Break in story--to Bolivia!
After passing the night in a little town called Purmamarca (it's TINY, but famous for its mountain of seven colors), we took a tour yesterday out to the Argentinean salt flats, which were interesting and fun, but nothing in comparison to what we know we're going to see while in Bolivia. Don't worry, I'll be copying Cami and Anthony's pictures to post and show. :)
The tour was lovely with a nice woman driver, and we climbed up to over 4,000 meters of altitude, and let me tell you it was freezing! Mm hmm, nice little preview of what we'll be getting here in Bolivia. After the tour, we hopped on a bus to Tilcara, then another up to La Quiaca, the Argentinean border town. We found our hostel and asked the lady at the front desk if she knew anything about the Bolivian bus schedule, and she told us to just walk across the border and check out. It's normal, as long as we're back before the end of the day, no problem! We began our walk, feeling very unlawful...but sure enough, when we got to the border, the officials just waved us to walk past. Um, really? Can you imagine how much illegal crossing must go on??? Even though the lady waved us past, I was still incredibly surprised! And crossing the border, you wouldn't think there would be a huge difference, but it was like night and day! Argentina was really slow and quiet, with hardly anybody out and about, and as soon as we got to the other side, the streets were bumpin! There was stall after stall of goods to be sold, music playing loudly, parents with strollers abounding...it was almost ridiculous how different it was! Iwas still kind of afraid that they were going to try to arrest us or something for crossing illegally...which reminds me, I totally had this dream the other night that I got arrested in Bolivia for eating a Bon-o-bon alfajor, and they sentenced me to two years in jail (while my native friend, also arrested, got off clean--I was sort of the scape goat, to serve an example to all the other evil alfajor-eating Americans!). I saw a bon-o-bon alfajor the next day and wanted to eat it, but took it as a bad omen and bought some mamba-wannabes. Not as good, but no jail time! Anyway, we crossed back and all was fine.
This morning we woke up at the butt crack of dawn and set off for our border crossing, all without any problems. We arrived in Tupiza around 10:00 am today and we've made plans to do some horseback riding. Oh yeah, and my first Bolivian meal? A "hamburger" that tastes more like a bunch of tunafish that was fried into a patty. Mm mmm, good!
Tomorrow we set off for Uyuni to arrange our tours of the Salt Flats, which are said to be absolutely amazing. Here's to hoping there are buses tomorrow! :)
The tour was lovely with a nice woman driver, and we climbed up to over 4,000 meters of altitude, and let me tell you it was freezing! Mm hmm, nice little preview of what we'll be getting here in Bolivia. After the tour, we hopped on a bus to Tilcara, then another up to La Quiaca, the Argentinean border town. We found our hostel and asked the lady at the front desk if she knew anything about the Bolivian bus schedule, and she told us to just walk across the border and check out. It's normal, as long as we're back before the end of the day, no problem! We began our walk, feeling very unlawful...but sure enough, when we got to the border, the officials just waved us to walk past. Um, really? Can you imagine how much illegal crossing must go on??? Even though the lady waved us past, I was still incredibly surprised! And crossing the border, you wouldn't think there would be a huge difference, but it was like night and day! Argentina was really slow and quiet, with hardly anybody out and about, and as soon as we got to the other side, the streets were bumpin! There was stall after stall of goods to be sold, music playing loudly, parents with strollers abounding...it was almost ridiculous how different it was! Iwas still kind of afraid that they were going to try to arrest us or something for crossing illegally...which reminds me, I totally had this dream the other night that I got arrested in Bolivia for eating a Bon-o-bon alfajor, and they sentenced me to two years in jail (while my native friend, also arrested, got off clean--I was sort of the scape goat, to serve an example to all the other evil alfajor-eating Americans!). I saw a bon-o-bon alfajor the next day and wanted to eat it, but took it as a bad omen and bought some mamba-wannabes. Not as good, but no jail time! Anyway, we crossed back and all was fine.
This morning we woke up at the butt crack of dawn and set off for our border crossing, all without any problems. We arrived in Tupiza around 10:00 am today and we've made plans to do some horseback riding. Oh yeah, and my first Bolivian meal? A "hamburger" that tastes more like a bunch of tunafish that was fried into a patty. Mm mmm, good!
Tomorrow we set off for Uyuni to arrange our tours of the Salt Flats, which are said to be absolutely amazing. Here's to hoping there are buses tomorrow! :)
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