The disused railway into Argentina

I was quite pleased to be leaving Argentina: apart from the steak (when you don't get the “gringo cut”) and, of course, Iguazu Falls, I hadn't really enjoyed my time there. Some things about the culture just grated with me: it seems more militarised and less laid-back that its neighbours, and we had spent far more money than we had planned to. That's not to say I wouldn't go back to Argentina: apart from the falls, we didn't have time to do any of the things I would really have liked to, such as visit Patagonia and the lake district, and spend some time in the Andes. Also, I would like to spend some more time in Buenos Aires, which only scratched the surface of. I think we did spend too much time in towns, though, and apart from Bs As they weren't really worth it.

Finally, we got to the border, and it looked like we would still have enough time to catch the train, although it still depended on customs and finding the train station. At first our hearts sank, because the queue for customs was huge; it looked like it would take at least two hours but, just to be sure, we decided to walk up to the front in case we were missing something. Thankfully, there was another window which officials were waving us towards. At first I felt a bit embarrassed, believing that the gringos got their own special fast track window, but then I noticed that our window said entrada over it, whereas the one with the huge queue said salida. Seems like a lot of people want to leave Bolivia for Argentina, or else it's just very slow and complicated to do so. Next to our window was a poster which said vota si! Evo, which is not the partisan kind of material I would expect to see at a border post.

Ten minutes later out passports were stamped, I had realised that we had gained and hour due to the time difference, and I had spotted a sign saying that the train leaves at 3.30pm, not 2pm as we had been told. Suddenly we had loads of extra time, but Joanne still wanted to hurry because she had read that you need to buy tickets well in advance. We had been told that there were no ATMs are the border, so we drawn some extra Argentine Pesos to change; ominously, in return for the 370 Argentine Pesos I handed over at the cambio, I received 666 Bolivianos.

We marched along the main road in Villazon, with our big bags, asking people where the train station was: invariably they answered cuatro cuadros, mas o menos; we just didn't seem to be getting closer and it was really hard work: the sun was out and Villazon is at about 3500m, well into the altitude sickness zone. We walked past food stalls, loads of places selling a great range of nice warm clothes for very low prices, some pro-Morales graffiti, and finally arrived at the train station. We bought ejecutivo tickets for 51 Bolivianos (about £4.35) then sat down to wait, which is when we realised we were both very hungry. But was there a cafe in station? Was there even a kiosk, selling sandwiches or something? No. All there was, were a couple of stalls outside the station where the women were selling sweets.

Evo seems popular

There was no real food to be bought. I tried a couple of shops across the road, but all they sold to eat were sweets and sugary biscuits. Apart from the Argentinian steak, which you can hardly eat all the time, South American food had been fairly awful: it's almost all junk food. In restaurants, most of what they offer is a bit of meat with some chips. OK, there are some nice Italian restaurants, but on the whole the cuisine is terrible. Now it looked like Bolivia was going to be even worse. Some Argentinians had warned us that the food in Bolivia was awful, and also very likely to make us ill, but I had dismissed this as xenophobia. I was sure we had passed some half-decent looking food stalls and also a stall selling coca tea, which I was becoming convinced I needed for the altitude; apparently coca tea is good for altitude sickness and I was starting to get a bad headache and feel very light-headed.

Evo seems popular

Of course there was no left luggage facility at the station, so I left Joanne with the bags and marched back towards town in search of food and coca tea. The further north in Argentina we got, the poorer and more basic the places had begun to look; also people had started to look much more interesting and a lot darker skinned. Now we were in Bolivia, it was at first sight a far poorer place that Argentina, and almost everyone looked properly Amerindian now: no real Spanish look, and certainly none of the northern European look of Uruguay. I walked and walked, getting out of breath and feeling worse. Eventually, almost all the way back to the border I felt too bad to go on, so I started heading back without having found any food or tea.

About half way back, I saw a sign for a restaurant and decided to ask if they would sell me some food para llegar. The menu was simple: they were selling meat sandwiches from a barbecue outside, so it was no problem to get a takeaway, but when I sat down to wait, the manager told me they didn't sell coca tea. I was surprised, because I thought it was everywhere in Bolivia; after all it had been everywhere in northern Argentina, so I had to make do with a beer, which was surprisingly nice, and a great improvement on the awful Quilmes that dominates the Argentine market. Finally I made it back, panting, to the train station, and presented Joanne with her dodgy sandwich. She had been talking to a Scottish guy who was cycling around South America. He had found the altitude too difficult over the last stretch, though, and had decided to take the next stage by train. Now that would be a great trip!

I had taken so long to get the food that we didn't have to wait much longer for the train. It was very nice and the most luxurious transport we had travelled on for some time. We even had food brought to us in our seats.

written by  The Happy Couple on October 17, 2009 from Villazon, Bolivia
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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When we arrived in Tupiza it didn't look like much, and it was still extremely dry and dusty. We tagged along with a pair of Dutch girls we had been chatting to on the train, and ended up at hotel more expensive than I had been hoping we would find; Bolivia is really cheap, we had been told. Continuing in the same vein, we went with the girls to a tourist restaurant, where I was finally able to get some coca tea for my altitude sickness; it wasn't as bad as it had been at the border, after all we had dropped about 500 metres, but I still felt terrible. We usually let ourselves overspend when we first arrive in a country, until we work it all out, but we were seriously going to have to change our ways in Bolivia to stick to the budget other people had led me to believe was possible: after paying the food bill we had already spent more than a day's money and we had only just arrived. OK, it was definitely cheaper than Argentina, but I was expecting it to be as cheap as Asia.

Coca tea

Huari Beer

Pilsner La Paz

The next day I discovered there are no ATMs in Tupiza. Joanne claimed to have known this and told me so, but I only remembered that there were no ATMs at the border, so I had only drawn enough Pesos to change, to get us through one day in Tupiza. Which put us in a difficult position. Now our extravagance the day before was really coming back to haunt us: no way should we have eaten in a tourist restaurant if there are no ATMs in town! And we should have stayed in the cheaper hotel that I had suggested. After a slightly heated debate about what to do, Joanne and I agreed that we should simply change the stash of Euros if anyone would except them, since they don't seem to be as popular in South America, otherwise we would just change all of our emergency stash of US Dollars.

Tupiza

We did have enough money for a couple of days in town, but the main reason we had come here was to take a tour to Salar de Uyuni, the famous salt flats: the largest in the world, and the tour was going to be quite expensive. Also we really really needed to buy some warmer clothes, so we definitely needed more money. We went into the tour office to find out what the situation was: we could pay by credit card, but it would incur a 7% fee which is a bit hefty, so we weren't keen. Or, the agent said, beaming, we could simply pay a Bs200 deposit per person, clearly believing that we would obviously have such a tiny amount of money, and pay the rest in Uyuni, the town where the tour terminates, as there is a cajero automatico there. I showed him what I had in my pocket and he said that he would be happy enough to take Bs200 for the two of us, but that would have left us completely cleaned out and unable to eat or pay for accommodation. At my suggestion, he agreed to let me pay just the deposit on credit card, so the 7% wouldn't be so painful. But, he said, we should change some money as there would be things to buy on the trip, and directed us to a currency exchange.

The currency exchange was closed. It was Sunday and almost everything was closed. There was no way the banks were going to be open, but there were plenty of informal exchanges around town, however most of them were shut too. People kept directing us to one place or another, but it was always shut. Finally we found a Chinese run restaurant, though not selling Chinese food, which had a notice up in the window saying that they buy Dollars. The food was cheap, though, and fairly typically Bolivian I think, so we sat down to eat, then I asked about Euros, but of course they didn't want them. After looking around town more, we decided this was the only possible place and went back with our small collection of Dollars. When I offered the $36 to the proprietor, he seemed quite angry. I couldn't catch everything he said, but the gist was that he only wanted $100 bills or over; he wasn't interested in a Peso here or there, and he almost shooed us out of his restaurant. The Dollars we had were left over from Cambodia, where that was the only currency we could get, but I wondered what on earth kind of tourist he was used to, who has wads of $100 bills. I suppose some Americans must just go on holiday with a suitcase full of hard cash.

My Bolivian lunch

Joanne's Bolivian lunch

Hours more walking around, knocking on locked doors, then finally I realised that tocar is used for ringing a bell as well as knocking on a door, and we were let into one of the locked places people had repeatedly directed us to. Even here, the guy wasn't interested in the eleven $1 bills, which had been so vital in Cambodia, and we came away with $25 worth of Bolivianos; enough, in one of the only open shops, to buy me a pair of trousers which didn't fit all that well, but I reckoned would do, since I would definitely be losing weight after my Argentinian peak of 93kg. Even the previous day when shops had been open, the choice was awful, and I'm sure I was overcharged for the trousers. We really should have bought clothing in Villazon, but at least I had trousers again.

Finally we were ready for the tour.

written by  The Happy Couple on October 18, 2009 from Tupiza, Bolivia
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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We turned up at the office of Tupiza Tours to discover that, of the German couple, only Tina but not Stephan spoke Spanish, and that we had been joined by a fifth person, an American girl called Victoria, who also spoke quite good Spanish; at least a fifth person on the trip meant that we would owe less money when we got to Uyuni.

Our transport

As we set off in the jeep, it seemed like we were to be joined by an extra passenger: not only did we have David as our driver-guide, and Bernadine in the back as our cook, but she was joined by a rather small passenger by name of Abigail; their daughter, aged three. After a bit of Spanish I didn't really follow, Tina told us that they were dropping Abi off at her grandmother's house on the way out of town. We did stop briefly on the way out of town and some doors were knocked, but still Abi remained in the car. Tina said that she didn't think they really expected to drop her off and she would be accompanying us for the whole trip. She was cute and didn't take up much space, though, so we didn't mind.

Jaggy rock formations

More jaggy rocks

Cacti and jaggy rocks

Everyone else reflected in Victoria's sunglasses

Cacti

Llamas

A mine

Dry stripey mountains

Short climb before lunch

The first day of the tour took us through some very arid landscapes, where llamas were the only livestock suitable for the environment, and where the small towns we passed seem as if they should be uninhabitable, except that most of them were set up as mining towns using coerced labour. Despite being very hot during the day, the high altitude means that even entire herds of llamas freeze to death occasionally, as had happened here a few years previously. Luckily, enough llamas had survived to provide us with dried llama meat as the filling for the delicious tamales we ate for lunch. During lunch, we asked if we could each get the two litres of water the company had promised us per day. David told us that, yes he know the company said that, but in fact there was only one litre per person, per day. When the child was taken into account, we discovered, there was actually less than that. First black mark against the company!

San Pablo de Lipez...

... a little town in the middle of the desert

Colourful rocks

View

Our cool registration plate

Llama skulls

Lots of dead llamas

Finally we finished our first day at a small town called San Antonio de Lipez. Unfortunately for me, the town is at 4200m above sea level and we had started at about 3000m above sea level. The Lonely Planet trekking guide to Nepal, I remembered, says that you should ascend no more than 500m per day above 3000m; and in one day we had just ascended 1200m. If we had done it from the border town of Villazon it wouldn't have been so bad, as Villazon is about 3500m above sea level. I had been feeling fine as we ascended all day, but not long after we arrived in town I had to lie down and I couldn't even get up to eat dinner. Everyone else seemed fine, but the thought of moving or eating anything was enough to make me feel like vomiting; so I did neither.

Stripes

Che

During the night I got up for the toilet, feeling considerably better, though still not quite right, and I stayed outside for about half and hour, looking at the fantastic stars; at least as fantastic as the southern hemisphere can manage in the way of stars.

written by  The Happy Couple on October 19, 2009 from San Antonio de Lipez, Bolivia
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Coca leaves handy for the driver

An abandoned mining town

Morning view

The landscape on the second day was even more arid than the first, but what really stands out is how richly coloured all the rocks are; apparently this is due to the incredible variety and wealth of the mineral content. We soon came over a pass from where we could look down at what looked like a frozen or snow-covered lake, but David told us that is actually mineral deposits, though not common salt as in the Salar we were eventually going to reach.

Highish pass

Mineral lake

Volcano

We passed a small green patch where lots of llamas were grazing. The each had different coloured ribbons tied to their ears to identify to whom the belonged. David told us that each family in the area owns about two hundred (I think it was) llamas, since they are their only source of wealth.

Llamas

Cute ear ribbons to identify owner

Out of the car is was really cold, since we were at about five thousand metres above sea-level, but still the coca leaves seemed to be keeping any problems at bay. Everyone else started feeling sick though. I'm not sure if I had just gone through some threshold the night before or if it genuinely was chewing the coca leaves that kept me healthy, but I was definitely the best off all day.

Joanne and llamas

Cold Joanne

At the park entrance a poster had advertised the fact we would see flamingos and when we got to the mineral-rich lake, we discovered there loads of flamingos all over the lake, though they were quite shy, and tried to evade our photography.

Flamingos

All those little dots are flamingos

See?

We pressed on, through ever drier ground until there was almost no plant life at all. All the time we were surrounded by colourful mountains bursting with valuable minerals apparently. No wonder Bolivia was exploited by the Spanish so much as a mining country and source of raw materials.

The road ahead

Mineral filled mountain

Andean fox

Finally we came to a hot spring, where we had lunch then took a dip in beautiful surroundings.

Everyone but me in hot spring

Everyone but Victoria in hot spring

Just Joanne and me

Then it was onto Laguna Blanca and Laguna Verde, with Volcan Licancabur as the backdrop.

Laguna Verde

David told us we would next be driving through the Desierto de Dali. I wasn't sure what the big deal was supposed to be, but we all took photos anyway. I suppose some of the warped rocks are supposed to look like something he would have painted. Or maybe the place inspired him, my Spanish wasn't good enough to work it out.

The road continues

Desierto de Dali

The first of many "photos locos"

Then the next stop in our busy schedule was at some geysers at 5000m. Tina started to feel really ill here, and David gave her some drug for treating altitude sickness. I still felt fine and encouraged everyone else to have some coca leaves but, apart from Joanne testing a couple of leaves, everyone else stuck with their sickness or chemical treatments.

Geisers Sol de Manana

Bad boys walking beyond the danger signs

A big geyser

Trusty Chilli Bovril

Dolce de leche - dangerous and addictive

Coca leaves for tea

written by  The Happy Couple on October 20, 2009 from Laguna Colorada, Bolivia
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Another mineral lake

Che

More flamingos in a thermal lake

Flamingos and Volcano

It was more mineral lakes, more volcanoes, and more flamingos. Soon we were requesting no more flamingos; we have enough photos of flamingos we insisted, but every time David told us that these ones would be more tame and we would get better photos; and he was right. Why he didn't just take us to the last really tame flamingos and forget the rest, I don't know.

David and Abi walking over minerals

Flamenco y Volcan

Hot lake

The wheels

More minerally mountains

Not much of a road

Surely this should be Dali's Desert?

After the flamingos in Laguna Colorada, we came to some much more distorted and interesting rock formations in the desert, than those in the Desierto de Dali the previous day. Here David introduced us to photos locos, which I think is a course they must do in guide school. All the guides know how to get the best shops of people doing silly things, but their favourite is to take photos with an unusual perspective, making it look like the object of the photo is much larger or smaller than it really is. I believe this all may have started with people holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa and pinching the top of the Taj Mahal, but it probably goes back to the dawn of photography. The main attraction in this part of the desert is the Arbol de Piedra which David instructed us each in turn to pretend we were holding. He didn't make a very good job of mind so I didn't bother putting it up, but there are plenty more photos locos for the Salar itself. Normally I would have been embarrassed by such behaviour, but months of witnessing Chinese tourists has completely desensitised me to extreme posing.

Photos Locos no.2

El Arbol de Piedra

Boogeyman from Nightmare Before Xmas?

Rocks

Photos Locos 3

Photos Locos 4

Minerals

A wee walk by the lake

The previous day, we had passed several vicuñas, which are another of the four species of camelids living in Bolivia, where llamas and alpacas are the most common and only two to have been domesticated. Vicuña, by contrast, are wild and rare, David told us, and there is a program to protect them from extinction, so all hunting had been banned for some time. Of course we wanted photos of them, but David had been keen to stick to his timetable the previous day, and we had been unable to take any photos. So, this day, I was waiting for an opportunity and as soon as I spotted one I asked if we could stop and we all took photos. If I'd known how many we would see, I might not have bothered with that first one.

First vicuña caught on camera

Another mineral lake with....

... FLAMINGOS!

Yup , flamingos

There were some flamingos

More vicuñas

Ffff... flamingos

Flamingos!

Would you believe it - flamingos?

Explosive lake

How did they come up with the name?

My stomach had been giving me trouble all day, despite having made it for seven months in Asia with barely mild indigestion. Argentinians had warned us about the food in Bolivia, telling us we should be very careful, but I had thought the tour would be fine. Throughout the day, I discovered that everybody else also had a bit of a stomach upset. I suspected last night's chicken. But it could have been the humitos, who knows? After many many flamingos over several small Lagunas, we came to what David seemed to think was something of a climax: an active volcano, still smoking. It was quite nice, but not really much different from any of the other volcanoes we had seen; just a little wisp of smoke coming out of the top.

Vicuñas in front of mineral lake and volcano

Vicuña AND flamingos

Smoking Volcan Ollague

Abi helps with the driving

What's that reflected in Jo's sunglasses?

Oh, it's me and a smoking volcano

Joanne and volcano

New Nazca Lines?

Finally we reached our destination for the day: a salt hotel. Joanne had read something about a salt hotel being illegal, so we were a bit apprehensive about it, although it was very nice and it was also the first time on the trip that we could have hot water showers. There were a few other groups staying in the hotel and we noticed that, just like the previous day, and at lunch, everyone seemed to have nicer food than us, although they were all complaining about not getting enough water. Our food had been pretty awful and now it seemed we all had food-poisoning. To irritate us further, every time we had a meal, including breakfast, at least two litres of fizzy drinks were brought out. Why couldn't they forget about the fizzy drinks and just give us more water? Clearly people from the first world do not have as sweet a tooth as South Americans.

Salt bedroom

Salt Livingroom

written by  The Happy Couple on October 21, 2009 from Atulcha, Bolivia
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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