Mind your metal

Mon 13th- Tue 14h Dec

We were up early on Monday to catch a bus to Uyuni, pronounced Uni. This particular bus had all the special features: no-toilet, no-air conditioning and no-leg room. The uncomfortable ride was made worse by the mass of dust that would come through any gap in the bus, making our throats dry. As you can imagine the bus had more holes then a Bolivian mine shaft. The best part of the ride for me was the toilet stop when we asked the driver where it was, he pointed to a big, dry, river bed and said ’ikee' there. The more faint hearted girls opted for holding ‘it’, in. Me, I’m getting used to squatting like a bum these days. The only people that get embarrassed by this, supposedly uncivilized act as we had seen on our journey, are us precious gringos. Trust ladies you don’t lose much credibility dropping your pants in public over here, and the less you think about it, the better of your bladder I say!!

We arrived in Uyuni sweaty and Slim Dusty. We found a hostel in the square, had showers, and went out for some Bolivian cuisine. For you information, Uyuni is tick on Bolivia’s incredibly rocky back. We couldn’t walk fifty feet without someone trying to sell us a tour of the Salt Flats. Sadly there is not much going of his town except he the tourist dollar. The proof being that tourists themselves getting going nearly as soon as they arrive.

The next day we went for breakfast at a restaurant right next to where we were staying. A young guy with limited English served us who was wearing a ‘Metal’ t-shirt. From the smile on his face it was obvious it was he who had wacked on the Swedish metal playing on the TV. Pete got chatting to him (as best he could) about metal and he told us his brother was in a metal band based in La Paz. The kid took a few minutes and found his bro’s DVD and played some Bolivian metal for us. He then said that he was in a band also, and that he was playing ‘esta noche’, that night, and would we like to go? Hell yes!!!! He was going to pick us up from the restaurant that evening, he said he would be wearing make up, and we weren’t to tell anyone as it was an anti-christian group he played guitar for (90% of South Americans are catholic so you can understand the secrecy-heavy). We were excited!!! Something different!! He was exited, daring to be!!!!

We left him and went in search of a tour company to take us on a three day two night tour of the Salt Flats and lagoons. We found one we liked, booked, and went for a walk around the town. It literally took us half an hour. We then sat down for a beer and some card playing and for the first time on this trip. For the first time on our trip I was really really bored. Just a bit over hanging out with Pete the gringo, you know the feeling?
As we were making our way back to the hostel, our little metal friend saw us and told us there was a problem with our arrangement for the evening. That half his band was stuck in La Paz and it would be on the next night. Bottom line, we were going to miss the cultural event of the century- as we would be on our own tour. As compo he promised us a CD of his band, told us to meet him back at the restaurant at five pm to get the black market goods. No worries. So Pete went to play guitar in the room for a bit, and I took the laptop out to a café and sat down to work on blogs and photos. As I was sitting on the sidewalk, who should walk past- Liz and Louise!!! They had just finished the salt flats tour and were getting a train that evening. We decided to meet up later to have dinner.
I went back to get Pete to go to the restaurant to get the CD off our friend. We waited in the dining area and he came in and pretty much ignored us, no head-bang or even a nod!! Strange metal activity indeed. When he went to clean outside tables, Pete followed, and later told me that there was another problem- the Christian lady was working and he couldn’t give us the contraband, could we come back later at seven! So off we went. Pete ended up going to the restaurant about five times, each time he said, come back in five minutes. Finally he gave Pete a CD with nothing written on it-not his bands name, or the title of the album, EP, LP, single? We don’t have a CD player so we cannot find out what we’re in possession of. For all we know we could be in the middle of some Dan Brown, DaVinci Code, heavy metal cover-up conspiracy plot….heavy man.
‘Paranoid’ aside, the b-side was that the girls bought their backpacks to leave at ours and we went to a highly recommended pizza joint: The Minute Man. It had really good pizza and exceptional hot chocolate cake with ice cream. They left us for the final time… we think, went to bed, awaiting our big journey the next day.

Uyuni, Bolivia