Bolivia Boarder Crossing

I have arrived in Bolivia. All is well and it was a really easy and uneventful boarder crossing and drive to where we are staying. I am with Anne and Harry at this point. There is always talk amongst the travelers about Bolivia. Some hate it, some love it, some are afraid of it. Anyway our trip yesterday was great. We took the bus from Tilcara Argentina to the boarder town of La Quinta. Once we were there we hoped in a taxi for a $1 to get us to the boarder. Crossing was easy. I expected to have to pay $75 US to get in, but didn’t have to. Maybe it is only if you fly into the country? We are not sure. Once we were through the boarder crossing we walked straight into a Cambio, where you change your money. No problems there and we caught a taxi to the train station to go on to Tupiza. The train only runs certain days of the week so we stayed an extra day in Tilcara to be able to catch it. Not an issue thought I probably would have stayed another night anyway, but long story a little shorter. We get in this cab to take us to the train station in a broken Spanish conversation the cabby says he can drive us to Tupiza. So we look at each other, we all have a good vibe about the guy and say, yeah ok, what the hell. So we tell him we need to eat and he takes us to the place to eat and we are on the road, an hour before the train is “scheduled” to leave. The train takes close to three hours and we were able to drive there in an hour and a half. He was a cautious driver and we even had seatbelts. At one point we had to stop and wait as in numerous spots the road was under construction but it was fine. They had just blasted a new tunnel and were clearing the rubble, so that was neat to drive through.

We arrived at a great hotel that had rooms for three so that is what we had booked. The place even has a pool, it is luxury for $7 each a night. Who said Bolivia was a hard place to travel? Well I will touch wood as the next four days are going to be an overland Jeep excursion to the Salt Flats at high altitude, so here is hoping it goes smoothly and that I don’t get altitude sickness. I may be out of contact potentially for a week but at the end I should have a gazillion photos to upload. So here is the news and again the buzz with people, some afraid others are fine. The boarder was closed the other day between Bolivia and Argentina, we learned this after we crossed that it was the day before we crossed. There are protests throughout the country and guess who are protesting? The teachers, they are looking for a 15% pay raise. So people are talking about riots etc. some are just moving on as normal and others are trying to get out quickly. I will leave it up in the air.

The next four days are on this tour through the salt flats and then I can cross into Chile to go to Peru or go through Bolivia and cross into Peru. Basically I need to move a little quicker now as I fly out of Peru to Easter Island on May 1 and have to see Machu Pichu before that. Here’s hoping those teachers aren’t too rowdy.

Sorry I cann't get my photos to upload.

The seven colour hills, Purmamarca Argentina.

Argentina is such a lovely place. It is so easy to get around the people, food and sites are fantastic. I am loving my time in Argentina. I love when you intend to spend a night in an area and it turns into a week. That is what happened in Salta. Thank god I didn’t move on, I would have missed some tranquil places in Cafayete, Cachi, Tilcara and Purmamarca, each have incredible landscapes. They are just my kind of places, little towns with great character.

I was able to do a great three kilometer walk around Purmamarca. It is where the seven colour hills are. Amazing colours that change as the sunlight hits the mountain, or hills. You might be sick of the rock photos but it is just amazing everywhere you turn there is something different and amazing to see. Hope some of those panoramic photos might give you a better perception.

So I met a guy Harry yesterday and as fate would have it we would have met on my scheduled Antarctica trip that I had to cancel. We were to be on the same boat, same dates and company. Interesting how we would now meet up in Northern Argentina as we each head to Bolivia. Kind of cool how random things happen. He loved his Antarctica trip. it is neat to talk to someone who has been there. So we gained another travel companion for a few days at least.

Click on the link for photos from The Seven Colour Hills in Purmamarca Argentina

Road trip between Salta and Cachi Argentina

Good morning. I don’t know how successful I am going to be at typing this as I am on a bus which seems to not have any shocks and I am wondering if my breakfast is going to stay down as we bounce, bounce along. It is just a four hour trip today. It is kind of surreal though. I am sitting right at the front of the bus on the second level and because I can type without looking at the keyboard. I am just watching the beautiful scenery go by. It is kind of neat to be so productive (getting the blog caught up) and relaxed at the same time. No WIFI on the bus, that just seemed to be in Uruguay so I will write this now and post it later on.

I had another incredible day yesterday. The scenery in the Salta province is incredible. Esteban was Anne and my guide for the last two days. Anne is my new friend from England. On day two of our drives to check out the area we were the only ones in the car and therefore had a private tour. It was great. I knew it was going to be a fantastic day as we were driving through the green mountains with the tunes cranked rocking out to it’s a beautiful day by U2. At work they play music some mornings to get the kids moving to class and I love when it is this song, for me it is a great song to start the day with, so when it came on and we were driving through that beautiful landscape I couldn’t help but smile.

The landscape between the two days was so different and yet they are so close. One day was red mountains and the second day was green mountains. The way the sun was hitting the one area in the afternoon made the mountains look like they were covered in plush velvet and I just wanted to reach out and pet it. You know how I am with petting things being the tactile person I am.

Oh god, just a little pause and a prayer. We just came across carnage on the highway. There we two bodies spewed over two lanes of the highway going in the other direction. It must have just happened. Sorry for those families losses.

I am now a little distracted. We saw tons of cacti yesterday and at times there were cacti in the foreground and snow on the Andes in the background. We saw a condor which was really neat. Esteban has been trying to take a picture of one for three years so he was really excited about seeing it too. It was close to the road and it was huge. It looks almost like a big wooden bird. We watched it and its baby’s for awhile and then it took off in flight. They have a 10 foot wing span. We also saw wild donkeys that are prey for pumas and guanacos (they are kind of like a deer and an alpaca). We actually pulled over the car because we could see a tarantula crossing the road and didn’t want to hit it.

The people around here are also quite lovely. The hostel I was staying at in Salta had incredible staff. Each day was someone different but each one of them was extremely helpful. Traveling with no phone sometimes leads to a bit of a hassle but these people were always offering their phones and making calls for me. When I was trying to arrange the car to go around the area and Anne was staying in a different hostel they made the calls and arranged it for us. Then they called her hostel for me so I could tell her we were good to go etc. Anyway little things make me happy, right. Then this morning when I was checking out the guy who checked me in saw me and instantly said “Sarah, how are you? Where were you yesterday I worked from 8 – 7 and I didn’t see you, where did you go?”All this service for $12 a night and they also had the best breakfast, included. Today I had two eggs and each day there was fresh fruit out all day for your taking. A typical South American breakfast is white bread, which they had brown, dulce de leche, a carmel sauce which they are obsessed with and a croissant. Oh yeah and I got hot chocolate made with milk whenever I wanted it. All included in that $12 fee. Now it is no four star place, a six bed dorm room and not the greatest bathrooms, I definitely needed my shower shoes, but a great showerhead with pressure, which is sometimes hard to find and therefore sometimes it’s hard to get that shampoo out of my hair or the soap off your body for that reason.

Again lots of photos were taken some of them are quite cheesy as were we playing around to maybe make the shots a little bit more interesting for you.

One of my favorite things to see, Grace will make fun of me because it is red, but it was a field of drying chilies it was incredible to see this field of red.

Anne has an I-phone and can take panoramic view photos so I copied a few of her pictures on the bus today. They are really neat to see. Did I tell you this guy in Buenos Aires had an I-phone with him and he had an app on it that translated for him? He held the phone over a menu and it translated the print from Spanish to English. Oh how travelling is changing.

We arrived in Tilcara this afternoon; it reminds me of the wild, Wild West. It is a little town with a mix of authentic locals and backpackers in a hot dusty 20 square block area. It is a beautiful location though among the mountains and such a nice vibe to it.

We arrived at the hostel to suppose to be having a twin room but the room was rebooked by its previous occupants. So they gave us a two bedroom room with a bathroom and balcony that can sleep six for the same price of $11 each a night. I walked onto the private balcony that looks out onto the mountains and went ok this is cool. I can chill out and read and write on this for awhile.

Here is the link for the photos from Cachi Argentina.
Click on the link for photos from the drive from Salta to Cachi Argentina

Salta Argentina

Wow! What an amazing day. You should see the scenery around Salta Argentina, amazing. I can see why Nancy Towns is a bicycle guide in this area. Too bad she is not around at this time, she is in Spain. But man did she ever have some good suggestions.
The road from Salta to Cafayate has incredible mountains and beautiful red rocks. You will see them in the many photos I took. It was amazing. I went in a car with a guide a girl I met on the 24 hour bus, Anne from England and another couple from Austria. I could see buying that BMW motorcycle and bringing it down here for a hell of a trip.
The other day I went to San Lorenzo by local bus, 30 cents. It is just a suburb to the city of Salta with a great forest and jungle. I hiked in there and did a zip line over the gorge after my hike. It was great to be out of a big city and back into nature.
Salta has a cable car to get up the mountain to check out the view of the city. So I did that and then walked back down the mountain for some exercise. It is nice to get moving again after days of sitting.
Part of today’s trip included visits to two wineries. The smell of the fermenting grapes was incredibly good.
Have you ever seen a tobacco fence? In tobacco country the road is lined with them as the farmers are drying out their product for export.
Click on the link for tons of rock and mountain photos from Salta, Argentina

Iguazu Falls Argentina and tons of photos

Iguazu Falls Argentina. WOW! What a beautiful National Park. It puts Niagara Falls to shame. There are beautiful easy walking paths through the park that lead to lookouts along the way that just keep giving better and better views. The paths are through the jungle and easily followed. It sure beats the tacky tourist shops along the road in Niagara Falls. The sound of the rushing water is incredible.

A twenty minute $1.50 bus ride gets you out to the Falls from the quaint little city of Puerto Iguazu. Once there you pay your $25 admission into the National Park and hop on a little site seeing train that takes you to the walking paths. If you get your ticket stamped on the way out they will let you back in the next day for $12.50. I will be heading back for some more scenery, fresh air and exercise. You can do 8km walks or multiple 1km walks all giving excellent views of the falls. Iguazu Falls lies in both Argentina and Brazil. I was on the Argentinean side as I don’t have visa to get into Brazil.

We arrived in Puerto Iguazu in the morning and lucked out again with the hostel giving us our room early. We had taken a 12 hour night bus that brought us into town at 10am. It was a comfy bus with reclining leather chairs that would remind you of lazy boys. The bus trip cost $72 and included a hot supper with wine, coffee, tea or pop, breakfast, English movies with Spanish subtitles and a steward.

I am just back from day two of visiting Iguazu Falls, incredible views. The weather here is incredible too, blue skies and lots of hot sunshine. Yesterday I am sure it was around 35 it was really hot and today maybe 28 degrees Celsius.

I took different paths today at the National Park. One went over the river that led to the falls. You were able to get right up close and on top of it in places. If you are into birds then this place is a must for you and butterflies. I have never seen some many in one place, alive. (Mom and I saw lots of dead ones in Panama all pinned up.) Their wings are brilliant purple, blues and reds, but the photos I got are of yellow and orange ones.

The falls are very expansive and consist of numerous falls all put together. The section I saw today is similar in it’s horseshoe shape to Niagara, but there are large parts on each side that you cannot see in the pictures, therefore making it larger than Niagara Falls.

Click on the link for tons of waterfall photos from Iguazu Falls, Argentina
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Salto Uruguay

Recheck the Montevideo pictures from the last post if you would like to see photos from the Barbeque, I added them after I did that post. Their hospitality was exceptional.

Last night the Aussies and I took a night bus to Salto Uruguay after the barbeque at the hostel. We arrived at 5am in Salto, hung out at the bus terminal for an hour and got a cab to the hotel. The hostel in this town is not open for the season yet and cancelled our reservations via email that we had made online. Still checking my credit card to see about getting that $7 deposit back  The hotel is a budget hotel I think it is rated one star. It is good though. Really good if you consider they gave us our room right away (before 7am) and we were able to grab a couple of hours sleep. It is $20 a night for a single room.

Today Shelley and I visited the thermal pools outside of Salto. We hopped on the local bus for 70 cents and went out to the thermal pools. It cost $3.50 to get into the pools. I expected a more natural setting than what the photo above shows, but whatever. The pools were filled with water from the hot springs and marked with their temperatures. They ranged from 37 – 39 degrees Celsius.

Not much is open in South America on Saturday or Sunday, but we did find an amazing bakery today and had a feast on little sweets. It was so fresh and yummy.

Off to Iguaçu Falls in Argentina tomorrow via bus. It should make for an interesting story as we can’t get a hold of the schedule because we will be getting the bus in Argentina not Uruguay and the bus originally starts in Buenos Aires (~13 hours away) and we can’t find out the time it will be where we need to get it until we get over to Argentina. So we will cross the boarder in a taxi and go from there. It could be good connections or a long day of waiting around.

Montevideo Uruguay and UPDATED photos

This is a picture of the garbage pickers in Montevideo. Montevideo is the capital of Uruguay and it has very interesting areas. I mean some posh beach areas, not where I am staying and some interesting poorer areas. This hostel leaves a lot to be desired, but there are some lovely people at it. The hostel owners are having a barbeque in the street tonight so we bought some meat, ribs on their recommendation and sausages. Having a barbeque in the street is a dying tradition they said so they are trying to bring it back, remember this is the capital city and they have set up their barbeque in the middle of the road.
Click on the link for Montevideo Uruguay pictures