April Fools

So among the many many awesome times and hilarity on the road, there are occasional times of woe.. Like going to Uyuni.

Firstly we had to say goodbye to our new favourite person Cheese, Ghislane Dutch sex pot.. Then embark on a journey from Salta in Argentina, to Uyuni in Bolivia.. Which included;

A 7 hour night bus ride to a shanty town near the Arg border, a 1km walk in the dark to find the border, queue in minus temps to have our passports stamped to say we're leaving Argentina and entering Bolivia.. A 1km uphill walk to the local bus terminal with what now feels like 20kg on la backo (Jodie's probs is as she's turned clepto and is collecting shit from hostels now), a 2-3 hour wait at the bus station, with a breakfast choice of a flat yorkshire pudding or what was advertised as soy and quinoa soup but had pineappleade in it.. then a 10 hour local bus journey to Uyuni (local bus meaning the windows don't open, there's no toilet on board, about 15 people over capacity etc).. A ride so comfortably taking place around a rocky cliff edge, my glasses were once shook clean off of my heed!  At a particularly low point I was pleading with the driver to let me off so I could just go wee behind the bus, but he shouted at me in Spanish until I sat down.

So with nothing but sand and rocks to look at, being too uncomfortable to sleep, and too exhausted to weep, we sat.....and just waited for the horror to end.. Occasionally having a bout of delirious laughter or a 'not long now bird' pep talk..

Then eventually we do arrive at Uyuni... and it's honestly the strangest little place I've ever been to.  People look like caricatures and dress in bath mats, and it's as if a hole has been cut into a mountain and a town dropped in the middle of it.. One guy likened it to walking the war torn streets of Iraq!  But it's reet, we're embracing it, we're having an amazeo times, we're fine.. So we book a day tour to the salt flats for the next day, drink half a beer, sleep in the fetal..

Tour day! Pretty excited, we go for our transfer.. and find that although we've been sold 2 tickets, a seat each, we'll actually be sharing 1 seat for the day, squashed against some letchy Argentines that smell like they've rolled in a dog shit!  We have to pretend to sleep so we don't have to play 0s and Xs with them anymore!

The salt flats were amazing, the pictures don't do justice to how idyllic and peaceful they were.. Completely white for hundreds of miles and you could hear a pin drop, really awesome...

...The tour however needed to be half the time that it actually took, but we made 2 extra stops on the way back because the old lady on our tour wanted to bath in the salt water.. At one point we were all standing around the car while she washed her arse in the healing pool... Errrrr lady!?

Anywoos.. We get back from the tour and have 2 hours before our night bus out of here, when we can put the town of hell behind us...... Sorry, our bus has been cancelled!!!?  There are Miner strikes on the highways and all the buses to La Paz have been cancelled, with no idea when they'll be running again.........................................

Sooooo a frantic run back to our hostel to ask either to use the wifi to look at other options or at least another nights stay to consider them...but they're now fully booked and won't let us use the wifi as we're no longer guests here.. awesome!

We finally manage to find another hostel after 1-2 hour walk around the town, that is literally 2 beds in a room and we have to pay to use toilet roll... But by the power of grey skull we find a tour operator that is flying out of Uyuni in 2 days time, for 4 times the price of the bus.. Fucking deal!  So now we have 2 days to kill in a place that has a water shortage, the altitude is so high you can't climb a flight of stairs without needed a sit down, and there's aprox 0.5 bars of wifi to share amongst the whole town..

Peaks and troughs my friends...