Buenos dias,
When we left you last time Krys was considering the merits of a Bolivian relationship and I was applying betadine to some missing skin. Well the next few days had us enjoying some different injuries – this time it was some jarred coccyxes thanks to the qualities (or lack thereof) of Bolivian roads.
We headed down to the Bolivian Salt Flats which is a massive expanse of pure white, surrounded by red desert and bound by huge snow capped mountain ranges. And interspersed across the landscape are colourful lagoons, hot springs and bubbling mud geysers. The base for the Salt Flats is a town called Uyuni. And what a pretty town it is; uneven dirt roads fringed with an expanse of red, dusty nothingness buried under piles of discarded plastic bags. I can only imagine that ‘Uyuni’, translated into English means ‘ sh#thole’. It’s like the town knows that you need it so couldn’t be bothered even tying its hair back or putting on a little eye shadow.
Showing us the delights of the Salt Flats was a short, smiley, ex-Bolivian miner called Oswaldo who loved playing an 80’s mix tape of Hall and Oats and Collette (yes, of ‘Ring My Bell’ fame). He was also big fan of the Bolivian version of rocket fuel; a sugar cane derived 96% alcohol mix. My early trip offer of a beer was met with a mocking ‘I am a miner; beer is for ladies’ as well as some implications that if I did by some chance happen to be a man, my equipment must be on the small side.
The Salt Flats themselves were great; nothing but a powdery white landscape as far as the eye can see; can imagine the view would be the same if Lindsay Lohan and Kate Moss shared a bathroom. But the Bolivian idea of road construction is fairly loose. If more than 2 cars have weaved the same random path through shrubs, rubbish and barely tendered cereal crops then this is now a road, and added to the Bolivian street directory. So this means that roads are on the rough side, and a 3 day drive in our vintage Toyota 4WD is like being constantly slapped in the head by Clubber Lang while being kicked in the back side by Barry Hall wearing steel capped boots.
For the other scenery, I think our guide was a little disappointed in our muted reaction to the bubbling mud geysers. Unfortunately my Spanish isn’t strong enough to convey that while the bubbling mud and leaping gas was impressive, it is a sight that has continued to haunt Krys ever since she inadvertently walked in on me in the bath after a particularly spicy Bolivian meal. She has no desire to revisit anything like that scene ever again…..
The Bolivian wildlife was also something difficult to comprehend. One animal in particular was a perfect rabbit / kangaroo hybrid that we came across eating a biscuit. It had the kangaroo tail and two legged stance but the face and fur of a normal rabbit. Can only imagine that even kangaroos get lonely in the desert sometimes, so after a lengthy dry spell Skippy must have had a little too much of the Bolivian rocket fuel and decided that cuddling up to Fluffy the rabbit was a good idea. I just hope he left the burrow by sun up. But Skippy’s indiscretion is now on display for all to see in the form of a mutated rabbaroo.
Just as we were wrapping up our Salt Flats tour we got a message that the flight back to La Paz in the morning had been cancelled. TAM Airline had followed the South American protocol and decided that they just didn’t feel like flying that day, but helpfully suggested that we should just hang tight and they may have another go at it next week instead. But we needed to be on this particular flight to get to Cusco in time to do the Inca Trail. So it was major panic stations and also represented the first time I’d searched through ‘Google Translator’ for the Spanish translation for ‘f#ck’ (which is ‘joder’ in case you were wondering).
After many ‘joder you TAMs’ we scrambled onto an overnight bus back to La Paz. It all started so well; big, comfortable seats that reclined and a blanket provided that if you could only ignore what crawling history may be living within the old and stained fibers, would have been a nice way to travel. But then the journey starts – on a corrugated dirt road in a bus that seemed to have been constructed before the concept of suspension took the possibility of concussion out of rough road travel. The bus rattled so hard I thought our teeth would fall out and I was expecting to look out the window and see its tyres bounding away from the bus, like a Sumo wrestler scurrying away from a salad.
But somehow the bus held together and on no sleep we arrived back in La Paz for stage 2 of our TAM induced mystery tour; to claim our ticket refund. To get this we had to front up in person to their office and present the ticket. And it was here that the virtues of Bolivian customer service and efficiency were on display. The office opened at 8.30am, and given we had another bus to catch Krys and I were on the door step at 8am and first in line. Just after 8.30am a man appears to unlock a gate held together with more padlocks than Mother Teresa’s chastity belt. So the crowd piles in and are told to just take a seat and wait. For the next 15 minutes staff dribble in, start computers, kiss each other hello and preen themselves before finally deciding they are ready to start. At which point they flick on a numbered ticket system to control the line.
With a bus departure getting closer, I wasn’t about to lose our pole position so hurdled an old lady to get to the ticket dispenser first only to find it completely devoid of tickets. At this point you have a whole room of people just looking at each other with expressions of ‘what the joder?’. The number 1 flashes on the screen but the source of the tickets is a riddle only Stephen Hawkins can solve. All the while the service staff pretend to be oblivious to the mayhem, as they flick their hair, talk about last nights episode of Bolivia’s next top model (believe me, the Bolivian version would not be a fiercely contested program) and debate the merits of the latest shade of eyeliner.
Finally we just walked up, interrupted their conversation and started telling them what we needed. Which was lucky, because an hour later as our ordeal ended, some of the 8.30am customers were still sitting politely in their seats as 3 of the 4 girls on the desk hid behind their monitors and watched a Bolivian soap opera on the TV on the wall.
So by the time we finally got to the final bus leg of the arduous journey to Puno I was tired, grumpy and not equipped to deal with the mass of try hard hippies in hemp pants and knotted hair that appeared to have taken a group booking on our designated bus. 4 of these stoners managed to go missing for 45mins in what was a 10m walk between the Bolivian and Peruvian checkpoints. And even when they did eventually find the bus again (which was never out of their sight) their remorse was displayed by playing drums with empty coke bottles on their cloth satchels before slipping into a semi-retarded sleep. Thoughts of holding their noses shut and choking their windpipes with fist sized chunks of tofu were difficult to get out of my head.
And then at the point where I am the most tired, hungry and consumed by thoughts of tofu assisted homicide, it started; the battle of the bus window shade. We were on the side of the bus that had the sun streaming in uncomfortably. Behind us sat a chubby, excitable English guy in rainbow pants that enjoyed coughing and clearing his throat far too often and far too close to the back of my neck for my comfort. I was on edge already when he opened his window right up leaving the sun shade flapping in my face. So I pulled the shade forward and pinned it against the window with my arm. Mr Chunky Rainbow Pants tugs at the shade until it came loose from my grip and flapped in my face again. I pulled it aggressively forward and pinned it harder.
After some more tug of war my chunky combatant said in a dopey English accent ‘Oi mate, when you pull it forward I get the sun in my eyes. Stop doing that hey’. Apparently (so Krys said) this prompted a diatribe from me that would make an Argentine air hostess blush, including referring to him in terms of forbidden body parts and implications of inserting my packet of Chips-a-Hoy in orices not meant for food. It took a calm and rational Krys to point out that maybe a bus window shade isn’t sufficient grounds to start a fight at a South American bus stop, and perhaps instead I should just eat my packet of Chips-a-Hoy, have a quick nap, and generally look for a less aggressive way to solve the dispute.
We made it to Puno without fisticuffs and went for a walk to see what was around. While wandering we got approached by a young kid asking if he could shine my shoes. This happened a lot in Bolivia; and I would see people sit down, get a quick shine and hand over a dollar. The Salt Flats had been harsh on my tan leather Hush Puppies so I thought why not?
Once I sat down I knew I was in trouble. 12yr old Jose reached into his box and pulled out such an assortment of tools that I thought I had accidentally agreed to road side ‘gender reassignment’ surgery rather than a simple spit and polish on my shoes. When he pulled out the sandpaper that was when I had to turn away rather than watch my poor Hush Puppies get tortured. I felt like someone who had taken their dog to the vet for a runny nose only to sit there and watch the vet remove it’s legs with a hacksaw. Krys found the whole spectacle amusing, appearing from shops at regular intervals to check on the progress of my shoe destruction with an amused smile on her face and an insincere ‘so how is the shoe polish going? It looks reeaaally good!’
At the end my little friend said ‘see like new shoes’ and hit me up for $10. I had to agree with him; they were like new shoes. Just a much sh#ttier and heavily damaged version of the ones I was wearing before he went to work.
Since then we have puffed our way through the Inca Trail, and I have suffered a chin injury on a dance move gone wrong. But more on that later.
Adios
Trent, Krystal and some ‘like new’ shoes.
smallthoughts 