Travelling

Hi, again sorry for such a long time for an update. It has been INCREDIBLY busy for the past few weeks. I cant get photos either so sorry for that!

The past few weeks since we left Arequipa has been made up of sitting on buses for amazingly long periods of time over considerable distances! Ben and I have gone from Arequipa to Puno, Puno to Copacabana, Copacabana to La Paz, La Paz to Sucre, Sucre to Potosi, Potosi to Uyuni, Uyuni to Calama, Calama to San pedro, San Pedro to Calama, Calama to Santiago, Santiago to Mendoza, Mendoza to Rosario, Rosario to Buenos Aires!!! That is nearly 80 hours of Buses over four massive countries and three land border crossings and two time zones!! Crazy!!!!

Arequipa to Puno-

     We left Arequipa in style. After saying by to Amy (the first to leave and first to come back haha!) and Eva the housemaid, we got a taxi to the bus station. Ben accidentally dropped some money behind the seat and put his hand in to pull it out, next thing the taxi driver is shouting and screaming at us for damaging his car, he shows us the dents in the doors we had apparently done and threatened to call the police!!! That's one way of saying bye to Arequipa!!! We next went to get the bus to Puno, we are used to Peruvian time, but when we turned up and saw the Julsa bus saying puno we jumped on and sat down, next thing we know we are told to get off as this is the hour and a half late bus and ours is equally late behind it! Never mind we thought, we can just wait. We finally got our bus and realised that we had got the slow one, our 4 hour bus journey turned into an 8 hour bus journey!!

     We arrived in puno, looked for a bus to Copacabana and were told that the next one is 6am tomorrow morning, so we decided to stay over that night in the inca´s rest we had been in just three weeks before hand! The funniest part was getting this tiny tuk tuk to the hostel watching constantly that our bags hadn't fallen of the back while he was whizzing us along the streets around sharp corners! I love Peru!!!! Hungry, we went straight out for a Chinese like we had again done three weeks before, we knew it too be good. I was happily eating my noodles when I felt a little light headed (taking into account we are very high and I had felt ill the last time), so I said to Ben I was going to get some air, on the way out I just saw blackness and then I awoke on the floor with a lot of people around me pulling me outside, apparently I had collapsed into a wok!!!!! Luckily I guess it had just been put on with no oil in it.....very lucky!!! The next morning we got up early, had breakfast and went straight to the bus station.

Puno to La Paz-

     From Puno we bought a ticket to Copacobama then onwards to La Paz, this we did primarily for time and because we wanted to see the famous town from the song!!! but first, we ahd to cross the border. We had been told a lot about this border crossing about how people are kidnapped on the border, mugged, shot, murdered etc etc so I was quite frankly scared about it! We came up to the border, got off the bus, got a stamp in the passport, walked through a gate, got another stamp then onto the bus.........not what we were led to expect, I imagined a dingy hut in the middle of no where with crooks watching us! Not a beautiful hillside town with views of Lake Titicaca and clean warm air!!! Basically, if you want to do the border crossing, do this one as I'm not sure on the other, but it was really good! We then headed to Copacabana which was really nice but hilly, which normally isn't that big a deal, but that high up its a killer!!!! Staying just an hour, we then headed to La Paz- capital of Bolivia!

     I did not know what to expect at all of the capital of Bolivia, but I certainly didn't expect to dislike it so much! It was disgusting in many parts, with lots of slums, homeless people, people selling on streets everywhere, traffic everywhere and almost witchy things such as dead dried llama babies and potion shops!!! Horrific isn't the word. The main plus though was how cheap everything was! That night me and Ben decided to cheer ourselves up with a nice meal, we went to a very nice restaurant with waiters and table linen, very nice place, and had a massive cheese board with 15 cheeses, a glass of wine each, bottle of water each, a coffee each, plus a main course each, all served very well etc.......for 20 pounds!!!!!!! I could honestly live with the horrid environment etc if its that cheap!!!!!!

     We spent most of the next day there, looking around and eating for cheap, and in the evening we got a night bus to Sucre in the south of the country as its nearer the border to Chile.

La Paz to Sucre

     Sucre is a quiet town in the South of Bolivia, it is similar to Arequipa in that is primarily of a white building material though it is substantially quieter than elsewhere we have been. The hostel wasn't too nice though the person running it was helpful and nice to us, the toilets were sheds and showers cold but at least it is a bed to relax in (apart from the massive cockroaches haha!!) It was similar to La Paz for prices with a good priced meal available in most places and fast food was pennies in comparison to the UK. There isn't as much to report of Sucre except that the taxi which was arranged for us the next morning for a two hour ride to Potosi (highest city in the world) was a nightmare!!!! Bumpy, no seat belts, and the nasty evil woman next to me STOLE MY MOBILE!!!!! I would kill her if I saw her again! But never mind, it was near the end of my contract and I want an iPhone anyway lol! Potosi was boring! Ben has always wanted to go as it is the highest city, but there is nothing there except the opportunity to say we have been........no oxygen!

Potosi to Uyuni


     We left Potosi straight away and headed towards to the Chilean border, the nearest town to the border is Uyuni located in the massive salt flats of Bolivia. The journey was possibly the bumpiest and nastiest journey of my life, but fun at the same time, I was bouncing about 10 inches of my seat and I can say that Ben and I were battered and bruised. It was a long journey during the heat of the day and we were looking forward to getting to Uyuni, but we arrived at the top of a hill and spreading out before us was the salt flats which were HUGE, and the town was there like a scene out of Star Wars though I cant remember which one. We got closer and saw it was a literal dump, a rubbish/trash tip and it stank. We got off and booked into one of the worst hostels I have ever stayed at and booked our bus to Calama, Chile. The pizza that nice was lovely though, and big, just what you need in Uyuni!

Uyuni to Calama

     After a terrible night, we awoke to the coldest weather ever, it was 3am and had to head over to the bus station, the bus had no heating and I am not joking when I say I was numb head to foot, I had a t-shirt, shirt, jumper, coat and trousers on and yet was shivering.....Ben was cold as well so it was VERY cold! SOOOOO COOLLLLDDDD!!!!! We got to the border which was a stretch of the Atacama Desert and at that time was still COLD! I couldn't cope so I was jumping on the spot and made so many walks whilst waiting for the immigration office to open. When it opened a really fat man came out and met us, took us in and said "right, that's 15 bolivianos please", we weren't aware there was a price and paid it, got stamped out and then got told we shouldn't have paid as it is a scam! Never mind though, its only like 15 pence! We then had to wait two hours for the bus to turn up to take us over the border. When over the border we then had to be stamped in, searched and go through customs which took FOREVER! It is the worse of the three border crossing we have done so far and so cold even at midday. Getting on the bus we saw it was super dusty, but we fell asleep with the rising warmth and awoke in the Atacama Desert near the city of Calama, when we awoke we were so dusty, my glasses I could hardly see through and there was a film of dust over us! But we are in Chile!



I will leave the blog at this point and do some more about Chile and Argentina at a later date =D Thanks for reading!