El Salar

I think you can't visit Bolivia without visiting el Salar de Uyuni. 

It was absolutely incredible.

The journey was a bit of a palava..

I left Cochabamba at 3.30 on Thursday, on a bus to Oruro, in order to get the tickets to Uyuni for all of us, Greta and Freddy were arriving later. However, they arrived just 10 minutes after the last bus to Uyuni left. So, we decided to go to Potosi, which is closer to Uyuni. At least we might have a better chance of getting there for 10.30, when the tour started. We left at 11pm, and arrived in Potosi at 4.30. It was completely empty, the only people in the bus station were homeless or this lady selling coffee to I don't know who... and also taxi drivers.

'Adonde quieren ir, hotel, aeropuerto, restaurante...?'

Ummmm, Uyuni?

The taxi driver offered to take us all the way to Uyuni, which is 4 hours away, he gave us a pretty good price and managed to do it in 3 hours. The ride was amazing, half asleep under blankets, the sun rising over the mountains, sand, quinoa and llamas.

Arrived in Uyuni with plenty of time, we took Sabat, the taxi driver out to breakfast, and said goodbye..

There were 6 of us in a jeep with our guide Renaldo. And doing the tour at the same time were about 15 other jeeps, I felt like such a tourist!

We first went to the train cemetery, long lines of rusty trains from when Uyuni used to export a lot of minerals I do believe, and had a go on the swing...

The salt mountains, which are made to make the salt dry out to then be able to manufacture it...

El hotel de sal...

And then we went deeper into the Salar and some crazy things happened...

It was so so beautiful, just endless salt, all of the mountains in the distance looked like they were floating.

That night we stayed in a hostel in Ataca, and the next day we piled in the jeep and made the journey south to...

A load o rocks!

And then many, many a laguna with many a flamingo (thanks to Freddy for the beautiful photos)

The tree of stone...

Where there were proper toilets...

I'm not sure how accurate the guides were. Michella who was in another group told me that Star Wars had been filmed there, and the rocks where from volcano eruptions because they were red. I just don't know what to believe any more!

The most amazing lake was la laguna colorada...

That night we stayed in a tiny tiny village in the National Park with electricity from 7-9.30 and it was the coldest I have been since England.

I have never seen so many stars in my life. It was verdaderemente increible.

In the morning we got up at half four, still frozen, to go and see the geysers in the morning light...

and swim in the thermal pool...

On the tour with us was an elderly Czech/Canadian guy. He obviously wasn’t used to Bolivian timing, and complained every time we had to wait another 10 minutes (in these beautiful places). He also wasn’t happy with the fact that the guide didn’t speak English… And on the way back to Uyuni at the end of the tour he certainly wasn’t happy with the speed at which the guide was going in order to get back for half past four. He told Reynaldo to slow down several times, in English, which funnily enough he didn’t understand, and then started shouting at him in English telling him he was pissed off and what a bad guide he was! So he stopped the car and they had a bit of a spanish-english shouting match, and the rest of the journey was very awkward. And spitefully slow.

We got home in the end, after a long, long night on a bumpy road.

Last friday the 8th of march was a bloomin busy day at Ushpa!

As it was international women's day the alcadia, a government group, came to give breakfast to all of the ladies from women's groups and from the community, and some of the staff were going round giving out roses, and someone had made millions of paper roses to give to all the all of the women.

Also my kids were doing their medical tests that day, so when I came into the classroom there was only 1 in there, they were all upstairs in the health clinic waiting to be checked by the doctor and the dentist with their parents, and it was only at the end of the day that they had all finished. So a nice quiet day in Inicial 2!

Then we had the first ever very exciting Noche de Jovenes. In order to keep the youth off sex drugs and booze, we put on a big show with the help of Performing Life and Educar es Fiesta, to present a load of arts, so they could give their feedback on what they would like to be involved with and we can organise it for them!

Apart from making a table stage, putting up balloons and taking photos, I just sat back and enjoyed the show. There were circus acts; juggling, juggling with fire, acrobatics, dancing with fire, tightrope walking, breathing fire, unicycles etc etc etc, there was also a hip hop group, stilts, and all of my new 4-year old friends off the block got really scared... There was also an anime room and a drawing competition.

There was a really good turn out and a lot of people gave feedback, some of it was less useful, like 'porno' and another kid who wanted to do tattoos but mainly everyone was interested by the dancing!

Here are a few photos!

Then I had planned to climb the 5000m Pique Tunari with some friends on Saturday, but after hearing that going without a guide is definitely not a good idea, that a lot of people climb the wrong mountain, that there is no signal anywhere around but at the top of the mountain, and it is really hard to get home, we decided to maybe try and organise ourselves a bit better and do it on Sunday instead.

So we ended up going to the Cristo in Cochabamba....

With beautiful views of the whole city (that aren't the same in photos as there's too much smog).

We met this guy who runs from his house which is 10km away up the XXXXXsteps to the Cristo every weekend. We got talking, and per chance, he has one of the very rare maps of Pique Tunari where we wanted to go! So we went back to his house, his name is Ricardo, we went round the corner to get some juice and I think I may have not closed the door properly... so his huge dog got outside, and there were about 4 or 5 dogs all fighting. Ricardo went out to break it up, he hit his dog with a iron bar to make him let another small dog go out of his mouth, but he felt nothing! So he had to strangle his dog, and when he finally got him back inside he had the other dog's blood all over his face... Owowow. But anyway, we stayed for a while and he lent us the map! Which was just a dotted line across some contours and next to some lakes, I am not going to pretend it was very clear, but it's better than nothing.

And then found this really lovely, quiet square in the middle of town in front of the Templo y Convento de Santa Teresa with a fountain and music playing and we had a lovely Argentinian meal there...

On Sunday, we decided not to go to Pique Tunari as, even with the vague direction of the path, I think it would not have been easy. Plus it's really cold up there. So we went to Incaracay instead, mountains and apparently Incan ruins close to Sipe Sipe which is about an hour from Cochabamba.

We walked along a cobbled road for about half an hour and asked about 7 different people where the path up the mountain was but nobody knew, apart from these two boys who were looking after cows (one of them was jumping on a cow and shouting 'yeeha!!)

So we climbed, for about 3 hours. It was hard, and also the two friends had way longer legs than me. But here is us, looking triumphant at the top:

Well actually it wasn't quite the top. There was something at the top of a mountain about another hour away that looked like a mix between rocks and ruins, but we decided that wasn't for us. It only took us an hour to get down and a nice cool beer at the bottom was deserved. That was pretty much my weekend!

In other news, Salar de Uyuni this this weekend!

Oooh and I bought a camera yesterday! In the market, down an alleyway about 3 blocks worth of pure jeans, I bought my little canon which so far I have managed to keep safe!

Interesting encounter with the po

On Friday I went with some friends to La Troje, a really old house aquite a way out of town where they have a first Friday party. This is where everyone gets together on the first Friday of the month and makes a burnt offering to Pachamama, Mother Earth, and shares around chicha which is maize liquor. It was really fun, there was traditional Bolivian music with pan pipes and alla that and also bands inside playing Bob Marley, and we danced a lot.

Then at about 12 we heard that migration was coming, but nothing happened for an hour so we though it was going to be fine. But then all the music stopped and there were loads of police everywhere, filing everyone out and checking their documents. And you see I forgot mine. All of the Bolivians I was with were adamant that they would definitely take me to migration and not let me go until I could show them my ID, or deport me. So I rang my friend who had managed to get out and asked her to go to my house, and get my passport and visa from my host mum.
As soon as got into the taxi to go there, we had almost squeezed out unnoticed, when the policemen noticed. I explained and they were fine about it, I just have to go to migration on Monday and show them I'm allowed to be here. Phew!

After that I went with my friends to Groove, a favourite. We had been there only 10 minutes, when someone turned off all the lights and got everyone to be quiet, as the police were coming and they had locked the door and were pretending to be closed to avoid trouble. What is this!?
And then we all could taste something in the air, people started sneezing and tearing, because the police had sprayed tear gas under the locked door. Unbelievable. So everyone first went out the back to the toilet to escape, and then out of the back door into someone's garden, who's dogs wouldn't stop barking and woke them up!
However after about 10 minutes it had gone so we went back and carried on dancing.

So all in all an interesting night!