First of all, on my trip, everyone asked me why I decided to travel by myself...to Bolivia of all places. People thought i was crazy. But here was my reasoning: I had already traveled with friends to the south of Chile and, though that was a good experience, I was looking to get a different kind of experience from Bolivia where I would speak in Spanish all of the time and meet tons of new people. Also, over the years, when I have heard about people traveling on their own, I have felt this urge to experience that for myself. I just wanted to know what it is like. I honestly wasn't worried about my safety, I was just worried that, although i enjoy time by myself, I'd get lonely after 2 weeks of alone time, but I wanted to experience it none the less.
And now I'm just going to start right in on the saga...
Day 1. (altitude: 520 m) I left Santiago on a 24 hour bus to the north by myself. (Chile is much longer than you would think...it is as tall as the US is wide.)
Day 2. (2400 m) I ended up in Calama and the bus company that I had found on the internet evidently had not existed for about 6 years...no big. I found other bus companies, but their buses to Bolivia didn't leave til the morning and my plan had been to leave immediately. I decided to take advantage of the fact that I was only about an hour away from San Pedro de Atacama by taking a bus out there and seeing the sights. San Pedro is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Chile and it is basically desert, mountains, and salt flats. After walking around for awhile in the small town full of whitewashed and adobe buildings that are almost all dedicated to some form of tourist agency, I rented a bike and rode out of town to try to find a mirador to look out over all of San Pedro. I ended up in Valle la Luna (named for its likeness to the surface of the moon). I never would have thought that mountains and sand could be so beautiful. I rode for a few hours and ended up at a place where you could hike through the mountains.
stole this pic from http://www.mapasdechile.com.ar/blog...but it really is exactly what I hiked through.
I would have liked to stay for a bit to go to the mirador to watch the sunset, but I had to get back to town to catch a bus to Arica which is even further in the north of Chile (because the next bus going straight into Bolivia wasn't for 3 more days). It was a really good day, though, and I enjoyed biking and hiking by myself through the awesome emptiness that is San Pedro de Atacama.
Day 3. (12 m) I arrived in Arica at 6 in the morning and immediately started to look for buses to La Paz, Bolivia. I had been warned beforehand and by a man that I met on the bus to Arica not to travel with the Bolivian bus companies, but when I arrived, all of the buses were sold out until the next day, and I wasn't really feeling the whole 'stay in Chile for the entirety of my BOLIVIAN vacation' thing. Soooo...I met a Bolivian guy, Juan Pablo, as I was looking for tickets and we went together to the Bolivian terminal and ended up buying the last tickets to La Paz. I figured if he was Bolivian, surely he knew what he was doing. While buying our tickets, we also met a Chilean girl, Soledad, who was traveling to La Paz on the same bus we were. The bus ride was going smoothly and Juan Pablo was giving me advice for things to do in La Paz, when all of a sudden the bus stopped and we were told that we would have to turn around. Evidently, due to the fact that there had recently been a horrible bus crash on this road, they were only allowing buses that were 10 yrs old or less. Ours was 12. Perfect.
So instead of bringing us a new bus, we had to drive all the way back to Arica. Soledad, Juan Pablo, and I wanted to take advantage of the beautiful day, so we changed our bus tickets for one later that night and went to the beach. We spent the entire rest of the day on a beach covered with crab carcasses...which sounds gross, but was actually kinda cool. Later in the night we walked further down the beach to a carnival they were holding and ate completos before heading to catch our bus at midnight.
Day 4. (4400 m) I'm going to warn you now...this was not a fun day (aka i'm going to complain a bit). I woke up at 3am to Juan Pablo telling me that we would have to wait in Chungará, the border between Chile and Bolivia, until 8am when the Chilean customs opens. What he failed to tell me was that in the course of about 3 hours we had gone from sitting on the side of the ocean (in other words...altitude of 0 m) to being 4400 m above sea level. I attempted to sleep until 8, but my stomach and head hurt so bad, that I wasn't able to get more than 15 min here and there. Not to mention it was freeeeeeezing. There was a line of about 8 buses waiting to go through customs and at 8am they started allowing the first ones to go through.
We immediately got up and bought some mate de coca. Mate is like a tea made from leaves and herbs, in this case it is made out of coca leaves...yes the leaves used to make cocaine. This is where I started to see one of the great cultural misunderstandings between the US and Bolivia.
To the US, coca leaves = cocaine. To Bolivians, coca is a leaf that has been used throughout history by campesinos and miners to combat altitude sickness, headaches, and hunger. It is so commonplace that it is sold in little green bags along the street...and people aren't buying it to secretly mass produce cocaine (I mean, there are people that do that, but they probably grow their own coca...). Instead, they are buying it to make mate or to mascar (chew). It is a huge part of their culture and we (the US) need to start taking that into account when putting restrictions on Bolivia's coca production. *carefully steps off soapbox*Unfortunately, even after two cups of mate de coca I was still feeling really sick. We didn't leave the Chilean customs til about 11am and by that time I was vomiting every half an hour or so. We got to the Bolivian customs and, being the only Estadounidense, I was the only one who had to fill out paperwork and pay to enter. Soledad and Juan Pablo waited for me because I was so sick. (I literally had to throw up in the middle of filling out my paperwork...luckily they let me use the 'nice' bathroom. I pride myself on most likely being the only gringa who has ever thrown up in that bathroom. The small things in life, the small things.) Once I had finally finished filling out papers saying that I wouldn't sue if I got yellow fever, the three of us walked out to get on the bus. To our great surprise, the bus was GONE. Gone. As in...it left us on the border between Bolivia and Chile where the only civilization to be seen is the customs building and took our luggage along with it.
To be continued...
mwahaha. How's that for a cliff hanger?
