Onwards and Northwards

After Iguazu, and as happens every few weeks, we had to take a look at our time and money situation. We decided that we needed to start heading generally north if we wanted to make to Bolivia and Peru with adequate time to go where we wanted. Usually people go from Salta directly to Bolivia, but considering we had already been there and taken a 23 hour bus ride to get to Iguazu which borders Paraguay and not Bolivia, we figured the best way to go from there was through the less travelled Paraguay. So thats what we did. The next few days were spent just getting to Bolivia and all I remember is a haze of night buses, border crossings, and a day in Paraguay´s capital, Ascuncion, about which I have nothing really notable to say!

Deciding which route to take through Bolivia depends largely on where you are coming from and where you are going to next. As we entered the country on the south east border from Paraguay, we wanted first to go to Uyuni which is like a base camp for tourists going to the Salar de Uyuni, or the Salt Flats. From there the rough plan was to head up to La Paz and use it as a base for activites and deciding where to go next.

Bolivia is a country of constrasts. And extremes. Anyone traveling there should be prepared to be tested physically and mentally and no matter how well prepared you think you are to travel in a place like this, you will likely encounter something completey unexpected. From the dizzying heights of La Paz (Located at an altitude of 3,660 metres (12,008 ft), it is the world's highest capital city), to the lowland tropical regions of rurrenabaque and the pampas rainforests and everything in between, you can feel like you are in a completely different place from one day to the next because climate, landscape and even the local people change dramatically from one area to the next.

We crossed the border - with all the formalities including presenting your passport to be stamped in a dark room with a dodgy bolivian offical, showing your certificate of vaccinations against dengue fever, then being accompanied back to the bus by a few boys no older than 16 in military uniforms brandishing AK-47´s - and arrived in a tiny isolated town called villamontes. From here a group of around 6 of us (being the only foreigners in the whole area) splashed out spending a whole maybe 3 dollars US each to get a private minibus to bring us to Tarija, where we killed time for the day walking around the town, before taking a night bus to the slightly larger town near Tupiza. After arriving here at 4.30am we said goodbye to the japanese couple who had accompanied us thus far but no were reseigned to taking a hotel room for the day and sleeping. Not wanting to be stranded in another isolated Bolivian town we got to work on negotiating with the few taxi drivers who had flocked to us knowing we were looking for a way to Tupiza as quick as possible, and soon enough we struck a deal with an eager young man with a decent looking car who would drive us all the way there over a rocky bumby road in the mountains. Of course, 3 hours in and just after sun rise, we encountered a puntured tyre. Our driver quickly and casually got out to change the tyre in a way that I could tell it happened all the time. With the boys asleep in the back, myself and Mattias got out to walk around and enjoy the morning view of the mountains...( evenutally, the boys woke up and joined me for a photo op - see photo above)

Eventually we arrived in Tupiza, and the next morning took a 7 hour bus - one of my most uncomfortable bus journeys ever, for many reasons - to get to Uyuni. We made it, shivering from the cold and out of breath from the altitude, but excited to plan our trip to the salt flats.