Much has happened since I was in Lake Titicaca (incidentally the biggest mass of water at that altitude not the highest as in my last entry whoops). The Uros islands were intriguing. There is the possibility that the Bolivian government pay the population to be there as its such a major tourist attraction but its still pretty amazing. We visited a couple of islands and floated about on a reed boat. It would be crazy to live there all the time but I´ve thought this many a time on my travels.
On the island tour I met a couple of Kiwis, Alice and Tim from Christchurch who then got the bus to La Paz with me where we also met a Dane and a Brit and the 5 of us got a hostel together in La Paz. This was particularly good for me as a girl travelling alone as we got into La Paz at 11pm and a tourist policeman got on the bus and told us not to get off where we were planning to because we´d be robbed. We forced the bus driver to take us to the bus station. Novel idea I know.
La Paz was a crazy working city. A mass of roads and squares. No major central focal point except for maybe the Plaza San Francisco with a pretty cathedral, little streets behind selling textiles and llama foetuses and a witches market up one end. All this gave La Paz a really interesting feel, I liked it a lot. There was also a big 2 day demonstration going on by the cocaleros who are feeling hard done by by Evo Morales government.
After a couple of days exploring and a cheeky trip to see The Willis in Die Hard 4, I caught an overnight bus (after rushing to the toll booths to wait for it as I thought I´d missed it) to Uyuni where the salt flats are. We would have got there at 7am in time for a 10am tour but the bus got 2 major punctures and we arrived at 2pm. After a night of amazing MinuteMan pizza and alcohol with the members of my bus I headed off the next day on tour. The Salt flats were unbelievable and enormous. Think Pirates of the Carribean 3 (Johnny Depp´s Worlds End). Cue lots of stupid photos. We also had fun travelling about in a jeep seeing a volcano and flamingos and a hell of a lot of cacti.
On the Friday at 5.30 am after a false start where my bus drove straight past me, I headed south to the Argentine border. This involved stopping and changing buses at Atocha and Tupiza little Bolivian market towns and arriving at Villazon at the border at about 5pm. I then crossed into Argentina, had some chicken and chips with a couple from Sheffield and caught a bus to Salta. Arriving at 4.00 am I decided to keep going and went straight to the airport to catch a flight to Buenos Aires.
Arrived at our Moulin Rouge style hostel in Buenos Aires at 10.30am where Emma was waiting for me. We spent the day catching up big time and exploring the San Telmo district, a beautiful old style antiques section of B.A. then went to Florida to the shopping zone and then saw the Bourne Ultimatum before dinner back in San Telmo. A great but exhausting day after 30hours travelling.
Sunday I visited the Recoleta where there is a big cemetery and Evita´s body and a great market. Caught some tango dancing in a bar in the evening. Monday I met up with Stephanie!! Was lovely to see her and her mother in their stunning BA flat. We headed to Palermo for some steak lunch (GOD the steak is good here) and then wandered around a bit while she did the dentist and I did incredible Argentine ice cream (Freddo for those in the know) and travel arrangements.
That evening I jumped on a 16 hour bus (turned out to be 18hr) over night to Puerto Iguacu to see the waterfalls. They were as beautiful as Niagara only much more tropical and much more scope to explore around jungle style trails. Here I bumped into the Kiwis again who´d been in Rio in the interim! I love those coincidences. After getting trigger finger from so many photos I flew back to BA and went out for dinner in Puerto Madero which reminded me a lot of the docklands in Bristol and the South Bank in London. Emma in this time was taking a trip to Uruguay as she´d done Iguacu already.
Thursday morning I took a flight to Trelew to begin the Patagonian stage....
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