Salt and High Altitude!

Hola!

Well we are now in La Paz, got here at 5.30am this morning (2 hours early!!), after a bumpy overnight bus journey from Potosi.

So last time we posted we were awaiting our train to Uyuni from Villazon. What an AWESOME journey, 9 hours of stunning scenery through tiny villages, farmland, huge red cliffs and canyons and desert. Uyuni is a cold desert town, bit scruffy, but interesting, most travellers are just passing through on their way to or from seeing the salt plains. We took a one day tour of the salt plains, which turned out to be a very surreal day of sightseeing. Our guide spoke no English, but he was great at speaking Spanish veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly so we got the jist of most of what he was saying! First stop was a train cemetery on the outskirts of Uyuni, full of old British built steam trains. We then drove across the salt plain, the Salar de Uyuni, so white and huge, 12,000km square, thats a lot of salt! There is no perspective so you can get some crazy pictues. Saw the locals mining the salt and a hotel made out of salt. We had lunch in the shadows of a dormant volcano, whilst watching flamingos and llamas (our driver cooked us steak over a gas BBQ!). Then we drove across more salt and visited fish island. Crazy island in the middle of the salt plain which has giant cactuses and rabbit like creatures with long tails! And James got some quality sunburn, resulting in very immpresive sunglasses marks on his face!

From Uyuni we caught a bus to Potosi, the highest city in the world, 4070m above sea level. The bus journey there was interesting......no bitumen at all (only 10%of roads in Bolivia have bitumen) and winding through mountains, with some very steep drops off the edge!!!!! Think of the bumpyest road you´ve been on and times it by 10!!!!! The bus also got a puncture at one point on two tyres!!!!! So we all had to get off the bus in the middle of nowhere while they fixed it, the tyres that they replaced the punctured ones with weren´t much better, they had no tred at all and bits of rubber missing! LLamas kept being getting on the road infront of the bus too, so the driver was constantly beeping his horn (something they are very fond of doing in Bolivia). But we made it. However the scenery on the drive was stunning, lots of huge red and green cliffs.

Potosi turned out to be quite a cool city, with a huge mountain called the Cerra Rico overlooking it and some great colonial buildings. The mountain used to be massive silver mine, and now looks as if it belongs on Mars after 100´s of years of mining. It is still a mine today but on a much smaller scale. Its very dangerous too, the life expectancy of people who work in there is 10 years after they have started mining because of the bad ventilation. Over 8 million people died in the mine over 300 years in its heyday,which was from1500-1800´s!!!!! Despite the altitude it wasn´t too cold, very sunny during the day. And we´ve both got used to the altitude now so no sickness :) While we were there we met up with a English couple, Emma and Rob, who we met in Chile, which was great fun. Just stayed there for one night, then lastnight caught the bus to La Paz. That bus journey wasn´t as bad, still quite bumpy though and we did have two comedy old Bolivian ladies in traditional dress sleeping in the aisle. We are staying here for 3 days, and then moving on to Copacabana............

Very behind on the piccies am afraid, hopefully we´ll find a reasonably fast interent place soon so I can upload them...........

Lots of love to everyone
J&J xxxxx

BOLIVIA!!!!!

Hi all..

Just a quickie here to let you know we are alive and well, and a little short of breath in a town called Villazon (3440m above sea level) on the Bolivia side of the border from Argentina. We are awaiting a train to take us to Uyuni to see the salt plains.

We are a little behind on photos as interweb connection struggle to download Flickr applications here, Jude is trying as we speak.

Well after Uraguay we headed back to Buenos aires to catch a bus to Puerto Iguazu! Special note at this stage goes to my super-on-the-ball-lady who - whilst we were waiting for the bus at the notorious Retiro station - foiled an attempted theft of my bag !! 10 out of 10 and a lot of hassle saved!

After a 19 hour bus ride we arrived in Puerto Iguazu, to an amazing hostel with a massive pool, they were also the first hostel who actually got our booking correct!! a good start, and things just got better, the food there was amazing! our room was clean and in the quiet area and of course the falls were incredible! photos can't do the scale or the force justice! we did both the Argentinian and Brazilian side which was cool, both completely different. On the Argentinian side we took a speed boat ride which ploughs in to some of the falls which was fun, and damp!!

We then set off Bolivia bound by yes you guessed it BUS!! 27 and a half hours to a town called Salta for 24 hours rest before the big push to Bolivia, and here we are!!

Well signing out, as altitude is making this hard work. apologies for the poor reading will improve once we have acclimatised.

xxj&jxx

Uruguay - winners of the first ever football world cup!!!

Wall in San Telmo, Buenos Aires

Doorway in La Boca, Buenos Aires

Hola once again!
After a surprisingly pleasant 19 hour bus journey from Bariloche (English movies, proper meals, armchair seats, wine and a bed-time whiskey!) we arrived in BUENOS AIRES. muy bien! (the spanish is getting slightly better and they speak more slowly in Argentinia so we have been able to understand people, or at least some of what they say!!!)

Buenos Aires rocked, had sooooooo much fun, saw and did loads. A city bus tour (´cos we can´t get enough of buses!!!!) showed us the main sights, including the famous Boca Junior Football stadium and the most polluted river in the World (smelt VERY bad!). We had a traditional Argentinian BBQ (Asado) —lots of charred salty meat and copious amounts of red wine, resulting in muchos headaches. We wandered the cobbled streets of the San Telmo area on Sunday (which was really near where we stayed), loads of markets, street stalls, tango, street dining and tons of people!!!! Great atmosphere. We also went to a Tango show one evening, which was one of the highlights. Professional dancers and singers (and boy could they dance and sing!) With champagne and a three course meal thrown in. One final mention for the Recoleta cemetery – home to the grave of Evita. A truely extravagant graveyard with huge ornate mausoleums crammed next to each other, with coffins on display and loads of cats wandering around!! Nuts!!!

From Buenos Aires we had the crazy idea to hop on a boat to Uruguay for a few days. We’ve visited Colonia del Sacramento – an old town built by the Portuguese as a smuggling route to Buenos Aires - beautiful architecture and generally really cute. And Montevideo, where we are now. It´s rained and thundered most of the afternoon, but we had a good stroll round this morning. Lots of huge old buildings, some of which are a bit run down, but cool atmosphere and friendly people. When we arrived in Montevideo we saw a bus for Fray Bentos, much amusement, we thought about going to get a pie, but unfortunately the factory has closed there now!

Back to Buenos Aires tomorrow, so bus, boat, then 19 hour bus journey again to Puerto Iguazu to see the mighty Iguazu falls (all 270+ of them). Quite excited about this, apparently the ions from the spray make you happy!!

Love to all.

Xxj&jxx

Don´t cry for me Argentina...............

Volcano Villarica, Pucon, Chile

A fat sea lion in Valdivia, Chile

Bariloche, Argentina

Hey there everyone!

Well, we are in the Argentinean Lake District in a ski resort town called Bariloche by the side of Lake Nahuel Huapi. Really pretty place, very alpine. Arrived here on Wednesday after a scenic and interesting 8 hour drive over the Andes from Puerto Varas in Chile. Snow was piled higher than the bus by the side of the road, we got stuck for a bit while a wagon pulled other wagons up a hill, and we had to pass through two border crossings. The ski field near Bariloche is the biggest in South America but we decided not to board while here, partly because the conditions aren´t that great at the moment, but more importantly the hire gear is mostly multi-coloured all in ones!!!!!!!!!!!!! NICE.

Our 5-day trip from Santiago down to the Lake District region of Chile was great. We spent the first night in the beach town resort of Pichelimu, has the best surf in the whole of Chile and amazing black sand beaches. Bit cold when we were there though to appreciate the beach. Second stop was Pucon (via an awesome museum in Santa Cruz containing a huge and very eclectic collection of all kinds of stuff belonging to a very rich Chilean arms dealer!). Pucon lies in the shadows of Volcano Villarica, which is active! It puffs smoke by day and glows by night, cooooooooool. We did a 40km bike ride in the countryside around it one afternoon, beautiful, and we saw some baby lambs J Then it was further South to Valdivia, where we saw the fattest and laziest sea lions ever, they just gorge on fish from the fish market! Finally arriving in Peurto Varas after a stop-off to eat salmon and peruse the local markets in Peurto Montt. Made some new friends on the trip too, we had a cool guide called Nicos and a great driver called Sergio, both from Santiago and both spoke really good English, thanks guys! And there were only four other peeps on the trip, including an English couple from Twickenham, all great fun.

So this afternoon we are catching the bus to Buenos Aires, woooooooooohooooooooooooo, bring on the steaks and the tango. A 19 hour journey arriving around midday. Can´t wait!

Lotsa love,
J&J xxxx