(The Online News) South America on Wednesday morning looked on in disgust at the news that Bolivian President Evo Morales was being detained in Austria amid suspicions that Edward Snowden was on board his private jet.
Morales was on his way back to Bolivia from Moscow, when France, Portugal, Spain and Italy reportedly prevented the plane from using their airspace, prompting an unscheduled stop in Vienna. Read full story at The Online News
It has been a dramatic couple of weeks. I’m not even sure how long it’s been since I last wrote – I think 2 weeks ago, but so much has happened I’m going to be here a while. Might get pretty dull and full of spelling and grammar mistakes, so apologies for that.
Last time I wrote I had been feeling pretty down and generally a bit ill and just not up for the whole travelling lark. It is a lark. I mean, what am I actually doing with myself? Having an awesome time, meeting lots of people, seeing amazing stuff, being abroad? Yeah. But I don’t actually have anything I should be doing. I’m thinking of doing some charity work in Cusco, if only for the selfish reason that I don’t want to feel like a spoilt little knob. So anyway, I was about to embark upon 3 days in the salt flats, which if memory serves, I was dreading due to all the ridiculous hype about altitude sickness – I was expecting vomit, hallucinations, worst headaches ever, the full shebang. And I’m not guna say it was pleasant, yes I had a nasty headache and found it very hard to sleep BUT it wasn’t the worst I’ve ever felt – it was perfectly tolerable.
We left early in the morning on New Year’s Eve and saw lots of amazing landscapes. It really is another world. Some of the lakes are beautiful and we saw thousands of flamingos, which are really fun to watch with their spindly long legs. They shouldn’t look so elegant with those comically long and skinny things but they do, and they look amazing when they fly too. Animals are fun to watch I have found. I’ve seen a lot of llamas which are also hilarious – they have big fat furry bodies and skinny legs so they look all wobbly and unstable when they move around. Made me laugh watching these ones walking along next to the lake – It was really wet and slippery and they kept almost skidding!
New Year’s Eve was cool even though I was prepared to just ignore the whole occasion. There was a nice group of us and the guides gave us some “champagne/cider”, which we popped open at midnight. We also went out and joined some other people from the hostel next to us who had made a fire. I went out all zipped up in my sleeping bag (which is made for temperatures of -10, amazing) so was hopping along slightly behind everyone else, but I was happy because it was SO FUCKING COLD. I was wearing just about all my clothes. Brrrrr!The Dutch guy carried me around for a bit too, which was nice. I felt a bit bad though because with the altitude he got so puffed out – thought he was guna faint!
The next day was better because we went down in altitude and started to feel a little perkier. Saw more beautiful landscapes and then that night we stayed in a hostel made ENTIRELY OUT OF SALT. The floor was just big salt granules and the walls were salt, the ceiling was salt, no joke. Actually made me a bit sniffly, but still, thought it was extremely cool. We also went to see these crazy mummies in this weird cave nearby, which was pretty freaky. Got some sick photos! I wasn’t 100% convinced they were real but… nice all the same. Maybe I’m just being a cynical Brit, as everyone else thought they were probably real.
The next morning was to be MY BIRTHDAY! My 21st! Only happens once ya know, so I made quite sure that everyone was aware that it was to be MY BIRTHDAY! Probably went on a bit too much about but who cares? It was MY BIRTHDAY. Anyway, I can’t have pissed them off too much with my incessant birthday talk because the next morning I was woken up with birthday cake, a candle and a glorious rendition of happy birthday. I was pretty touched – it brought tears to my eyes and joy to my heart. That day was fun, driving through the actual salt flats all day. It really was like being on another planet. It looked like the sea, except it was land… Shit description, I know, but the sea is the only thing I can compare it to in terms of how vast and endless it was. I made sure I had a birthday beer out in the salt flats too and a birthday piscola at lunchtime (daytime drinking is so much more acceptable when you put a word like birthday in front of it).
When we got to the town Uyuni that day it was time to break the news to my travel bud that I wanted to continue the voyage as a lone ranger. I had been giving it a lot of thought and finally decided I just had to break loose and go for this, go it alone or I would regret it for all eternity (overstatement yes, but would certainly regret it). I got pretty nervous about it – it takes guts to be so honest! It was like preparing to break up with someone! I just felt trapped and constantly irritated travelling in a pair, which I can’t blame on him, it’s just differences between us and possibly my inability to tolerate people for long periods of time… He was upset at first but took it well and in the end I think we agreed this was the best thing. I am definitely a lot happier travelling alone even though there are inevitably difficulties and the uncertainty can be quite scary at times. But it’s better; less restricting, can be myself 100% without any outside influence and the possibilities are endless!
I’ve given up trying to write this in a chronological order. It’s too long and boring and I have to really wrack my brain. I’m going to take a more organic approach (aka just say what pops into my stupid little brain). After a rough couple of days in La Paz, I have found a happy haven in Copacabana, a small town in Lake Titicaca. It’s very chilled out, peaceful yet with a touristy, holiday buzz in the best possible way and everyone has so far been extremely friendly.
This is actually the first time I’ve been totally alone alone. I know I ditched Chris a while ago, but I’ve always headed to new places accompanied by other people. And do you know, I’m actually feeling quite content, in spite of a lot of shitty factors such as not having had any sleep. For dinner I went to this groovy little bar called Pueblo Viejo and had lasagne and orange juice and there was a Bolivian band playing.
I have come to realise that all Bolivian songs contain both the words “amor” and “corazon”, without fail. They’re all ridiculously sweet and romantic, especially when you compare it to reggaeton which is pure sex. This band basically consisted of a guy with a guitar and a reasonably good voice and what looked like his dad on bass and his granddad on this weird bongo drum. I thoroughly enjoyed it and clapped especially loudly.
Tomorrow I’m getting up very bright and early to go to Isla del Sol. Exciting time ahead. I might end up staying here longer than I thought. Relax a little, be happy, la la la.
It is day 4 of my immense travels and I have already completely overdone it; burnt the candle at both ends as my parents love to say. A brief outline of what I’ve done so far:
Christmas Day: After a jolly and drunken Christmas dinner at my dearest friend’s house, Chris and I left our adopted hometown of Santiago at 9pm. Hopped on a 24 hour bus to Iquique and arrived there on Boxing Day, getting to the hostel around 10 that night.
Dec 27th: Actually this day was pretty tranquilo. The beach in Iquique was beautiful and the waves were big without being too dangerous splash around in. I had a whale of a time playing in the waves, joining in with a group of Chilean kids with body boards (I stood near them screaming and laughing a lot and they gave me weird looks). Chris said he could hear me shouting from way up the beach… Loved the sea! Only thing that put me off was the amount of bloomin’ jelly fish! There were swarms of ‘em! I don’t understand it either because they kept brushing right past me, but I didn’t get stung. At one point I thought I had been stung but it turned that the mark on my bum from where I sat on my hair straighteners was just stinging because of the sea salt… That night was pretty funny: Chris went to bed early and I stayed up and parrrrrrrrtied with Argentines, Chileans and Germans. Good times! But was glad to escape to bed at 4am without having consumed too much alcohol as I had to be up bright and early the next day…
Dec 28th: We had to be up bright and early so we were ready and raring to go paragliding that day. I wasn’t at all sure about this but
I was assured many times that it was, like “totally safe”. I looked up the statistics online…I met a lot of people who’d done it, all saying they had been shit scared but that once they were in the sky it was mega easy and fun. So off I went.
I have never been so petrified in my life – you have to RUN off a CLIFF EDGE. What’s that about? Didn’t feel all that secure to me either! So I don’t know what everyone else was talking about – I never relaxed, I was bricking it from start to finish, still shaking when I came down. Didn’t realise I was afraid of heights but if you ask me it’s a pretty rational think to be scared of. At the same time, it was bloody brilliant. The view was spectacular, probably the most amazing view I’ve ever seen: It had everything from sand dunes, windy roads, beautiful coastline, city, and the best thing of all was this giant penis shape that someone had made out of rocks! Ha. Made me laugh anyway. And my guide was really good fun, even though he scared the life out of me making me let go of the ropes and flap my arms like a bird!!
After that we walked around a bit, went to the beach, ate a couple of times and waited for our 11pm bus, due to arrive in Calama at 5.30am the next morning.
Dec 29th: Arriving in Calama was a bit of a downer. 5.30am isn’t my favourite time to wake up in the morning, especially when you’re in the middle of a freezing cold desert wearing shorts and have 2 ½ hour wait for the next bus. But that’s over now. We arrived in San Pedro de Atacama around 9.30am and then got to the hostel. I really wanted to sleep, but after a shower I felt rejuvenated and so instead we went bike riding through the desert all day up to a place called Valle de la Luna. Hoards of tourists go there at sun down to watch the mountains opposite the sunset change colour.
Quote of the day from me, genius that I am: “Where does the sun go when it sets?” Said really loudly just as a group of English-speaking tourists walked past and inevitably burst out laughing at me… We also went in some sweet caves and did some trekking type shiz. It was a very fun day, though quite tough cycling up lots of hills – cycling down them at the end of the day made it all worthwhile though. I was more than ready to sleep until late into the next day, however my itinerary was not to permit such a luxury.
Dec 30th: Instead, I wake up at 3.30am to go on a tour to see some geysers. I didn’t know what a geyser was before I came to Chile so I will describe what I saw for those who do not know… Basically in the middle of the desert there were all these mental hot shoots of water that just come out of the ground. But mega hot, like, boiling and because it’s so cold (I’ve never felt so cold – high altitude, middle of desert in the early hours is a very cold place to be) there is loads and loads of steam everywhere. Was pretty groovy, but for me being that cold just isn’t fun. I half loved it because it was incredible and I doubt I’ll ever see anything like it again and half hated it and wanted to die because I was so cold and tired. Eventually we went to some natural thermal spa things. I went in but was a little disappointed because they weren’t as hot as I’d anticipated – in Pucon they were so warm that you’d be relieved by the time you got out and the cold air wouldn’t bother you too much. This one was more like a lukewarm bath. Quite nice, but not really satisfying. And getting out was horrendous. BRR! So now here we are. That happened today. I’ve spent the rest of the day being in bed, washing, and chilling ready for a brutal trip across the Salar de Uyuni tomorrow. I feel quite sick. Just a combination of too much sun, maybe a little altitude, not sleeping, exerting oneself, etc etc etc. Blah! Hard work this travelling lark!
So that wasn’t as brief as I’d intended. It’s put me in a better mood though, writing about it all, remembering the good times because I was in a bit of a grump, feeling ill and tired. Need some downtime now but that’s not going to happen for a few days. We’re about to embark on a tour across the Salar de Uyuni (think I mentioned that). Google it because it looks amazing. I can’t wait to see all that stuff, I’m sure it will be immense. BUT. The tour guide told us that virtually everyone gets very sick from the altitude, which is not fun. I’ve never had it properly, only a little headache, but it’s meant to be horrendous. Vomming and everything. Oh. So I’m half really excited and half really dreading it. At least by the time we get to places like La Paz and Cusco we’ll already be pretty acclimatised. Fingers crossed… If I really can’t cope with the altitude after more than a few days, I’ll escape – Argentina, maybe Brazil?!
Hannah Mead 