Esther's Adventure

Dear diario,

I have to pack my backpack and leave Rio. Obviously I'm dead excited about
where I'm off to, but still I'm sad. Thiago takes me out for a nice lunch
and then we head back to the flat to play with his new toy. An Apple tower
power mac thing with bells and whistles. I'm glad he has a new toy to amuse
himself and take away the thought of me going (he's obviously devastated
that I'm off??!). We say goodbyes and then he has to go. I'm left there in
his flat all alone. I pack up, and have to throw the key back into the flat
once Ive locked the door from the outside. I panic that Ive left something
behind and now can't get back in... I realise later, I did; my heart.

Into a taxi and off to the airport. A flight to Bolivia on Gol airways, very
luxurious. A ridiculous flight which stops three times before I reach
Bolivia. Santa Cruz to be exact. Not even sure exactly where it is. I arrive
rather wearily at 3am and get another taxi (paid in US dollars) to Jodanga
hostel. Where I hope Vikki and Danny are staying, although there was still
no word from them before I left. I get there and luckily get a bed. Top
bunk, in an 8 bed dorm with some American girls, who get up really early and
are really noisy. I haven't really slept anyway due to the shock of being on
the road again and sharing a dorm room with lots of bodies and being bloody
cold too. Ive gone from balmy Rio to fucking freezing. I drag myself out of
bed at about 9am and try to find D and V. They are here! It's nice and sunny
out in the day here, so the temp is pleasant. We sort ourselves out.
Deciding to leave for Sucre that evening in the 16.30 bus. Then off for some
lunch, Irish stew and dumplings?! Bolivia is weird. We grab our bags back at
the hostel and get going.

Our first Bolivian bus journey is OK, but the bus is dirty and old. Anything you
touch is covered in a thick layer of dust. I sit next to Vikki at the back. The bus
stops in the dead of night for a wee pause. We bundle off and are welcomed by
a dirty, smelly non loo with no paper and no sink. Back on the bus and I sit there
for a while awake. We're high up on some mountain pass and the bus is rocking
from side to side rather graphically, it's pitch black and a trippy experience.
We arrive in Sucre early and it's freezing again. Until the sun is fully out and blazing,
Bolivia is damn cold. We find a hostel where there are two free rooms, Vikki and I
share, it's the first night she's spent apart from Danny in 9 months! We
put on some extra layers and head off to a cafe for some grub. I fancy a
lager (?), but am told its too early (10.30am). We all order chili con carne,
because of bus lag we're not really sure what time it is, and tummies do the
choosing. Delicious. At 12 I'm allowed a lager.

Sucre is a beautiful town and is called Ciudad Blanca because all the
colonial buildings in its center are painted white. We enjoy a nice
afternoon chilling and mooching about. Its in Sucre that I'm introduced to
my new obsession: all things knitted. Oh my god... gloves, hats, scarves,
blankets, its all amazing and beautiful. When we return to the hostel later
and discover that there is no agua calliente (hot water), I'm glad for my new hat and
scarf and gloves. Vikki and I bed down for a freezing night. The boys are
watching football in the morning so its up early and to the cafe again for
the TV. Its also now decided that we will head to Potosi next and then
straight on the Uyuni to see the salt flats. There is another football match
(champions league, man u or and earlier one???) on the following Sunday,
and we will need to be back form the salt flats before that.
Our next week is therefore planned around football (I mention this now because
of a situation later). It's is our intention to jump in a cab for the four hour journey
to Potosi. We are now six as we have met up with Clare and Sean, so we
might be able to afford it. We leisurely head toward to bus station in the early
afternoon to see about a fare. As soon as we jump out of the cab taking us there,
we are accosted by a very indigent woman who is keen to get us on her bus.
As soon as she has the whiff of us wanting to go to Potosi she's dangled the carrot with costs and
journey time being halved. We cant really say no. Within about 10 mins we're
all sitting on her bus bound for Potosi. We soon realize that: A, she was a
big fat lier, and: B, you get what you pay for. We have a clapped out bus
(which breaks down), we have the back seat (which means its like being on
the big dipper), the bus is filthy and smells like spring onions for seven
hours!! We bond over how much we hate it. What doesn't kill you makes you
stronger. Ive never been so happy to get off a bus. I feel high, actually
that'll be because Potosi is 4070m above sea level. We're all exhausted,
dirty, and now we cant breathe. Danny and Tommy head to a food stand they saw
up the hill to buy us all a chip butty. Our first choice of hostel is full
so we find another and end up in a 70s suite attic room. Its freezing and
everything you do renders you breathless, but we're glad to be together and
after a few games of the shithead league (we've got a league book and
everything). We head to bed, for a completely sleepless night.

I get up knackered and we head off to catch a bus to Uyuni. We go to the bus station
and barter with a woman about a bus. Again promises of speed and comfort are
realised later to be fibs. Another painful journey this time so dusty that
we all feel like we have asthma the following day. We arrive in Uyuni very
late hoping that we can still book a salt flat tour for the following day.
Luckily some tour agents as are still open . So for 80 USD we get a 3
night, 4 day tour with all expenses paid for (not bad). Were also shown to a
hotel which we're promised has agua calliente. Its freezing in Uyni which is a
little like a ghost town, I keep expecting to see tumble weed blowing though
it. We go out for a dinner in a freezing restaurant, I'm now so cold to the
bone that it would take a miracle (and an electric blanket) to warm me
up. Our hotel may have hot water but it certainly doesn't have heating.
Vikki and I have a room at the front of the hotel which has a massive window
to the road, i.e no insulation. I put my icicle body into bed and have
another freezing night where I don't sleep, because I'm shivering the whole
time. I wake up and have gone blue. Finally after some brekkie, we're
in the land cruiser, our home for the next four days. Pedro is the driver
and Jacqueline his wife the cook. They don't speak any English and and our
Spanish is crap, how will this work??

The salt flats (flat, one massive dried up lake) is incredible.
It's like being on on mars or the moon. The lunar landscapes, the blazing sun,
the freezing nights. It's another world. Hard on the body though, and my ingrained
tan which had been intensified while in Rio, literally sees the salt and dry air and jumps
off my skin. I have crocodile skin legs and cracked sore lips. But my hair
is straight again! Its the best thing ever, I cant believe how frizzy it gets
in Brazil. The first day is spent taking silly shots on the salt (see facebook) we even
manage a mini rave outside the land cruiser which is videoed by Perdo who
thinks were all totally crazy. We stay the night at a salt hotel on the edge
of the flats. Danny tells us the story of the fart tape. This is a
dictaphone kept on the mantle piece at his flat. Every time you need to fart
you go to the dictaphone and start recording: you say your name, the time and the
date and then fart into the micro phone. Between fits of giggles and more
silly stories including Tommy's dog who accidentally eats leftover vindlaoo
and ends up projecticle pooing all over the curtains. We evesdrop on
another table next to us. They're all discussing the American elections and
the different merits and problems with the different opponents, we're
giggling about farts and poo. Will I ever grow up? (Dont answer that).
We have to brush teeth with bottled water as there are no taps. Clare is about to take a
swig when she notices what looks like an ear plug floating in the water?! We
have another fit of giggles and gag, earplug?? Its not an earplug but Sean's malaria tablet
which obviously didn't get swallowed. We head to bed. I wake with a
stiff back and a mouth like the salt flats. After brekkie we pack up the
cruiser and head off to see more spectacular scenery. We see some live
volcanoes and Fish Island which is covered in cool cacti and has fossilised
coral reefs. Bolivia gets stranger by the day. We end up at another hostel
in the evening, and slightly warmer night, but still very cold.
The next day we stop for lunch next to a green lake with red soil. The girls all go for a
wee, and due to adverse wind conditions (don't want our wee blowing onto us)
we have to moonie the boys. Luckily no one has a camera with a good zoom lens.
Our last night on the salt flats is at yet another hostel in another strange deserted cluster of
buildings, which obviously rely solely on the tourist industry. This is the
coldest night yet (-10) and after dinner Tommy and I go outside star gazing. We're
at 5000m above sea level and the stars in the sky go from horizon to horizon.
There is not one bit of sky that's un-glittery. I'm spellbound, no starstruck. I count three
shooting stars and make three wishes. We turn in for the night. We're all in
one room again and I fall asleep chucking about Danny's brothers band called
DAMP (the P is for Paul), Sean's rap ballad he's made on the music player on
his mobile and the rats or mice running about outside our window.
I wake at 4.30am with great difficulty, I'm cocooned. I get up, dress and wait for the others to stir.
They're all still in bed and take an age to creep into action. Finally we're
all packed up and sitting in the landy. We set off in the dark and because the front
window is steamed up and Pedro can't really see, he drives over a large meteor like rock.
The car is wedged on it. We all have to get out and wait while another land
cruiser tries to push us off it bumper to bumper. That doesn't work,
so Pedro had to jack the car up. It's dark and freezing, and we do star jumps
to keep warm. The car finally moves and we're free. Off we go towards flamingos and
hot springs. We're looking forward to the hot springs, as none of us has had a
shower for three days. We see some flamingos, albeit miles away (tiny ones!). Then
straight to the hot springs which we jump into. Bliss and rather smelly
(sulphur). We meet some fellow gringos in the pool with beards, god I hate
traveller beards. Danny and Tommy get out first and head to the breakfast
hut. We've been told it's mesa 4 (table 4). I join them after about 10
mins...I'm just pouring myself some coffee when I see a crazed looking
Boliviano woman hurtling towards me with murder in her eyes. She going
mental at us. I look up and see "mesa 9" written on the sign above the table.
We're on the wrong table. T and D have already eaten half the
pancakes in front of them and drunken most or the yogurt drink. Honestly though, you've
never seen anything like it, they go completely ballistic. The first Boliviano woman gets others involved, and there are literally plaits and plait tassels flying, and big skits being hiked up, it's all so dramatic. It's like watching a panto. As Vikki and I try to placate them, by suggesting that all we need do is swap our breakfast pancakes for the eaten ones etc. T and D are oblivious, and continue to eat the wrong breakfast, Its so hard not to laugh. But they've started so they might as well finish. This sends the women into near epileptic levels... After it's all over (we simply swap the pancakes and yogurt drink from our table)...we sit at mesa 4 and marvel at what just occurred. Incredible
really, Bolivia is bonkers. I think we've been banished from the hot springs forever,
but I'm not sure, because my Spanish is crap. Back in the landy and off to the
bubbling lava geysers. Then finally a five hour drive home back to Uyuni.

It's good to back to civilisation and even better to go out for delicious pizza. Its been speculated I could be the best pizza I ever had?...I awake in the morning and try to charge my ipod for the upcoming journey to La Paz. There doesn't seem to be any power. In fact it transpires that there is no power anywhere in Uyuni. Therefore NO TV OR CABLE. Therefore NO FOOTBALL! The boys are inconsolable. I think it's quite funny, the whole trip has been planned around this bloody match and now we cant see it!...We all sit in a cafe, it's 10am on Sunday the match has started and there's still no power. We wait and age for a breakfast to appear, cooked on a gas stove apparently?... It comes in dribs and drabs and doesn't come at all in some cases. The cafe also seems to be staffed by children, all very odd. Then finally at half time, the TV miraculously turns on! We're saved, there is mass rejoicing and mass elation. The games on and the boys are happy, so I'm also happy. On Monday morning with rather sore heads (must still be the altitude?!) we leave Uyuni and head to Potosi again.

The Hair Report - Mostly flat, some undulation below, dry ends.

Hats placed precariously.
Wotsits (big Bolivian ones)
Tangerines.
Nearly break leg in loo (hidden step).
Llama lunch.
Alan "yeah" after every sentence.
Too much funky house on Ipod.
The mummies, whats the story??! (we'll never know)
Double funny (its so funny its Double Funny)

xxx

ps sorry it's late, a dog ate the first draught...