The Bolivian Snowball Effect - Rated PG

Touring South Eastern Bolivia - DAY 2

After an early wake up call we were served with scrambled eggs and bread, packed up the car and headed off. Our first stop was an area called Ruinas 4200m above sea level. The area was an old Spanish settlement established in the 16th century and was still used by the few local settlers travelling through. Next stops included a small town called Quetena Grande and numerous lagoons called Kollpa lagoon, Laguna vrede ( the most beutiful natural sight I have ever seen), desierto de dali and a volcano called Licancabar ( 5950m). We had lunch at a stop called Rio Amargo were we bathed in the natural hot spings after having a great lunch. About 1 hour after lunch the sky opened and we were hit with the most brilliant snow fall I have ever seen. It snowed so hard we actually got lost but managed to find our village for the night.

I have uploaded all the photos on Picassa so have kept it to a few on the blog.

Touring South East Bolivia - Day 3

After a freezing night we made our way to one of the new 7 Natural Wonders of the World - Laguna Colarada 4270m. The lagoon was covered with Flamingos and an absolutely amazing sight. Due to the poor cloud cover we could not pick up the true colours of the lagoon but marvelled at its design nontheless. The next part of the trip covered 5 smaller lagoons and another volcano Caquella. We stopped for dinner just outside the Salar de Uyuni, the original reason for our trip. Our accomodation was basic huts made from Salt taken from the plains.

Touring South Western Bolivia - Day 1

We booked on a 4 day tour with Tupiza tours which took us all over South Estern Bolivia. It was probably one of the best organised tours I have ever been on. The tour took us by 4 X 4 from Tupiza across 650 miles of mountain, Lagoon, Slat flats and treturous terrain. I will break down our tour on a day by day basis.

Day 1

On our tour we were accompanied by a british couple ( Chris and Claire) as well as the local cook Isabella and the driver Wilmat.

The drive took us over the mountain ranges of Palala anbd Sillar where we saw Lamas and the most amazing mountain ranges and peaks. We averaged about 250 miles for the first day and stopped in village called San Antonio. No electricity and inhabited with local people. A truely authentic experience. We were given coffee and for dinner were served Lama meat with tomoto and mash potatoe. Temp ranging down to well below freezing point. Lights were out by 8:30 pm as we had to get up at 5 am the following day for our longest day of the tour.

Bolivia ............Aaaaaargh

The bus ride to the Argentinian- Bolivian border was pretty quick and we arrived on a cold Monday morning at around 6 am. My over tiredness from the 4 previous bus rides and from lack of sleep was quickly forgotten when I was told that South Africans needed a visa to get into Bolivia. Now you are probably asking that surely this was something i would of looked into before travelling to a new country. And yes it was!! See below

Bolivi

Passport required. Visa not required for tourist stay up to 30 days. Tourist cards issued upon arrival in Bolivia. A "Defined Purpose Visa" for adoptions business or other travel requires 1 application form 1 photo and $50 fee and company letter explaining purpose of trip. Send SASE for return of passport by mail.

I believe this website only applies to Americano !!!!!

Somehow through Spanglish communication with the passpost control I found out I needed to make my way to the Bolivian consulate a few streets up and get a visa. The consultae only opening at 9 am ie 3 hours later. After thoughts of just flying home to SA and giving up completely, I managed to catch a taxi to the consulate and sort the issue out. The town on the border looked similar a run down Alexandra, if thats even possible.

Bolivia is everything everyone every says about it. A shite hole!! But extremely cheap. The town on the border was Villzon. We stayed here for about 3 hours and then caught a bus to a town 2 hours away called Trupiza.

Trupiza is known for the location of the graves of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid and pretty much nothing else. On first view it looked like a one horse town with a few pizzarias to staisfy the local needs of Gringos passing through. After agreeing that we deserved some comfort after our travel ordeal we booked into the local hotel..Mitro hotel. The hotel was also know for organsing the best tours around southern Bolivia and even though they were not the cheapest they were definately the best.

Running the Brazilian Mullets

As stated in one of my previous posts - Beaching in Guayana - i said that I was interested in losing the normal straight back and sides and being abit more adventurous. After some debating and entising I manged to get Mike to join in the procedure and we headed off to the local hairdresser in Salta.

I was up first, as it was my idea, and sat in the chair as the hiardresser recreated my hair -do to try bring it in line with the photo we had shown him. Unfortunately due to the shortness of my hair it didnt quite come out as expected so I have been forced to wear a cap most of the time and have had to tell myslef that its only hair and it will be fine by the time I head home. Mikes was cool and with gel he came allot closer to the masterpiece we were expecting. I have edited the number of photos below for obvious reasons.

Mike Daly and Salta

After abit of missioning finally made it to Salta and hooked up with Mike and will be doing Bolivia and a part of Peru with him.

Should be a jol!!

We couldnt get much done in Salta as it was pouring with rain so the day was spent missioning around the city doing some sight seeing, getting our hair cuts and drinking coffee. Our bus to Bolivia was only leaving at 12:00 am so will had allot of time to burn. We found a ´non gringo´establishment for dinner where I tried the famous Argentinain meat dishes with chips and a glass of red wine. Our entertainment was live Tango dancing and some local singing. Looking forward to getting back to Argentina after Chile.