Chile

One of the first things we noticed in San Pedro was just how expensive it is here in Chile. Prices are similar to those back home, which after coming from Bolivia is quite a shock!

The first day in Chile was pretty uneventful although we went out for a few drinks in the evening and Roberto taught us a Bolivian dice game - Alana loved it!!

Another early morning start. This time we are off on a horse ride in the desert.

We met at the 'ranch' and were given chaps and a rather fetching straw hat each to wear.

Toy Story 4 - Jesse and.....

Woody get lost.....

in the Atacama desert!

We then headed off on our trusty steeds out into the wilderness (albeit with a tarmaced road running alongside it!). This time I was fortunate enough to be given an actual horse rather than a mule but Alana still said I was too big and looked ridiculous on it!

During our 3 hour ride we managed to go through an oasis, across a river, through the valley and along the sand dunes. Some of the views were amazing and the way the light hit the rocky hills was quite romantic.

Although expensive, the little town of San Pedro was quite pretty and we enjoyed our time here, but for now we are on a mission to find some sun and sand that is close to water rather than the middle of the desert, we are now off to the beach town of Caldera.

San Pedro town

The bus ride was the best we have had yet! We managed to get promotional seats downstairs in the full-cama area (fully reclining seats) and got some snacks, it was a great trip until at 1am we were dropped on the side of a dusty motorway and told that the twinkling lights in the distance were where we wanted to be! Brilliant!

Luckily we were dropped with another backpacker from Canada who spoke better Spanish than us and after half an hour of walking we came across a group of people who told us we had at least another hour of walking before we would get to the centre of town – we opted for a taxi!

After dropping the Canadian at her pre-booked hotel we went off in search for somewhere to stay for the night. We searched and searched but there was no room at any inn! In the end we literally squatted outside a hotel who were nice enough to let us use their bathroom. Thankfully it was a warm night so we didnt get much of a chill, we were however the fascination of every drunk who came ambling past on their way home.......we didnt get much sleep!!

As morning rolled around we headed down to the beach front and drank a bottle of yoghurt for breakfast. This seaside town wasnt as nice as we had been expecting but the people were. We were sat outside a naval office when an officer came out and spoke to us, telling us if we needed any help/use of the bathroom etc we were more than welcome to come inside.

We finally managed to get a room at about 11am in a rundown little hostel that cost us a whopping NZ$100 per night!! We decided to only stay for one and booked our tickets to Santiago for the following day.

After a quick shower and change of clothes we headed down to the beach where we chilled out for the afternoon, the following day was spent in a similar fashion, although we did manage to find a rocky area away from the main beach with a couple of sea lions basking in the sun on it which was cool.

Caldera Beach

Beautiful blue water with the desert backdrop.

Catching some rays!

In Santiago we visited the usual city sites, stopping for a Valentines picnic at Cerro Santa Lucia and enjoying a bottle of wine with dinner.

Cerro Santa Lucia

Some of the Santiago skyline

Check the mountains in the background

Plaza de Armas

A mix of old and new...

We both enjoyed Santiago which although a busy capital city still seemed quite relaxed and slow paced. The people were kind and courteous and have made us want to return.

We are now off to Argentina, crossing the Andes.

Potosi and the Salt Flats tour

We decided to stay only one night in Potosi (the worlds highest city). After arriving at 7am we set about finding somewhere to stay and then headed into town to book ourselves a tour for the day. We went to an agency recommended to us and got a tour of the local silver mine for half the price of the rest in our group!! The mine has been open since the Spanish invaded and has some 10,000 people working in it. The conditions however are poor and many of the miners die young due to lung conditions bought on by the aspestos and other carcanegenic dusts. The conditions are also quite hard with little changing in conditions or equipment used since the Spanish. During the time the mines were owned by Spain and they used slave labour some 9million people died in the mines in a 100 year period!

The tour was pretty good although the tour guide was a little bolshy. We went down about 1km into the mines through very crampt shafts and saw many of the miners working. We also saw a statue of their god which they bring offerings to to bring them good luck in the mining and safety.

Into the depths.....

The god of the underworld....if you look carefully you will see he is EXTREMELY pleased to see me!!

Crawling around in tunnels made for people half my size.......brilliant!

The mine apparently goes as deep as 4km underground where it gets to temperatures of 62C+. There are no lifts or proper ventilation. The workers have to walk into the mines the same way as we did and are paid by what they find rather than a salary. It is extremely hardwork and certainly not something I would ever want to consider doing.

One of the workers. He fills the sling with rubble for eight hours a day with nothing more than a shovel!

Never a sexier miner!!

After the tour our lunatic of a tour guide let us pose with lit dynamite.....even in your mouth! Needless to say Alana and I declined, fearing our heads may blow off much like Wile Coyote's!!

The most dangerous woman in Bolivia?? Possibly!

After Potosi it was on to Uyuni to start our Salt Flats tour. Uyuni it turns out is possibly the biggest dump Bolivia has to offer, although we have been assured by other travellers there are worse! The town is solely there to mine the salt and cater to the tourists wanting to see the salt flats.

We had a great group consisting of Alana and I, another Brit (Ian), his girlfriend Dominique (German), Max (Dutch) and Cecilia (Italian).

The tour started with a trip to an old train engine cemetery on the edge of town. There used to be quite a few trains running through Bolivia but now there are only a few destinations still in operation.

Toot-toot!!

The cover of my new album titled 'Another wet 3 day tour'!!!

After the train cemetery we headed to the Salt Flats. Yet again due to the rain our experience was slightly different as the flats were now more of a lake. We did still manage to take some silly pictures however and got some amazing pictures of the sky being reflected in the water.

Our first night was a long, long journey as our driver seemed to have no idea where the accelerator pedal was.

The town we stayed in was like a ghost town.....we only saw a sign of life at the place we stayed. It was pretty spooky and I wouldnt have been surprised to wake up and find some lunatic standing over my bed holdig a dripping knife!

Thankfully the night didnt hold any such excitement and we awoke the next day to a breakfast of stale bread and tea.

We visited lots of lagoons on the second day, some which were different colours and many with Flamingos.

We also saw the Siloli Desert and the Stone Tree.

Stone Tree

Our second nights accomodation was somewhat interesting. It seemed we were sleeping in a schools classroom. There was no running water and the only heat came from an old wood stove.

It was another early start in the morning, although when we awoke we found the other groups that had also stayed with us (in different rooms) had already left for the day!

We went first to visit the Geysers and Fumaroles which although were quite impressive were similar to those in Rotorua. Alana and I were keen to move on from there to the Hot Springs which were our next destination. The water was 32C and given the outside tempetature was about 10C this was a very welcome stop. We stayed in for about ½ an hour before heading onwards to Salvador Dali Desert and visiting the last of the lakes on the tour - Laguna Verde.

Hot Pools! So good.

Laguna Verde

Once we had completed the lakes, Alana, myself and Cecilia were taken to the Chilean border to cross while the others went back to Uyuni.

The border crossing went off without a hitch apart from the bus driver almost falling asleep! Cecelia asked someone at the front of the bus to talk to him to stop us hurtling off the roads to our imminent deaths. He turned out to be Ecuadorian (now living in New York) and joined us in our quest to find a hostel in San Pedro.

Pampas and Jungle

The Pampas tour was a 2.5 hour drive down another potholed and muddy road. Our driver was essentially a lunatic and although we had one small stop (we came off the road in the mud and we had to push the car back out) we made the journey in 2 hours less than the other buses!

We were then put on to a motorised canoe and headed through the river (a nice calm, gentle one) towards our camp. We stopped along the way to see some animals that were alongside the river bank before finally getting to our accomodation.

A few of the animals we saw from the boat

Our accomodation was situated in mosquito heaven.....or for us mosquito hell! These bastards were as big as your thumb nail with the appetites of starving men. The only way to escape them was too be on the boat going fast so they blew away or in the middle of the day as the heat got too much for them.

Sometimes not even that helped as they sheltered under the seats on the boat and could bite through jeans! Alana ended up with a backside resembling a pepporoni pizza and I was covered in bites all over my back. Our only escape was under our mozzy nets at night which thankfully worked very well.

In the evening we went Caiman hunting on the boat with our torches and spotted a few along the banks and one small one alongside the boat.

In the morning of the second day we went looking for Anaconda. We trudged around a stinking, fetted swamp in a vain search for a snake. We were not successful. On the way back however we did spot a snake swimming in the water ahead of the boat, not an Anaconda but atleast we had seen a snake!!

Searching for Anacondas

When we got back we had the first proper shower in four days. We and I am sure the others around us were pretty happy.

After lunch we went looking for the elusive Pink Dolphins to swim with. It wasnt long before we started to see a few of them but they werent interested in hanging around and playing with us, which in all honesty with fine as none of us really wanted to get into the water!

We managed to see quite a few dolphins but they were extremely difficult to photograph.

They were right there......we promise!

After our final night we were meant to watch sunrise over the Pampas but it was raining so we managed to sneak a couple of extra hours sleep. In the morning we went Pirhana fishing. This proved fruitless and we later heard that it was almost impossible to catch Pirhanna in the wet season as they are to spread out and prefer to head to clean water rather than the swamp. It was worth a try though.

Who has the biggest crocodile grin??

The Pampas tour was good and although we didnt catch Pirhanna or see an Anaconda we really enjoyed it. Among other animals, we did get to see:

• Caiman
• Alligators
• Toucans
• Sloths
• Pink Dolphins
• Capawara (largest rodent in the world)
• Howler Monkeys
• Titi Monkeys
• A range of different birds
• Spiders
• Lizards
• A swimming snake
• and Turtles

After a brief night back in Rurrenabaque we were on the jungle tour. This had been paid for by the tour agency as a replacement for our rafting trip.

We headed into Madidi National Park by boat. Once moored we had to help carry our supplies along with our things into the jungle accomodation. Before getting there we had to cross a river up to our thighs and then across a tree trunk spanning another river/muddy hole which I of course fell into! Gutting after only just getting all of our washing done the night before from the rafting trip!

The jungle tour consisted of 3 walks into the jungle. Two day walks and one night one. One of the day walks was for animals and the other for plants.

The jungle trip was completely different to the Pampas and we really enjoyed it. We were quite lucky and we able to see quite a few animals on our walks (usually it is difficult due to how dense the forest is). We were lucky enough to see:

• Wild boar – a small group of around 30 and then the next day a group of over 100!
• A snake (it was really rare to see this type of snake as they usually hide in the water as the boar like to eat them!)
• Tarantula
• Many other spiders – in this area there were 11 species and 9 were poisonous.
• Bullet ants (if they bite it hurts as though you have been shot apparently, for up to 24 hours!)
• Red ants
• Leaf cutter ants (my highlight!)
• More ants
• And more ants
• A massive toad.

Some of the plants we saw that the jungle has to offer included:

• A 'natural viagra' plant
• Jungle weed – doesnt look like cannabis but apparently once the leaves are dried ad smoked it has the same affect.
• A plant that helps with arthritis
• A garlic tree
• One that helps if you have been bitten by a snake
• LOADS of hallucinagenic plants

After these two trips we flew back to La Paz in an 18 seater plane/coffin, straight down to the tour company to get our bus tickets/speak to them about a partial refund and then onto Potosi.