Ridin' Solo
One day after my return from Argentina I headed to the Paraguayan event of the year: my host cousin, Karen’s wedding. With a custom designed dress (that came out nothing as designed) I headed to the small church ceremony followed by the large reception. I learned that if you aren’t dressed to impress, you don’t bother going to the wedding at all since fashion is such a spectacle in this country (100% serious). There were tons of people there for a merry festival with dancing into the wee hours of the morning. The 2 main differences from an American wedding were 1) after the church ceremony there was also a civil ceremony where they legally signed their vows along with many witnesses and 2) the bride wears about 20 garters and the groom then transfers them leg-to-leg to 20 single ladies. Karen looked gorgeous and we all had a great time.
With another vacation from my vacation around the corner, I stayed in Paraguay just long enough to work at the preschool another week and finish off the school year with my kiddies and to see my youngest host sister, Bianca, graduate from Jr. High. From these graduations I learned how incredibly long the Paraguayan National Anthem is.
I then departed on my next trip. Originally I had planned to road trip up to Peru via Bolivia with Jose on motorcycle (think Che Guevara). Unfortunately we learned that since the Bolivian roads are sketchy, it’s not a good idea to motorcycle without other motorcycling buddies. So we decided to do the trip by car. Then Jose ended up having to work so I had a last minute change of plans and headed off solo. Via bus. It seemed like a downgrade, but in the end it was still an awesome experience.
My host family was hesitant about my decision to take the bus since it was raining and the route is via the Chaco on a dirt road (they were fully convinced that the bus would get stuck for a few days). They made sure that I loaded up on snacks and water when I told them it would be an adventure if I got stuck and I would take my chances. I was in for a 22.5-hour bus ride from Asuncion to Santa Cruz, Bolivia. At 3am I was awakened to go through border control. The bus stopped in the middle of a giant muddy puddle and we were all ushered off into the darkness. With no direction, we made our way through the swamp to a small very unofficial looking building a 3-minute trek away. A woman had us all haphazardly throw our passports into a basket and proceeded to walk off into a back room with all of them. When she yelled my name, she asked me my seat number on the bus and handed me my passport back without looking at my picture. I was very confused as to whether she had actually done anything with my passport, but it turns out she had given me the stamp I needed during that extremely sketchy process. 7 hours later, I was awakened again. This time to cross the border into Bolivia. 7 hours later you ask? Yes, it turns out there is only one road with no turn offs anywhere and it is surrounded by the Chaco, aka nothing-but-shrubbery-and-pumas-land. So if you crossed by on the road through border control in Paraguay, there is nowhere else you could be going except 7 hours later to the border of Bolivia. Drama ensued at this Bolivian border crossing. As the only American on the bus, I was the only person that had to get a visa into the country. Somehow on my way from the bus stop to this border I had managed to lose some cash, so when it came time to pay for my visa, I didn’t have enough. This was not the kind of border crossing that had any type of electronic equipment so credit cards or getting money from an ATM were out of the question. Luckily I had befriended a French tourist on the bus and he lent me the money that I was short so I wasn’t stranded at the 2 shacks in the middle of absolutely nowhere all by myself. Without further ado, we safely made our way across the bumpy mud to Santa Cruz.
I stayed in Santa Cruz for one day and spent most of it gaping over how cheap everything was. My hostel cost $3/night and a delicious 3-course meal (with beer) cost $6. I was also surprised that the stereotypical female Bolivian garb was actually worn by almost all of the Bolivian women: bucket/bowler hats, pigtail braids, long skirts, aprons, sandals, and brightly colored woven cloths wrapped around their backs carrying either babies or goods they were selling. They complemented the cacti and donkeys that were everywhere as well.
I then boarded a 16.5-hour bus from Santa Cruz to Sucre. Bolivian buses are much different than Argentinean buses (in the less luxurious kind of way). The differences are heightened by the fact that 90% of the Bolivian roads were unpaved. The creator of the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland must have had experience with Bolivian roads because the sensation is exactly the same. Only these bus rides lasted hours upon hours, not just 3 minutes. I still had no trouble sleeping (but felt very bad for people with bigger heads and/or longer necks than me). I was only non-Bolivian on this bumpy ride and thus the only one that was surprised when the driver stopped in the middle of nowhere and yelled that we were taking a bathroom stop, after which everyone proceeded to get off, drop trow, and pee in the bush without hesitation. On the plus side, the chauffer’s sidekick got his guitar and sang for a while and there were great views as we drove through the mountains. On the down side, we almost crashed several times and I woke up wet from the rain that was leaking through my window. Nonetheless, I arrived in Sucre in good spirits.
Sucre, like Santa Cruz, I was using mainly as a stopover place on my way to get to Uyuni. It was, however, a very cute little city with Spanish buildings and cobbled streets. The highlight for me was going to the open market and eating the best fruit salad of my life. For 80 cents I had an enormous pile of colorful fresh fruit topped with whipped cream and yogurt in one heavenly concoction. After eating that, the town could do no wrong. And as fate would have it, I found a ridiculously cheap Santa suit next door to the hostel that I wasn’t planning on staying at (that comes into play later).
24 hours later I was back on another Bolivian bus, this time headed for Uyuni. This bus was only 9 hours, but it was my first daytime trip. Again I was the only non-Bolivian. I had purchased the last available seat and therefore was stuck in the back middle seat that didn’t recline. It also didn’t have a seatbelt or a seat in front of it, just the long aisle up to the front. I would wake when I was completely thrown from my seat by a bump and had to steady myself lest I slide down the aisle. It was on this trip that I realized how prolific the Bolivians are. On a bus with 33 seats, there were at least 50 people due to the fact that almost every woman had a baby or small child on her lap. Everything was even more chaotic because there were at least 4 dogs and 2 cats as well.
Uyuni is a town has nothing much to offer except that it is the launching point for tours of the Bolivian salt flats (Salar de Uyuni). It was here that I discovered my second kryptonite: altitude. At 4,000m (over 13,000ft) above sea level, I was struck with insomnia and found myself embarrassingly winded from walking up 20 stairs. Sleep deprived, I took off in a fully utilized SUV for the 3-day tour of southwest Bolivia with a fun bunch of 3 French girls, an English girl, and a Brazilian guy. Our tour guide was far from informative and didn’t tell us anything about our schedule or about what we were seeing. But there’s no greater bond than a common enemy, and our group hit it off really well forming “Team Pacha Mama (Mother Earth)/Coca.” One of the many great things about traveling is meeting fun people from all over the world and I’ve been lucky to meet great people everywhere I’ve gone.
On day 1 we drove through the impressive, seemingly endless salt desert. What was once a giant lake had dried up leaving salt as far as the eye can see; real solid crystallized salt (that tasted very salty). We came upon an island in the middle of nowhere filled with giant cacti and hiked around for a bit. From this stop we could see the famous hexagonal salt patterns on the ground and take perspective pictures with “larger than life” dinosaurs and “mini” people. We ended the day sleeping in a hotel made almost entirely of salt: salt bricks, salt floor, salt bed frames, salt tables and chairs… a very random but fun experience. We lucked out and had a full moon that night and there was a thunderstorm off in the distance so we got to watch the lightning light up the sky from afar.
Day 2 brought us to cool rock formations, several different colorful lagoons, and thousands of flamingos. The places were stunning and very other-worldish. From volcanoes to “rock trees,” I saw all kinds of geological wonders. The highlight of the day, though, was Laguna Colorada. It is trying to be voted as another “natural wonder of the world” and rightly so. It is a flamingo filled lagoon colored beautifully with blue, white, black, and red waters. I think I gathered that the water is red due to little shrimp-like organisms and the white is due to the salt. Couldn’t tell you what the black is from. Were it not for the freezing cold wind and the fact that we were at super high altitude so I wasn’t feeling tip-top, I could have stayed at this lagoon for hours. As the insomnia continued, I found that now at almost 5,000m (~16,500ft) above sea level, I was dying after standing from sitting. Going anywhere fast was out of the question. The bumpy roads didn’t help my condition and I found myself taking Dramamine on land for the first time in my life. We chewed on coca leaves to counter the altitude sickness, though it didn’t seem to help me much.
The third and final day of the tour brought us to some geysers, hot springs, and more colorful lagoons. Team Pacha Mama had fun posing in the Santa suit before relaxing in the 105º natural hot spring (complete with rocky bottom, gorgeous view, crisp air, and no sulfur smell). It was absolute heaven when we started a massage train.
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