Bolivia: Mountain HIGH

I started writing this on the 7th...hope you enjoy!

7-7-07
So I´m sitting here under 4 blankets, my sleeping bag, wearing 6 layers,my down vest, my wool hat, and my scarf- in the middle of the Bolivian desert. It´s been an adventure up to this poinit-I will start at the beginning.

Day 1:
AFter 1.5 hours of sleep, I threw all the warm stuff I own into my pack and headed for the bus station to meet megan. From there we went to Santiago to catch our flight to Calama. In the airport I got my 3rd cup of real coffee in 6 months...mmmm. Megan and I sat at Starbucks and promptly fell asleep-oops. Megan woke up and realized our flight was in 5 min so we sprinted to the gate and WHAT LUCK it was delayed an hour. So around 6 we headed up north to Calama...a small mining city in the middle of the desert. We got off the plane and learned it was 14 dollars to go to San Pedro by private bus, or we could take a taxi into town and take a public bus for much much less. The taxi driver promised us we´d be there on time , well as luck has it , we weren´t and the next one was at 10pm. SO we decided to walk around an eat to kill time. When we finally got to San Pedro it was 12:30 and we were dropped off in a middle of a dirt field. hmmmmm. Soj we started to walk looking for a place to stay....or in reality just looking for the town in general. At midnight this supposedly touristy town was dead. There were no lights, all the adobe buildings were closed and we felt like we were in a ghost town. Everywhere we looked was booked and we were on the verge of sleeping in the plaza when some random guy on a bike approached us. THis is how the conversation went:
BIKER DUDE (BD): You need a place to stay?
ME: YES! do you have room?
BD: Well I know of this place outside of town
ME: Ok, how much?
BD: However much you want to pay
ME: (a bit suspicious at this point) are you sure this is a hostal?
BD: yeah, its just some place i know...

So we continued walking out of town to the boonies where there were no lights and lots of run down buildings. I started to get nervous but eventually we got there and it ended up being a pretty sweet place. It consisted of rooms and tents...nothing fancy, but atleast it was a bed to sleep in. I woke up early and walked out to the bathroom to be met by a HUGE volcano right in front of me. I walked to the kitchen to make some tea and started talking ot one of the guys there. His name was Louis and he´d been living there for the past 5 months. He offered me a raw shell fish...a clam of some sort...as an early morning snack...i took it to be polite figuring that would be it. He was like a kid in a candy shop as he watched me slurp it down and quickly refiled my hands with yet another shell. mmmmm nothing like an early morning snack of raw fish. What an interesting guy
After luch we went on a tour to death valley and valle de luna. It was pretty in its own way...no vegitation but awesome rock formations. We walked on a sand dune to see the sun set, so pretty. That night we had a barbque wiht the guys that were staying at the hostal. It was SO fun! We met some guys from france, peru, and argentina. All of them hippies who played the drums for a living. Later in the night we had a HUGE drum circle...everyone playing idfferent instruments, definalty an experience.

7-9-07
This morning we woke up and started for Bolivia. We all started off in big vans and headed to the border. AFter we crossed we headed to the bolivian border (about an hour ride). In about 45 min we were at 4, 300 m...or over 14.000 ft. WOW. So we´re headed on a nice paved road for Bolivia when suddenly the driver turns off onto a dirt "road" (not sure if it can even be considered that)...and points to the paved road saying "thats the road ot argentina, here´s the road to bolivia!". I thought he was joking, he wasn´t. So we headed in the middle of a dirt desert surrounded by volcanos to the "border" (aka a adobe shack with a desk). At about 11 we arrived at a refujio to eat breakfast and to switch into the jeeps. At this point i put on all my clothes and tried to stay warm.

The first stop was teh green lagoon- it looked just like it sounds. Then we headed to the hot springs. Now i´m not sure i mentioned how cold it was, but there was NO Way i was going into the springs. Well when push came to shove I decided to get in. I was without a swim suit or a towl so had to improvise with my t shirt...luckily everyone there was european if you know what i mean. It was SO NICE to get in, surrounded by volcanos, in the middle of Bolivia, CRAZINESS! We then headed to the gyeisers where were AMAZING and at 5,000m! They looked like boiling concrete, crazy! Jose, our guide said that every year one or two tourists fall in and turn into hard boiled eggs...haha.

After the gyesers we headed to the red lagoon to stay the night. We unpacked and had lunch made by a Bolivian family. THis place was in the middle of the deseret with NOTHING but a few adobe buildings. Bolivia is so different than Chile, the women still dress traditionally, and its still a 3rd world country. Megan and I walked to a lookout point, and i got stuck in teh mud :(. The altitude was CRAZY! I slept maybe an hour that night and was sick to my stomach the rest of the time..WHEW never been that high in my life!

Ok, my hands are tired...I write more later!