Bolivia: Crappy Busses, Endless Salt, & Backpack Thieves

This is the view from `The Death Train`. So named because it bounces around like it`s on a pogo stick and can be pretty miserable in the summer months.
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Greetings from the great continent of South America and the not so great country of Bolivia!!!  We have had quite an adventure since I talked to you all last.  I believe my last entry was typed in Corumba, so I will start from there.

We crossed the Brazil-Bolivian border via bus, and arrived in a town call Quijarro (pronounced `kee-HAR-oh`).  From Quijarro we boarded a train called ´The Death Train´ bound for Santa Cruz, Bolivia.  The train ride was somewhat miserable, due to the fact that we bounced around on the tracks like the train-cars were on pogo-sticks or something (maybe this is why it`s called the death train).  We rode all through the night, stopping at little villages along the way for food and stretching.  After 22 hours we arrived in Santa Cruz and stepped off the train groggy, sore, and not looking forward to any more traveling.  However, traveling was the special on the menu-of-the-day, so we researched busses destined for Sucre, boarded the appropriate one (after getting scammed out of 100 Bolivianos with the bus tickets; people here have no integrity and most are trying to cheat you out of as much money as they can), and laid our heads down for the long trip to Sucre.  After a miserable busride (the buses are at least 20 years old and none of the roads are paved), we arrived in Sucre groggy, sore, and not looking foward to more traveling.  But, once again, we had places to be and things to see, so we boarded yet another bus bound for Potosi.  This ride proved to be the second worst ride yet (I`ll describe the worst later on).  You see, these people are so poor that the bus companies cram as many people onto the busses as they can.  When the seats are filled up, people stand/sit/sleep in the aisles, which makes for a very uncomfortable/smelly/miserable ride.  In fact, it was on this ride that a small child vomited all over Jema`s right foot.  Combine that with the fact that we were very fatigued and a little ill, and we thought we might be making a bad decision to travel through Bolivia.  We arrived in Potosi in pretty bad condition (emotions: angry, depressed, hopeless, crazy) (physical state: sleep deprived, sore, hungry, ill, and desperately need to use the toilet).  Potosi is the highest city in the world (13,000 ft), and at elevations this high, altitude sickness can take it´s toll.  We walked as slow as we could and didn´t eat much so as to ward off the altitude sickness.  During our time in Potosi I was able to call my Mom on her birthday, which made both of us very happy.  After a lot of walking around and eating fried potatoes, we boarded yet another bus for Uyuni (pronounced `you-YOU-nee`), which was our final destination.  We rode on the bus with a group of very nice Russians whom offered to trade seats with me so I could have more leg room.  However, this was the absolute worst ride so far because of the mental and physical state we were in, and because the bus was basically a big van and the dirt roads were especially worn.  We arrived in Uyuni at midnight, which made the situation worse.  We were in desperate need for a warm bed and a good night´s sleep.  A nice man who was trying to get us to go on a Salar tour with him (more on the Salar later) drove us around until we found a hotel.  At last we found one that had a vacancy and we got a room.  The room was ice cold (we were at about 12,000 feet elevation in the winter and there was no heat in the room).  We crawled into bed with all of our warm layers on and slowly warmed up and slowly drifted off to sleep.

His beady little eyes spelled guilt!

This is Potosi. With an elevation of 13,000 feet, it is the highest city in the world. Population: 130,000
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The next day we decided to hang around town, wash clothes, recharge our bodies and minds, and find a good tour agency for our tour of the most expansive salt flats in the world.  We did all of this, including eating at a delicious pizza place owned and operated by a guy from Amherst, Massachusetts.  The food was great and we drank excellent wine and good beer.  The next day at 11:00 we packed our bags on top of a Toyota LandCruiser, and set off on a three day tour of the Salar de Uyuni with three Australian girls, one Bolivian girl, and the guide/driver and cook.  The Salar de Uyuni is what is left from a huge, ancient sea that evaporated a long time ago.  The salt flat covers 8,000 square miles and at some places is 30 feet thick.  Our first stop on the tour was where they were mining the salt.  Mining isn`t the right word, though, because basically what they were doing was digging the salt by hand with shovels and throwing it into the back of a small dump-truck.  The workers let Jema and I do a bit of salt-shoveling, which is suprisingly similar to shoveling snow.  We picked up a little chunk and tasted it, but to our suprise it didn`t really taste all that salty.  The miners told us that the salt in that particular area wasn`t very good quality, and it will be mixed with more pure salt from another flat.  After another ride in the Landcruiser we stopped at an `island` that was covered in giant cactus.  The island was just a mass of earth sticking up out of the salt flat, and looking out onto the flat from the island made it feel like you were in the middle of the ocean.  Here we ate lunch made by our cook (the food was suprisingly good), and jumped into the landcruiser again for a ride to our accomidation.  The small hotel we stayed at was made almost entirely of salt; walls, tables, and chairs were made of bricks of salt and the floor was loose salt.  Jema and I ate some more good food made by the cook and played cards and shared a bottle of wine with the Australian girls.  We then retired to our beds (the frames were block salt, mattresses were fair quality), for the best sleep I`ve had in days.  We were up and eating breakfast with the sun, then loaded up the mochillas (backpacks), onto the top of the Landcruiser and headed off to see more sights.  We saw several different lakes; one was even red because of the chemicals.  We stopped at an active volcano and saw some really cool rock formations.  All in all the day was mostly comprised of riding in the landcruiser and stopping at different lakes for 10 minutes at a time.  In the evening we arrived at our accomidation for the night, which was a building made out of earthen brick.  We played more cards, talked to some rich kids from the east coast who were volunteering in Bolivia, ate some delicious spaghetti, drank wine, rum, and vodka, and then laid our heads down for some sleep.  The next morning we awoke about one hour before sunrise so we could make it to some hot springs before light.  We arrived at the hot springs and the Aussies, Jema, and I debated whether or not to get in.  After 30 minutes of wavering back and forth three of us (Jema, me, and Kylie) decided to strip down to our underwear and jump into the natural hot water.  Our decision was genius.  The water was super refreshing.  We relaxed in the steamy pool for about half-an-hour before it was time to get out and eat breakfast.  The eggs, toast, and coffee filled us up for the long ride ahead.  Our first sight was a valley called `The Valley of Salvador Dali`, so named because Dali spent several days here one time and the scenery is very surreal, much like his paintings.  We had stops at some more cool rock formations, some nice little villages in the middle of nowhere.  The long drive back to Uyuni was almost torture.  After three days stuffed into a landcruiser with seven other people, I was ready to be done with driving.  It was after dark that I shouted out in joy when we arrived in Uyuni.  Our bus to La Paz left at 8:00 pm, and it was roughly 7:00 when our guide, Alejandro, was unloading our mochillas off the top of the landcruiser.  Jema and the Aussies went into the bus office to square away the ticket business, and I stood outside watching the bags.  Jema quickly alerted me that the our tickets were fine but the Australian girls had gotten cheated by the tour company.  The girls ran accross town to the tour company office to get their money back.  When they returned, a deal was made for the girls to take our tickets and get on the bus, and Jema and I took their money so we could buy bus tickets for the next day.  While the girls were inside the office making the arrangements for the exchange, I was still outside watching the bags.  While I was standing there, leaning against the wall with the backs to my left, a man came up to me on my right and started talking to me in Spanish.  I said to him `No hablo Español`, but he kept rambling on and on like he was asking me questions.  After a few sentences of this he ubruptly turned and walked away.  I sensed something was amiss but I could not quite figure it out right way.  It wasn`t until I looked down at the bags that I realized Jema`s bag was missing.  What had happened was this:  The man who was talking to me was a diversion, and he averted my attention to the right while another man was on my left stealing Jema`s bag.  As soon as I realized what had happened I grabbed all the other bags into my arms, ran into the bus office, and yelled, `Jema, your bag just got stolen`.  I then dropped the bags in the office, turned around as fast as I could, and ran in the direction I suspected the thief had gone.  I rounded the corner of the building and scanned frantically at all the people in front of me.  Most were wearing backpacks, but in the dark I could not identify if one was Jema`s or not.  I ran from person to person to get a better look, but none of them were it.  I stopped at an old man who was carrying a large black sack filled with something.  After frantically asking him if he had seen anything, I realized he didn`t speak English, so I ran to the next person, and the next.  After exhausted from searching, I slowed down and was almost ready to give up, when I man in dark blue overalls stopped me.  He did not speak English either, but he made it clear which direction I should be searching.  I thanked him for his help and ran down the street, and around a corner as he had instructed.  My eyes fell upon the old man with the big black sack that I had tried to talk to earlier.  As I watched him move away from me down the sidewalk, I noticed he was walking a little faster than he needed to, and he was clutching his big black back a little to firmly.  As I ran up to him, he turned his head towards me and picked up his pace a little.  His beady little eyes spelled guilt!  I spyed the big black bag slung over his shoulder and a part of me wanted to rip it away from him and find out if Jema`s bag was in there.  Thankfully, it didn`t come to this, because after saying `amigo, mochilla`, about five times, he took the black sack off his shoulder and dumped Jema`s bag onto the ground.  Maybe part of the reason he gave it up was because I was at least 8 feet taller than him, or maybe he was suprised at being caught.  I picked the bag up off the ground with great relief.  All of her belongings were in this backpack, and if it had been lost a huge dent would have been put into the rest of our trip.  I look back now and think I should have run after the guy and tackled him and screamed at him, or at least gotten a better look at his face.  Instead all I could do was smile with joy and walk back to the bus office, looking forward to telling Jema I had chased the crook down and gotten her bag back.  When I arrived at the bus office, however, Jema was not there.  The Australian girls told me that she had ran after me.  I remembered seeing her in the intersection before I ran up to the old man.  I decided to go back out onto the streets and look for her.  I searched and searched for nearly an hour, shouting her name and getting more worried by the minute.  We were in an unfamiliar town, and if some guys are willing to steal a backpack, what else are they willing to do?  My mind was racing with all the possible situations and that made my search more frantic.  I ran down the streets with my fists clenched.  Stopping at every intersection, I looked down the streets at all the people in the darkness to see if I could recognize her walk.  With every passing second I got more worried and more scared.  I prayed to God that I would find her and swore to myself that if anyone hurt her I would hurt them more.  Every ten minutes I would run back to the bus station to see if she had returned.  Everytime the other girls told me she was still out there.  After checking back the last time, I ran out of the office, breathless and exhausted from the high elevation.  I decided to search a different neighborhood, and headed off in that direction.  All of a sudden I heard a whistle, which is Jema`s often prefered attention-getter.  I turned around to see if it was her.  I then heard another whistle, and then another.  It seemed as if everyone around me was whistling.  I kept turning around to see if it was Jema.  Finally, after rabidly spinning around searching for my girlfriend, I saw her walking towards me with her arms outstretched.  When I saw her I started running and picked her up in my arms, thankful that she was alright.  After much hugging and telling eachother what we had done (Jema had run a different direction), and rejoicing over having the bag back, we said goodbye to the Jess and Julie (who boarded a bus for La Paz), and got a room at the hostel we had stayed in the first night.  We tried for dinner at Minuteman Pizza, but it had closed early for some reason.  So we walked to the Plaza and found a nice pizza joint inhabited by two drunk men, one Scottish and one Australian.  The rest of the night was spent talking about the missing backpack adventure, and our plans for the next day, next week, and rest of the trip.

An aerial view of the Salar.
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I hope everyone is having a great July!!!  I`ll be in California in five weeks, so if anyone is headed that way this fall, drop me a line.  Bye!!!

Patrick  =:-)

Stay tuned for the next installment, when I describe `The Most Dangerous Road`, `120 miles in 9 hours`, and `Trinidad`.