Pass the salt
Well, just reading back and you realise that you miss bits dontcha? Like the miners in Potosi look like they are sucking snooker balls because the keep their cheeks packed with coca leaves - and they dont eat all day, just swig from 97% alcohol in little plastic bottles (could be nail varnish remover) and chew those leaves. They must be off their tits!! Anyway there was a bit of a debate about whether coca leaves are cocaine - a Danish guy training to be a doctor said it was, our tour guide Siri was angered and said it wasnt and so we all just stuffed a load in our mouths and hoped for the 'legal in this country' best. It mings and numbs your mouth - you decide.
Annnnyway Potosi was ages ago. After that we set of for the Salar y Uyuni salt deserts. Ummm how can I describe it? Its like going to a slightly warmer Antartica - with white plains as far as the eye can see - dotted with mountains. But all the white is salt. Its mad. Booked into the closed-but-not-if-our-tour-leader-has-anything-to-do-with-it Salt Hotel. Its smack bang in the middle of the plains with all of the above all around it. We are in land locked Bolivia but this place used to be the sea.
Wow.
The 'Hotel' was more like a cottage with a lot of rooms. The floor was an inch thick in salt, the tables, armchairs and beds were also salt. And my GOD was it FREEZING. Just one fire drum in the reception cum dining area. So we all naturally stood around it waiting for dinner. As part of our local tour we had aquired a cook in the shape of Marina. Shy, smiley and always attired in the traditional big skirt n petticotes and a brown Bowler hat (worn at jaunty angle) she supplied the best meals of the tour. We loved her and wanted to keep her.
After this we staggered out into the minus temp night time and were totally blown away by the FANTASTIC galaxy above us. Everyone just stood there going 'f··k me!! I Mean F··K ME!!!!' getting sore necks. I think the reflection of the white floors just made everything.. brighter. Five minutes of awe though and everyone had to go back in to get warm again.
Silly part of the night was salsa-ing to ipod-supplied music in the dining area, lit by candle light and kicking up salt. I dont think the eskimos do it like this but it warmed us up before climbing on the mattress covered salt slabs and hiding from the cold. Morning was an ordeal. Try getting your bottom out for a pee in that place - could turn it to icicles!
Spent the day exploring the plains - and it wasnt enough to visit the godforsaken men of the mines, we now came to the godforsaken men of the salt deserts. We'd drive for like, 40 minutes and then pull up to a series of small salt pyramids and there would be one guy, in a jumper, no gloves but a balaclava over the whole of his face (scary looking) digging away. A little bike perched aside a shovel. And a little hut made of salt. This is where he lives for 5 nights of the week with tins of soup and hard bread. He peddals his little bike back to Uyuni town, assumingly to get arseholed. No music, company, heat. It must turn you a bit strange? Surley?
Continuing the salt theme we went to a salt factory. Grim, bleak working condtions - the men crush the stuff, the women bag it. Into either red bags or blue bags. The salt is the same but one is more expensive than the other ;) Haaaayyyy who said the the Bolivians arent business savvy?
Climed up to see a volcanoe. Winded meself. Nuff said there. Night in a slightly warmer place (ie not somewhere made of salt) and got pissed on a glass & half of vino tinto due to altitude (has its uses).
Left Uyuni on the horrific night train to La Paz at midnight. Starting to think I will never be warm again. Get off train to catch 3 hour bus to La Paz and at lunch time we make it. Then one of our tour gets her bag nicked. So there you go -incident number one- hope I dont clock up too many of those.
So now im in La Paz, got here Sunday. It is, as is most stuff in Bolivia, weird. Its in the middle of a load of mountains, has crazy traffic jams and peaceful protesting in the square in front of the San Fransisco church. A huge snowpeaked mountain overlooks the city and all around it are the favela type slum areas on the steep walls. I didnt really imagine La Paz before I got here, but if I tried it wouldnt have looked like this.
So, finishing off, ive split from the group (bye laydeez - see some of you in Cusco) and im staying here learning Spanish. Which is hard as I dont know any and my teacher doesnt speak English? And ive had food poisoning waa-hayy! Had to happen sooner or later eh?
Annnnyway Potosi was ages ago. After that we set of for the Salar y Uyuni salt deserts. Ummm how can I describe it? Its like going to a slightly warmer Antartica - with white plains as far as the eye can see - dotted with mountains. But all the white is salt. Its mad. Booked into the closed-but-not-if-our-tour-leader-has-anything-to-do-with-it Salt Hotel. Its smack bang in the middle of the plains with all of the above all around it. We are in land locked Bolivia but this place used to be the sea.
Wow.
The 'Hotel' was more like a cottage with a lot of rooms. The floor was an inch thick in salt, the tables, armchairs and beds were also salt. And my GOD was it FREEZING. Just one fire drum in the reception cum dining area. So we all naturally stood around it waiting for dinner. As part of our local tour we had aquired a cook in the shape of Marina. Shy, smiley and always attired in the traditional big skirt n petticotes and a brown Bowler hat (worn at jaunty angle) she supplied the best meals of the tour. We loved her and wanted to keep her.
After this we staggered out into the minus temp night time and were totally blown away by the FANTASTIC galaxy above us. Everyone just stood there going 'f··k me!! I Mean F··K ME!!!!' getting sore necks. I think the reflection of the white floors just made everything.. brighter. Five minutes of awe though and everyone had to go back in to get warm again.
Silly part of the night was salsa-ing to ipod-supplied music in the dining area, lit by candle light and kicking up salt. I dont think the eskimos do it like this but it warmed us up before climbing on the mattress covered salt slabs and hiding from the cold. Morning was an ordeal. Try getting your bottom out for a pee in that place - could turn it to icicles!
Spent the day exploring the plains - and it wasnt enough to visit the godforsaken men of the mines, we now came to the godforsaken men of the salt deserts. We'd drive for like, 40 minutes and then pull up to a series of small salt pyramids and there would be one guy, in a jumper, no gloves but a balaclava over the whole of his face (scary looking) digging away. A little bike perched aside a shovel. And a little hut made of salt. This is where he lives for 5 nights of the week with tins of soup and hard bread. He peddals his little bike back to Uyuni town, assumingly to get arseholed. No music, company, heat. It must turn you a bit strange? Surley?
Continuing the salt theme we went to a salt factory. Grim, bleak working condtions - the men crush the stuff, the women bag it. Into either red bags or blue bags. The salt is the same but one is more expensive than the other ;) Haaaayyyy who said the the Bolivians arent business savvy?
Climed up to see a volcanoe. Winded meself. Nuff said there. Night in a slightly warmer place (ie not somewhere made of salt) and got pissed on a glass & half of vino tinto due to altitude (has its uses).
Left Uyuni on the horrific night train to La Paz at midnight. Starting to think I will never be warm again. Get off train to catch 3 hour bus to La Paz and at lunch time we make it. Then one of our tour gets her bag nicked. So there you go -incident number one- hope I dont clock up too many of those.
So now im in La Paz, got here Sunday. It is, as is most stuff in Bolivia, weird. Its in the middle of a load of mountains, has crazy traffic jams and peaceful protesting in the square in front of the San Fransisco church. A huge snowpeaked mountain overlooks the city and all around it are the favela type slum areas on the steep walls. I didnt really imagine La Paz before I got here, but if I tried it wouldnt have looked like this.
So, finishing off, ive split from the group (bye laydeez - see some of you in Cusco) and im staying here learning Spanish. Which is hard as I dont know any and my teacher doesnt speak English? And ive had food poisoning waa-hayy! Had to happen sooner or later eh?
posted by LesAlanos @ 11:05 AM
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