for Pancake yesterday - Pancakas, or thereabouts), but there are still Empanadas to try. Luckily however, it means that lunch has been sorted for today.

There's still a lot to see - I hope all is well at home, and that the Spring weather is continuing!

My number is 1161513126. Pero no se el numero para argentina. Something like that.


Adios Amigos, Suerte!!
Lx