WELCOME TO ARGENTINA AND WELCOME BACK WESTERN STANDARDS

WEATHER: Hot and 24C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Not having to ‘winter’ up this morning

BUMMER OF THE DAY: An early start

BUYS OF THE DAY: Proper snacks from an Argentinian service station – just like back home

WORD OF THE DAY: You got the key?  I’ve got the secret…..

We have a border to cross today and it can take anywhere from 2 hours to 8 hours, so we are leaving early to get a good start before it gets busy and if it does take a while we have some time up our sleeve to play with.  Throw into the mix that we also need to add an extra hour to our day when we enterArgentina; it was going to be an unknown day till we pass the border.

I checked the internet this morning for flights from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires, as I am going to be flying up while the group hightail it up in the trick at the end of January.  I am giving myself more time to get my Brazil visa and apparently there isn’t that much to see along that stretch of 5 days.  Lizzie and Paul were interested in doing that as well, till we looked at the cost of the flights and 7 night’s accommodation and it was going to cost an additional $600 per person, so they are now not going to do it, but I really don’t have a choice – I will need to contact David and Cheryl as they were asking me where I was going to be early February and now that I have nearly 11 nights in Buenos Airies, maybe they could come for a visit?  I’ll need to message them when I get some internet.

So we were up at 5.15am and on the truck and leaving Tupiza at 6.40am.  After a light breakfast that the hotel provided we only had an hour’s drive to the border.  The road conditions have already improved as we head towards Argentina and if they stay like this I will hopefully be able to get back typing my blogs as we drive.  The roads we have been on the last 2 weeks have been just too bouncy that I haven’t been able to type properly as I have been hanging on for grim life to the table as we bounced and rumbled our way through Bolivia.  

The Bolivian processing took a little longer than anticipated and you want to know why?  The exit processing agent was watching soccer highlights on the TV for 20 minutes, before he decided he better get back to work and start processing the queue as it started to back up with over 40 people now in line behind us.  Thank goodness we got there when we did and we were at the head of the queue They looked quite friendly, so I asked if they would stamp my Globetrotters book, as I still didn’t have my Bolivian stamp, I had a lick lick as a back-up, but what was the worse they could say – no, but they were friendly and after a quick flick through I got a departure stamp in and another tick in the box.  Bolivian stamp – check!!!  Okay so I didn’t mind him watching the TV for 20 minutes that I now had my stamp.  We also had time to exchange our left over Boliviano’s into Argentinian pesos.  We are initially only in Argentina for 3 days, but after 24 days in Chile we cross back into the country again for another 3 weeks.  So I just converted what I had left and anything left over after 3 days I will keep for my re-entry in January.  I’m not sure what the rate was for Boliviano to Peso but for the USD to Peso the rate is at 4.25 for a dollar.  So I think I am going to use my 5 times tables in Argentina, I am better at them than my 4 times tables.

The Argentinian side was a bit more confusing.  We lined up to get processed, but we had to wait for Gray and the truck to be cleared and he was 11^th in line as the trucks before him were getting their manifests completely checked.  So we sat to one side and waited till we go the green light from Gray and his paperwork for us to then get stamped and permitted to enter Argentina.  It is good to point out that if you enter Argentina via land you don’t have to purchase a visa, if you fly in, like I did for my Antarctica cruise, then Australians have to pay a 100USD for a visa valid for 12 months.  I didn’t mind paying the 100 bucks as I thought I would get some value for money on the trip as we enter in and out of the country four times plus what I had already done, but just for the one entry makes it hurt the hip pocket a little more, the buggers. 

So in the end it took just over 2 hours to be processed by both countries.  As we pulled out in the truck the exit queue to Bolivia was over the bridge and 100 people deep.  So even though we had an early start it was totally worth it to avoid that line that was waiting in the sun.  The customs guy was probably back to watching his soccer highlights again for all we know.  Catch ya later …suckers…….  I wonder being at 3600m if this is the highest country border crossing in the world?  Another stat to add to the list maybe?

WELCOME TO ARGENTINA.

Straight away you could notice the difference in countries.  The roads were better, the houses are finished, there aren’t people walking on the side of the roads, there aren’t a lot of poor looking villages, it really does look like a different country, oh that’s right it is.  The countryside reminds me a little of Morocco but with more cactus.  I wasn’t expecting to see llamas, but besides cattle, there was still a fair share of them around.  They are pretty cute and I think I am going to have to buy one before too long, not a real one of course!!!

We got an unexpected stop at the Tropic of Capricorn.  I have crossed this before when I was in Namibia, so it was pretty cool to cross it again on another continent.  The Tropic of Capricorn, or Southern tropic, marks the most southerly latitude on the Earth at which the Sun can be directly overhead. This event occurs at the December solstice, when the southern hemisphere is tilted towards the Sun to its maximum extent.Tropic of Capricorn is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. It currently (Epoch 2011) lies 23° 26′ 16″ south of the Equator. It is currently drifting north at the rate of almost half a second (0.47″) of latitude, which is about 15 meters, per year (it was at exactly 23° 27' S in year 1917). The Tropic of Capricorn is so named because about 2,000 years ago the sun was entering the constellationCapricornus (Capricorn is Latin for goat horn) at the December solstice. In modern times the sun appears in the constellation Sagittarius during this time. The change is due to precession of the equinoxes. The word "tropic" itself comes from the Greek tropos, meaning turn, referring to the fact that the sun appears to "turn back" at the solstices.

It was a bit more elaborate than the African one, it was just a sign in Namibia, where here it was a massive sundial with a stone etched with Tropic of Capricorn and there were 2 stalls of souvenirs also here.  We didn’t buy anything, but points to the sellers trying to nab some dollars from visiting tourists.  I also got a Bernstar jump here to add to my growing collection that I will need to find time to start uploading as I think I haven’t loaded any jumps since Europe and considering that was 6 months ago.

Our lunch stop was at a YPF petrol station, which is like a BP or Shell back home to the Argentinians and this was our first taste of western influence again in South America.  The toilets were clean, we had to pay a peso (.20c) and the petrol station itself was W…O….W.  There were normal fridges, with normal COLD drinks, Frito Lay chips on the shelves, chocolate bars, cappuccino machine and ice-creams.  It was literally like walking into a servo back home.  This is what road side stops are about people!  Apparently they generally also have Wi-Fi connections, so we will be looking forward to that.  I loaded up on some truck munchies with 3 bags of chips and some soft drink to pop into the truck fridge. 

The temperature has also noticeably changed here.  We have dropped in altitude now to 1200m and even though we were complaining about the cold, it is bloody hot, and we are only at 1200m, what temperature will it be once we drop out of the Andes al together?  I hate to think, but the upside, you know there always is, is that we can start to work on our tans again. 

Our stop for the next 3 nights is a city called Salta.  We finally arrived at 4.45pm and instead of going straight to the camp site, we got dropped off in the city for an orientation tour and also to make a booking tomorrow for the guys to ride horses.  I am a no go for the horses, but after the ride there is an Argentinian BBQ, which I wouldn’t miss for the world, so Kate and I are coming along for the ride to the ranch, free time while the guys gee gee around and then back for the meatfest!  Oh yeah, now you’re talking!  Salta has a great vibe to the place.  It is a large city, with lots of Artesian shops and ‘normal’ shops to keep us busy on our free day we have here the day after tomorrow.  It reminds me a little of Paris, with the French looking buildings, the main square, Julio No. 9 was pretty with a lot of trees and greenery.  We were shown the main pedestrian shopping streets, the bank street and then we walked back via some back streets to get back to the waiting Rosita to take us to our camp.   

We are back into tents for the next 3 nights here and we are looking forward to it a little bit…really we are.  Kate and I just want to get a good tent, the last one we had was missing a few peg legs and we weren’table to secure the rain protector sheet properly, which didn’t matter when we were camping in the desert, but there were some dark clouds starting to appear, so we wanted to make sure we were well equipped this time.  The first tent we got was a dud, well the rain cover, so Kate pulled out another tent to swap the rain cover while I continued to put up the tent.  I must say, the tents aren’t that hard to put up, they are just different from my Africa trip so I really need to stop comparing.  I know it drives Mark nuts, so I told him this afternoon that everytime I compare our trip to my Africa trip I owe him a beer.  Since the next 9 nights are camping, it is going to come into its own over the next 2 weeks, but I will just need to bite my tongue.  Looking at the itinerary after Santiago we have 39 camping days out of 46, so it really will turn into a camping trip into the next section.  We lose 3 people in Santiago and pick up 5 newbies, fresh blood and I can say it will be welcomed. 

So with a new rain sheet, our tent up, a new tent bag and a name tag, so we can keep getting the same tent, we have now set up home for the next 3 nights.  The camp has a massive pool, like 10 times bigger than an Olympic pool, but there is no water in it and the showers and toilets don’t seem too bad.  There is hot water and they flush, so what else could we want.  We went to use the toilets at 7pm and they were closed as they were being cleaned!  A weird time to be cleaning them, peak shower times after a day out but we sat outside and waited for 20 minutes before not being able to hold on anymore and we had to push out way in.  Well if they have cleaning times posted outside then they wouldn’t get interrupted right!

Welcome to Argentina.  We are only in the country for the next 3 days, before heading into Chile for 2 weeks and then back into Argentina again for the following 3 weeks, but it is totally different to the last 2 countries and it makes a nice change. 

BOXING DAY BOUNCING TO TUPIZA

WEATHER: Hot and 23C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Stopping at the Tropic of Capricorn

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Getting told there was no internet for the next 9 nights

BUYS OF THE DAY:

WORD OF THE DAY: Welcome back to civilization

Well we woke to the sun high in the sky!  That would be right, the day we leave and the sun is out.  Oh well at least we will be able to have the windows open in the truck with good weather, assuming it isn’t too cold.  We are coming down in altitude today, so hopefully things will start to warm up and we can shake our winter woolies.  I’m feeling a little better today.  Life could be a lot worse and I have little to complain about – so once again it is a pick myself up, dust myself off and toughen up Princess and today is a new day. 

We were told this morning that we wouldn’t have internet for the next 9 days as we are going to be camping.  WTF!!!!!  This is bad bad news.  I can live without internet, I can alright….,. but I would have liked to have had some notice so I could send out some last minute emails and get some ‘office’ duties done, being out of action for 9 days.  That’s a long time in internat/Facebook-land.  Okay so wifi I can live without but surely the town has to have internet…….  Once I have done the bits then I can easily live without internet for 9 days.  Fingers crossed and lets see what we get when we get in this afternoon. 

It was an early start as it is a travel day.  Travel days normally constitute a day in the truck over 7 hours in my book.  I have certainly had longer days in Africa and we are travelling around a whole continent so if you aren’t expecting these days then you are up a gum tree.  As long as my IPod is charged, I am a happy camper.  We had to double back the way we came the other day for 3 hours, back through Potosi before heading out towards a place called Tupiza for the night before leaving Bolivia and entering into a new country of the trip, Argentina.  This isn’t a new one for me, as I have been here before, twice, but I haven’t done the west before, so it is still new territory for me. 

The scenery heading back was beautiful.  The mountains were the colours of pink, yellows and oranges and something I didn’t notice on the way in (maybe I was sleeping) was the amount of cacti on the mountain sides.  There were literally hundreds of them, all scattered, all sizes and shapes.  Hundreds, they looked so cool.  Some of them were also flowering, so they were pretty as well if you can believe that description of a cactus.

After refueling the truck in Potosi, lunch was at 1pm at a service station in the middle of nowhere arriving into Tupiza at 4.45pm.  It looked a cute little town surrounded by massive red colored mountains.  It reminded me of Ayers Rock, probably more the colour of the rocks than anything else, but there did seem to be a lot of pizza shops, with a name like Tupiza, you would expect that.  Tupiza is a city in at an elevation of about 3160 m. The population is 23,100 (2006 official estimate). Tupiza and its environs are characterized by dramatic red escarpments which jut ruggedly skyward from the coarse, gray terrain; green agricultural land adjacent to the Río Tupiza provides welcome respite from the otherwise arid, thorny surroundings. The area quebradas are susceptible to flash flood runoff from sudden cloudbursts.

Legend has it that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their end at the hands of the Bolivian army near Tupiza, concluding their notorious string of bank robbery raids. Various local outfitters provide horseback or jeep tours to the rumored site.

This stop was literally a place to break the journey, checking in at 5pm we were going to be leaving again at 6am in the morning.  You should have heard the cheer when we were told that the hotel had upgraded recently and they now had Wi-Fi!!!  There were 12 happy little faces (Mick is computer illiterate) that we had one last chance before heading into the 15^th century and places without internet.  Mark took us for a swing around the town, which took about 15 minutes, pointed out a few places to eat tonight and back to the hotel to jump on some Wi-Fi for an hour or so before we went to dinner.  Kate hadn’t eaten anything for 24 hours so it was her call for dinner and we headed to an Italian restaurant.  I couldn’t be in Tupiza and not have a ‘pizza’ so I had an almost Aussie pizza, it was just missing the egg and Kate finally got her gnocchi that she has been trying to order for the last couple of weeks.  The food was great, but Tupiza is not known for its speedy service and this I can definitely attest to, it took forever to try and get the bill, so we had just worked out from the menu what we had and got the cash when she came to the table bearing the damage.    

So this is goodbye to Bolivia, I have enjoyed my time here.  There are quite a few people happy to get out of here, as they have been sick the whole week we have been in the country, but the people seemed friendly, not pushy or threatening (except the mine), it was cheap and the countryside was beautiful.  

Tomorrow, Argentina.

CHRISTMAS DAY 2011 WITH A DIFFERENCE

WEATHER: Rainy in the morning and 19C – Sunny in the afternoon and 22C

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting to the salt flats was amazing

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Everyone was ‘off’ today and there was no ‘Christmas’ vibe.

WORD OF THE DAY: Bah Humbug

MERRY CHRISTMAS – HO HO HO

We woke to the sound of rain.  Ho ho ho – bloody Merry Christmas.  We had all day planned outside today and with the rain belting down it wasn’t shaping up to be a very merry day.  Top that with me not being able to get onto Shelly and the girls on the phone my morning didn’t start too well.  This was a major blow and I think that got me in the wrong frame of mind for Christmas.  Add to the mix a sick roomie, really sick, I had a bad vibe that today was NOT going to be a great day.  Things picked up after I made a phone call to Africa before we headed out in the 4x4 to head to the salt flats for the day.  Jimbob would have been very proud of Kate, who had the ‘think positive’ attitude and pulled out her sunglasses and said the weather WILL improve.  We drove for 40 minutes, to a small town where the salt was processed by families once it has been collected from the salt flats.  This was where I had the opportunity to buy a pair of sunglasses, as apparently it was going to be bright out there.  I had 3 options, a pair of Tiffany looking sunnies, a pair of Terminator sunnies and a pair of pink Poochie sunnies, so being the best of a bad lot I purchased the Poochie glasses for $4 to get me through the day.  I am sure they are not UV protected, and will possibly burn my retina’s out, but at least I have a pair of sunnies.  So after seeing the process of how the salt is processed to the final product.

From here our first stop was the salt mounds.  This is where the workers are paid 10BOL (1.50) per mound to pretty much scoop the salt into piles ready for collection.  The photos out here were already amazing and just like a Christmas day miracle, the rain had stopped and we could see blue sky coming in.  Thank-you Kate for your positive thinking, which only enhanced the photos.  The only down side was there was a lot of water from the morning and over nights rain, so we were limited to where we could walk (I guess you could have taken off your shoes) but I got some great photos here anyway.  It really is an amazing place.

Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat at 10,582 square kilometers. It is near the crest of the Andes, and is elevated 3,656 meters above sea level.   The Salar was formed as a result of transformations between several prehistoric lakes. It is covered by a few meters of salt crust, which has an extraordinary flatness with the average altitude variations within one meter over the entire area of the Salar. The crust serves as a source of salt and covers a pool of brine, which is exceptionally rich in lithium. It contains 50 to 70% of the world's lithium reserves, which is in the process of being extracted. Of those, lithium is arguably most important as it is a vital component of many electric batteries. With estimated 9,000,000 tons (8,900,000 long tons; 9,900,000 short tons), Bolivia holds about 43% of the world's lithium reserves; ^[12] most of those are located in the Salar de Uyuni. Lithium is concentrated in the brine under the salt crust at a relatively high concentration of about 0.3%. It is also present in the top layers of the porous halite body lying under the brine; however the liquid brine is easier to extract, by boring into the crust and pumping out the brine.^[13] The brine distribution has been monitored by the Landsat satellite and confirmed in ground drilling tests. Following those findings, an American-based international corporation has invested $137 million to develop lithium extraction. However, lithium extraction in the 1980s and 1990s by foreign companies met strong opposition of the local community. Despite their poverty, locals believed that the money infused by mining would not reach them. There is currently no mining plant at the site, and the Bolivian government doesn't want to allow exploitation by foreign corporations. Instead, it intends to build its own pilot plant with a modest annual production of 1,200 tons (1,200 long tons; 1,300 short tons) of lithium and to increase it to 30,000 tons (30,000 long tons; 33,000 short tons) tons by 2012.

The large area, clear skies and exceptional surface flatness make the Salar an ideal object for calibrating the altimeters of the Earth observation satellites. The Salar serves as the major transport route across the Bolivian Altiplano and is a major breeding ground for several species of pink flamingos.  Salar de Uyuni is part of the Altiplano of Bolivia in South America. The Altiplano is a high plateau, which was formed during uplift of the Andes Mountains. The plateau includes fresh and saltwater lakes as well as salt flats and is surrounded by mountains with no drainage outlets.

The geological history of the Salar is associated with a sequential transformation between several vast lakes. Some 30,000–42,000 years ago, the area was part of a giant prehistoric lake, Lake Minchin. When it dried, it left behind two modern lakes, Poopó Lake and Uru Uru Lake, and two major salt deserts, Salar de Coipasa and the larger Salar de Uyuni. Salar de Uyuni spreads over 10,582 square kilometers, which is roughly 25 times the size of the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. Lake Poopó is a neighbor of the much larger Lake Titicaca. During the wet season, Titicaca overflows and discharges into Poopó, which, in turn, floods Salar De Coipasa and Salar de Uyuni.

Underneath the surface of the Salar is a lake of brine 2 to 20 meters deep. The brine is a saturated solution of sodium chloride, lithium chloride and magnesium chloride in the water. It is covered with a solid salt crust with a thickness varying between tens of centimeters to a few meters. The center of the Salar contains a few "islands", which are the remains of the tops of ancient volcanoes which were submerged during the era of Lake Minchin. They include unusual and fragile coral-like structures and deposits that often consist of fossils and algae.

Salar de Uyuni is estimated to contain 10 billion tons (9.8 billion LT; 11 billion ST) of salt, of which less than 25,000 tons (25,000 long tons; 28,000 short tons) is extracted annually. All miners working in the Salar belong to Colchani's cooperative. 

Our next stop was the Salt Hotel.  As Salar de Uyuni attracts tourists from around the world and it is located far from the cities, a number of hotels have been built in the area. Due to lack of conventional construction materials, many of them are almost entirely (walls, roof, furniture) built with salt blocks cut from the Salar. The first such hotel was erected in 1993-1995, The Salt Hotel, in the middle of the salt flat. However, its location in the center of a desert produced sanitary problems, as most waste had to be collected manually. Mismanagement caused serious environmental pollution and the hotel had to be dismantled in 2002 but is now a museum and stop point before heading further onto the salt flats.  This is where we stopped for lunch, that was prepared by a woman that travelled with us from Uyuni and it was a great spread of cooked chicken, vegetables, salad and potatoes.  This is also where we got to start having a play around with the perspective photos and I have to tell you it is not as easy as it looks.  I took a few with Omar and Paul and some ‘massive’ Oreo cookies and then we tried to play around with my Elmo that I bought, but was really hard and we gave up with the promise of putting on out thinking caps to try and get one with the red guy.

So with full bellies it was time to head further in again to the salt flats.  As it is also a ‘highway’ as such it was cool to see trucks travelling on the horizon just like a normal road.  It was certainly flat enough and wide enough to not hit/see another vehicle out there.  It was so BRIGHT, if I didn’t have my Poochie glasses on I could see how it would be difficult to actually see.

With 2 other stops, this was where people got to go crazy with their perspective photos.  There were Pringle boxes, decks of cards, dinosaurs, Oreo cookies, coke bottles and hairdryers to name a few props.  I was a little disappointed as I didn’t get all the shots that I had hoped for and I this was one of sections of the trip that I really wanted to get some awesome photos I was really really disappointed.  Anything that anyone took just didn’t work.  I did get one good photo of Kate and I in a Pringle box and that is pretty much it.  I was gutted.  Add that to the crappy start and everyone a little off the whole day was a bit of a fizzer actually.  Add the ingredients of missing god-daughters, a best friend and a glass of champagne in the hand; I think I really wanted to be anywhere but there. 

There was a massive storm brewing, which the upside made for good photos with the white salt flats and the black storm clouds, but the downside was we had to haul arse to get off the flats, as they were holding a fair amount of water from the last days rain, we could literally get stuck if it rained too much.  It was also due to the rain and the amount of water on the flats we weren’t able to visit fish island, but to be honest we had nearly been out all day, and I am not sure if we really needed to visit them anyway.

So with an hour and 45 minutes back to Uyuni it have me time for reflection and with the kind of day I had I was in that frame of mind where I was thinking of finishing the tour in 2 weeks in Santiago, doing something else for the 4 week gap I would have before picking the tour back up again in Rio.  This was a BAD frame of mind, and I knew not to rush into the decision and that I was going to sleep on it before speaking to Mark, but this is what my Christmas day had descended down to.  Not good thinking at all.

We did have one last stop 3 kilometers outside Uyuni and is connected to it by the old train tracks, the3 Train Cemetery, which is an antique train cemetery. The town served in the past as a distribution hub for the trains carrying minerals en-route to Pacific Ocean ports. The rail lines were built by British engineers arriving near the end of the 19th century and formed a sizeable community in Uyuni. The engineers were invited by British-sponsored Antofagasta and Bolivia Railway Companies, which is now Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia. The rail construction started in 1888 and ended in 1892. It was encouraged by Bolivian President Aniceto Arce, who believed Bolivia would flourish with a good transport system, but it was also constantly sabotaged by the local Aymara indigenous Indians who saw it as an intrusion into their lives. The trains were mostly used by the mining companies. In the 1940s, the mining industry collapsed, partly because of mineral depletion. Many trains were abandoned, producing the train cemetery. There are proposals to build a museum from the cemetery but have yet to have something officially done yet.  It was pretty cool to walk around these old relics of the past that had just been abandoned.  They were all rusted up, but the graffiti on the carriages was interesting to read with some comments on George Bush, to a love poem to crass words to tags.  There was also a swing that had been built between 2 carriages and it was cool to just be swinging on it with the wind in my hair, a storm brewing, in the middle of nowhere in Bolivia on Christmas Day.  A little surreal and liberating all at the same time.

We were back to the hotel just after 6pm and Gray had been cooking all day to get our Christmas Day dinner ready for us and what a spread it was.  What that man can do with a gas burner and a portable oven is mind boggling.  It was just a shame that the atmosphere of the group was about as exciting as watching paint dry, we all pretty much ate our dinner in silence before Gray cracked out the desserts, which was a mind boggling array of chocolate custard, chocolates, fruit and cheese and crackers.  I’m not sure if we did actually thank Gray, so THANKYOU Gray and Mark for the effort that was out into Christmas dinner and a BIG sorry for the poor showing of gratitude, now that I think about it.  It was a great meal, even if the company wasn’t as receptive.

So that was my Christmas Day – a mix of happy and not happy emotions.  That is 2011 just about done and dusted for me and I am really looking forward to 2012.  I have BIG and exciting things happening and I am just bursting to let the whole world know, but I just can’t let it out at the moment.  I am just enjoying actually keeping a secret to myself, besides a small select few, reveling in it, the challenges it will bring and the massive change it will also make, I am up for it all and this is what I thought about as I laid my head on my pillow, it put a smile on my dial as I fell asleep.

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM BOLIVIA – where will I be next year for Christmas?  That is a very good question and only my travel gods and destiny will know the answer to that………….

SILVER TO SALT – CHRISTMAS EVE

WEATHER: Hot and 23

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Seeing the little children faces open their presents

BUMMER OF THE DAY: Quite a few people are sick today – on Christmas Eve….

WORD OF THE DAY: Feliz Navidad – MERRY CHRISTMAS

An early start today as we wanted to get into Uyuni before lunch and have enough time to go and see the kids at the orphanage.   So we were up at 6am and we departed at 7.30am for the 4 hour drive to Uyuni.  The road was a little bumpy to say the least, with sections of it being in good condition.  There was a lot of road works along this stretch as Uyuni, besides the salt flats are going to be processing lithium, so they are upgrading all roads to handling the traffic that will come through.  Apparently this section would take 6-8 hours instead of the 4 that we were doing today.  Stuff that!!!

There are a few people that are not well today, like stomach pains and a lot of spewing to just put it out there.  That would really suck being sick Christmas Eve.  I am happy to report that Kate and I are feeling great guns and Kate even had on her Christmas hat without me having to hassle her.  It really is starting to feel like Christmas!  Once we arrive into town it will be Christmas morning back in Australia, they are 12 hours in front of us, so I was getting pretty excited that I would be talking to Shelly and the girls soon.  Like SUPER excited!

After 4 hours of bumpy and a rocking, we arrived into Uyuni at 11.30am, apparently we made good time.  The town of Uyuni was not what I expected.  It looked like a good old fashion western town out of a Hollywood movie, it was just missing the rolling tumble weeds down the streets, but they did have a massive plastic bag problem, where there were hundreds of plastic bags all over the place, literally they were wrapped around all the small bushes through the whole landscape as we descended into town.  Seamus was not too impressed with the town as we drove through, it was pretty funny to hear his comments, and it really did look like the town that the world forgot.  It did improve as we got further in, there was a small carnival with a small (tiny ferris wheel) and a small carousel and there were some street markets that we had to divert off for, so there was a hive of activity closer to the city centre. 

The hotel was an Oasis in the middle of the city.  It was a 2 part building and we were housed in the second building that was more new than the original, but it was a nice hotel with free Wi-Fi, so we couldn’t complain even if we wanted to.  The hotel was decked out in Christmas decorations, with a beautiful Christmas tree i8n the main area, tinsel hung from the roof with baubles and Santa’s on all our doors.  With Christmas dinner here tonight costing us 20USD, which is a lot in Bolivian terms, but for us to get a Christmas dinner for that is a bargain and I think we will get out monies worth. 

After lunch, which we prepared and ate in the outside courtyard, we were literally only a 5 minute walk from the main street and the orientation tour only took 10 minutes maximum.  There were stall set up in the main street selling their wares, mostly aimed at the locals and a lot of toy stalls which are primarily there for the tourists to buy and take with them on the salt flats for the perspective photos that are all the rage when you hit the flats.  This is one of my trip highlights, I know you could get these photos anywhere in the world, these are the only flats, but this is what is done here and I am really looking forward to getting some good photos.

The hotel owners needed our help to wrap the presents for the orphanage at 3pm, so we had a spare hour to chill and I used this to catch up on some sleep.  I was so tired.  I am just going to have to blame the altitude at 3780m, it is still not to be sneezed at……I’m not being soft you know! The wrapping process was a little hot and miss and an organized chaos.  Susie, the hotel owner had preprinted up name tags for the gifts and had the gifts allocated, so we literally just had to wrap and tag.  We ran out of paper and one of the staff ran up the road to get more, so once everyone got wrapping the process only took us just over an hour.  There are 18 boys and 12 girls at the orphanage averaging in age from 6-14 years old.  Some of the gifts were pretty specky and it will be super cool to see their faces and it will be a nice substitute to not seeing my beautiful god-daughters faces Christmas morning.

As we finished the last present we got a surprise visit by Santa (Gray) and Spiderman (Mark) in a onesie outfit I have to mention and they looked amazing, besides Santa having a fag hanging out the side of his moth and aviators on, he did look pretty cool and like Mrs. Claus had under feed him for the year.  The kids will so get a kick out of the outfits.  So with the presents loaded on the BIG yellow truck-sleigh, Santa and Spiderman sitting in the front, we drove the 6 minutes to the orphanage on the other side of town.   We were welcomed by 30 smiling faces and as we got all the presents inside I was hoping that we had enough presents, can you imagine if we were one short, now that would be a disaster.  Luckily we had wrapped our gifts, so these could play as backups should we need.  To me there looked like more children than gifts. 

So with everyone seated in a U shape on chairs and Santa and his Spiderman helper seated at the top we were welcomed to the orphanage by the director in Spanish and Susie translated for us their goals and missions with the children.  At the end of the day they are feed and accommodated but to receive presents and visitors to the center is a big deal and to this they are eternally grateful for this and will make a big difference to the children in the orphanage.  It bought a tear to a few of us as the words were being translated and once again it just makes me feel that my life back home is full of things, goods and items that I just don’t need and compared to a lot of countries it is an extravagant lifestyle I lead and I know that I will be changing my life/style in 2012.  This is a definite statement.  Stayed tuned. 

So we started to bring in the presents calling out the names and getting the kids to come up and collect their presents.  After the first child, they all starting giving Santa a hug, it just made your heart melt.  The kids were so good, they came up hugged Santa and sat down with their presents and waited for all the other kiddies to get theirs.  The restraint was amazing.  As the presents dwindled, the little faces that had not received a present were looking a little sad, but keeping a brave face and by the end of it all we were only 2 presents short, which Omar’s present saved the day a jumping ball for the young Karen and we saved the day with a Twister game for the older girl who had missed out.  Lucky we had some back up gifts, but it all worked out in the end.  It was amazing to see 30 rays of sunshine on their faces as they opened their gifts to see what they had received.  It is amazing what a difference a $4 toy can make to a child, really, it just made your heart flop.  It was a great experience to be able to help and make a difference to these children even if only for a few hours.   

We were then given a hot cup of hot chocolate and plates of biscuits and we tried to communicate with the kids as we drank.  It was then decided to take the kids for a spin in the truck, which was an awesome idea so with a tummy full of drink and bikkies, we climbed on the truck and me and my new friend Daniel, who was 10, sat together in my seat and with the window open, we drove around the town wishing everyone we saw a merry Christmas ‘ Feliz Navidad’ and saying hello to anyone we could.  With Santa ‘Gray’ tooting the horn every couple of minutes, the pure joy on the boys faces was priceless.  They were talking to each other outside the truck windows and bouncing around and they were fascinated that they were as tall as most of the buildings.  Jesus (Haysus) sat in front of us with Mick and he found my Galapagos turtle hanging on the window, so what was the harm in letting him play with it.  Well as what happens to all good things, the ride came to an end and the kids piled off as we said our goodbyes and as we were heading back to the hotel, little Galap turtle was missing.  Mick’s orphan child, under his supervision, had stolen my turtle!  Jesus had stolen my turtle on Christmas Eve.  I was not about to go back and demand it back from an orphan, and at Christmas, so I am happy to take comfort that a 10 year old child will get more joy out of it than a 37 year old adult, so Merry Christmas Jesus and make sure you take good care of my Galapagos turtle. 

Christmas Eve dinner was being prepared by the hotel for the cost of 20USD, in Boliviano terms it is a lot of money, but where back home could you get a dinner on Christmas Eve for 20 bucks?  It was an amazing meal and way too much, with a gingerbread man soup, a German Christmas tree salad, beef AND chicken for main and then carrot/ginger cake with ice-cream for dessert and not to forget the tea and coffee that was offered after all that.  What a meal, and isn’t that what Christmas is all about over eating and we had done that to perfection in a small dusty town in Bolivia called Uyuni.

Secret Santa was then done, with us all getting pretty impressive gifts.  I think the best gift was either Debbie’s massive sew on patch of the continent or Kate’s silver charm of a Llama.  I received a triple CD pack of Leonardo and Leandro, so it will be interesting to change them to MP3 format and then crucify the whole truck to 48 songs of goodness knows what is on there.  Thank-you to my secret Santa (I think it is Paul) I promise I will make sure I will listen to it at least once.

So that was our Christmas Eve in South America and we are now all stuffed.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVE EVERYONE…….

DYNAMITE, LONG HOURS AND A SILVER MINE

WEATHER: 20C and warm

HIGHTLIGHT OF THE DAY: Surviving a grope from a drunk man in the mine

BUMMER OF THE DAY: The man was drunk…..

BUYS OF THE DAY: 96% proof alcohol for the miners, but we decided to keep a bottle

WORD OF THE DAY: That’s a tough life……

This morning we had booked and paid 18USD to enter one of the most dangerous mines in the world.  . It's been in operation for more than 400 years, and once held the richest supply of silver in the Americas.  Kate is claustrophic, so she is using her time to have a bit of a sleep in and we are going to meet for lunch once the tour finished around 12.30pm. 

The tour begins by purchasing gifts for the miners from the miners market. It’s a custom to give presents to the miners. We bought coca leaves, hand-rolled cigarettes, soda, crackers, dynamite, and 96% alcohol, we got to try the alcohol which smelt and tasted like metho, apparently it tastes good mixed with coke, I am sure you would only need a few drops of the stuff to get you well on your way.  Fridays are a celebration in the mines, so a few of us bought the 1L bottles to take in with us.  Susannah then showed us the other items that the miners appreciate, the main item being the TNT/Dynamite which comes as a pack with the detonator and the fuse for a low price of 2.85AUD.  They also sell fertilizer in the purest form as another explosive option, but we all went for the hard TNT.  It was surreal holding a stick of dynamite in your hand; yes I’ll have 3 sticks of dynamite thanks.  The miners will go through 27 sticks of dynamite a week, 10m of fuse, 40kg of fertilizer and 30 detonators and there are approximately 1000 explosions per day. 

The mine was initially mined jus for silver, now it is mined for 96 kinds of minerals, silver still included.  But back in its day there was 96% of sliver found; now that amount had dropped to 1%.  It has been mined the hell out of the last few hundred years.  The mine now has approximately 15,000 miners and there are more than 5000 entrances, which only 142 are currently in use.  You could enter the mine on the east and exit on the west but it would take 4-5 hours to do this.  Susannah’s dad was a miner, but because there are no female miners permitted, t would make the God of the Mountain, Pachcamama jealous, the closest she could get was to take the tours into the mines.  She has been doing it for 9 years and loves her job.  There are safe and unsafe parts of the mine, and according to Susannah we were going to be visiting the ‘safe’ part.

From the miners market we headed to a small court yard to get kitted up into our ‘miners’ outfits.  As usual I was worried that they wouldn’t have anything to fit me, but low and behold they had a pair of pants that fit!  It was a miracle, and thank goodness they did, as I didn’t think it would be as muddy as it was, so it is pretty important to have on the right gear.  We were provided with a top, wellington boots and another telltale sign, plastic bags to put on our feet before putting on the willies.  To top the outfit was the plastic helmets.  As a group we looked like we were about to go and represent Australia in a competition with black pants, a canary yellow top and a green helmet.  We looked very patriotic. 

So only a 10 minute drive from town we found ourselves at the entrance that we were going to use today.  At this time we got fitted with our miner lamp on our green helmets and the battery pack was tied around our waists.  Paul and I decided to keep a bottle of the 96% proof alcohol and have that in a few drinks on Christmas day.  We felt a little bad, as we had bought it for the miners and I am sure they need it more than us, but the lure of a bad hangover the next day was too much to pass up, so we kept my bottle and we were still going to give his away, so we weren’t totally selfish!  We were also told to bring an alternative light source as back up, doesn’t sound too reassuring does it, so I had my torch packed into my pant pockets.  So with our lights switched on it was time to enter the darkness of the mine.  We saw straight up one of the trolleys coming out of the mine with 3 young men pushing it to the very end of the track, where they then tip the tocks into a waiting truck to be taken away and processed.  The trolleys look like they are straight out of an Indiana Jones movie and when they are empty they weigh 400kg and when it is full of rock it weighs 1 tons, and only 3 men push this trolley back an forth all day, 1 tons, and on a dodgy track, it is need to some urgent repair and they sometimes have top heave they full trolley (1 tons) back onto the rails.  It is back breaking work. 

As you enter the mines you can clearly see the stains from the llama blood which are sacrificed once a year to keep Pacahmama happy and the llama is buried at the entrance to the mine to keep her happy for another 12 months they also have shrines, where miners ask a deity named ‘Uncle Jorge' for protection from accidents. They also leave gifts of cigarettes and alcohol, hoping ‘Uncle Jorge' will respond by leading them straight to the richest minerals in the mountain. These shrines are scattered throughout the mine as we walked in the tunnels. 

So once inside the mine and walking the mines passage ways you do need to have your wits about you, there are pretty large holes on both sides which our guide kindly alerted us to, low hanging rock, beams and pipes and it is still a working mine, so you also have the trolleys coming in and out that you need to stay clear of as well so as for them not to lose their momentum, if they stop, can you imagine trying to push start 1 ton with 3 men.  

The miners work with a big wad of coca leaves between their cheek and teeth. The coca helps energize them and suppresses their hunger; stopping to go to the toilet is out of the question due to loss of time, so is eating and drinking during your shift.  This is why the coco leaves are so important to the older men, after years of chewing this stuff their teeth have rotted so the younger generation of miners use baking soda instead so as to save the life of their teeth.  It is back breaking work and the first section that we went to there were 3 men pulling up buckets (made of tire), via a hose winder,  from the lower levels to the ground level to tip it into the trolley to move it out of the mine.  Once the rail cart is full, they will push and pull it back through the narrow tunnel leading to the outside world. The rocks are then shoveled out of the cart, to be picked up by a truck. It is part of a tough cycle he will repeat throughout the day. The work is unrelenting.  There were 2 x15 year old boys and a 20 year old working this section.  They are so young and it is sad to think the average age that these miners live to is 45.  Depending on the size of the tunnel that is being mined differentiates how many miners work in that section but a team of up to 8 will move approximately 8 tons of rock per DAY.  8 TONNES!!!!!!!!  This is where our gifts come into play, for letting us watch and take photos we say thanks with a pack of ciggies or a bottle of the flammable drinking stuff.  They know we come with gifts and Susannah said you can’t help them all, so we had to save our gifts for the miners we see and photograph. 

   

I am not a claustrophobic person and after visiting another section that required us to scale down a 4m drop to get to and then crawl back up it, I had had enough.  We had been in the tunnels for over an hour and I had seen enough.  Susannah wanted to take us to one more section, which 4 of us decided would be too much, so we went and found a part of the tunnel we could stand out of the way of trolleys that were coming and going.  It was a pretty intense part of the tunnel, being where the trolley track was, it was also the place where the track disconnected, so each crew that we saw go through had problems getting through that section every time.  You try pushing a ton of rock on a piece of wood they had substituted as the rail, I didn’t seem to be working too well for them and it was a mission for each team.  I am sure all that would need to be spent would be a few hundred dollars, not even that, to fix it and then they wouldn’t have that problem.  At one stage there were 2 trolleys coming together, one empty and one full, so we were told via hand language we had to move, and the empty trolley was taken off the rails and flipped on its side for the full one to pass and then they flipped it back on the track and continued deeper into the mine.  The rest of the group ventured in to the deeper and narrower passages that dated back to the colonial times for 20 minutes as we waited for them at the ‘traffic’ post.

After about 10 minutes a drink miner emerged from the tunnel.  He was plastered, he was so drunk and as the 4 of us hoped and prayed that he wouldn’t stop, he stopped and asked us in Quechan if we had any gifts as he reached for malar and planted a kiss on her cheek.  It came out of nowhere and freaked her out, so we got her behind us and then he made a grab for Lizzie’s bag as it had a water bottle sticking out of the zip and he thought it had that 96% alcohol In it, so that was also left field and freaked her out, so I stood in front of her and between Sharon and I we tried to tell him in our broken Spanish, um I mean nonexistent Spanish, which consisted of Nada, Feliz Navidad (merry Christmas) and adios amigos……  We are pretty sure he didn’t understand us; besides him being blind drunk he didn’t speak Spanish.  So after a few Bernie boobie grabs, an arse slap and a few lunges at the girls to freak them more, a trolley was on its way back, so we asked if they could help and get rid of him, to which they just looked at us and kept pushing the empty trolley.  He was obviously wasn’t one of their team and like anywhere in the world time is money and at the end of the day, we gringo’s were in their territory.  At this point the rest of the group emerged from the darkness and we were saved.  I wasn’t scared, he was harmless and not at all aggressive, but trying to keep the other 2 calm was our main objective.  I could see how it could have been scary for them, but thank goodness it all ended up okay, a little shook up, but all in one piece.  It is scary to think how many of the men are that drunk in the mine as we left.  Possibly Fridays may not be a good day to visit if this is their drinking day in there.

According to official records, 45,000 tons of pure silver were mined from Cerro Rico between 1556 and 1783. During this period Potosi was an extremely wealthy place, (there is still a saying, valer un Potosi, “to be worth a Potosi” (that is, “a fortune”). At one point, the city of Potosi was more populous than both London and Paris.  Originally the Spanish lead by Francisco de Toledo forced Indians through the Spaniards used the Inca mita (mandatory public service) system; they died by the thousands, from the brutal labor and mercury poisoning. As more and more of the indigenous labour died the in 1608 the Spanish requested the importation of 1500 to 2000 African slaves per year. An estimated total of 30,000 African slaves were taken to Potosí throughout the colonial era. African slaves were also forced to work in the Mint as human mules. The mules would die after couple of months pushing the mills, so they replaced the four mules with twenty African slaves.

After 1800 the silver in the mines ran out, making tin the main product leading to a slow economic decline. Even so the mountain continues to be mined for silver to this day. The poor worker conditions (lack of protective equipment from the constant inhalation of dust), mean the miners have a very short life expectancy, most of them dying of silicosis pneumonia around 40 years of age. It is estimated that, in the past years of indigenous labour, roughly 8 million Indians died and whilst there still potential to earn much more money mining than at other available jobs the supply of people willing to work in the mines will continue.  A joint study by UNICEF, the National Institute of Statistics and the International Labour Organization in 2005 found there were approximately 7,000 children working in gold and silver mines in the Bolivian cities of Potosí, Oruro and La Paz. 

What an amazing experience, even if it ended on a dour note.  It is heart breaking how long the men, and boys work, the manual labour involved and it also being a dangerous job in the world dangerous mine.  If I ever complain about anything ever again remind me of the faces we saw in our lamp light as they pushed 1 ton of rock past us and that will make me wake up and get a grip.  What a tough life.

After returning the clothes and boots, the lunch time traffic was a nightmare getting back to the hotel.  It would have been quicker for us to walk once we were back in the city streets, but after 30 minutes we got back to the hotel just before 1pm.  Well you can imagine my surprise when I knocked on the door of our hotel room and sleepy head Kate was still in BED, at 1pm!!!  Maybe I was just jealous that she got to sleep the day away while we were trudging around in mud and getting felt up by drunk miners.  Either way, it didn’t take her long to shower and change and we were soon back out in the streets with Seamus and Julia looking for somewhere to eat for lunch.  As most Spanish settled towns, siestas are still big in this part of the world.  So it was quite difficult to find somewhere that was open at 1.30pm in the afternoon, but we walked back up to the tourist section and found an Italian place that was open and I have to say the piece of meat I had was amazing.  This is what I am looking forward to in Argentina.  Meat, meat and more meat!!!

On the way back we stopped at the local market (general household stuff) for a looksee and then to another set of markets, but they were selling Christmas decorations, jewelry, toys, books etc…..  We were looking for presents to take to the orphanage tomorrow night, but were told to not go too crazy, as they have been collecting presents all year, so Kate and I stuck with the 40 pencils that we had bought in Puno and had never given out.  We were looking for a ream of paper to go with them but we were unable to find one, which was a shame.

So late afternoon we had free time and I made use of actually chillaxing and getting 3 blogs completed while watching old re-runs of Dawson’s Creek, I used to love that show, but to see it now it is pretty daggy, and who remembered Dawson and Joey using such large words back then, and not to forget poor Pacey as well. 

Dinner was some street food as Kate and I couldn’t be bothered heading out again.  So it was a hamburger with a slice of cheese that was sitting on a hot plate and some chips on the side all served in butch paper ready to walk with.  Well see if it agrees with us in a few hours, but it tasted good at the time, so that is always a good sign.  Omar has been eating from the street sellers for the last couple of days and hasn’t had any problems, so let’s just see how it affects us.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and after being in Potosi for 2 nights it is now starting to feel a little like Christmas.  We are just hoping that Uyuni will be in the same spirit, being away from family and friends can be difficult, especially over the holiday season.  I am certainly missing my god-daughters little faces, but Shelly sent me their Christmas photo with Santa this year and that bought a smile to my dial.  Man they are looking so grown up, it is amazing how they can change in just 9 months.

Happy Christmas eve eve – this time last year we were out on the turps at Fridays (a nightclub in Brisbane) having a girls night out and it was the worst hangover the next day and Shelly said she would never be doing that ever again.  But it was a good gal’s night with Sandy A, Shelly, Dayna and myself.