Blog time I think!
So this blog isn’t about the aldea, is
about my recent travels to the beautiful country of Bolivia! We recently took 2 weeks
out of work as we needed to cross a border to renew our visas and saw the
opportunity to take a holiday while we were there.
The journey there was incredibly eventful.
We first had to get to Lima which in a bus took
13 hours, however we broke this up by making a brief stop in the city of Trujillo to stretch our
legs and save some money on a direct bus. Trujillo
is a lovely city although sadly we only saw a very small part of it as Louise
tripped and fell into a fountain 10 minutes after arriving and badly sprained
her ankle and cut her leg. We ended up spending all our time in Trujillo with the local
police officers who were very helpful and insisted on staying with us until
Louise was ready to hobble off to catch the bus. Her ankle stayed swollen and
bruised the entire 2 weeks of our trip which sucked but she soldiered on. The
next bus we took was to Lima
which was overnight. We arrived at around 5 am and had arranged to meet 4 other
volunteers in Miraflores at around 9am so hopped in a taxi hoping to find
somewhere open for a coffee whilst we waited. We arrived at parque Kennedy and
waited a short while for the MacDonald’s to open (the only thing open at that
time) so we could grab some coffee and sit with our rucksacks. At about 8 we
realised that it would be possible to catch a bus to La Paz at 9am which
would give us an extra day in Bolivia
and 1 day less in Lima
so we flagged down a taxi and got in.
Everything seemed fine at first, there was a
lot of traffic as it was rush hour and we didn’t seem to be getting there very
quickly so the driver turned off onto one of the less busy streets and
explained this would be quicker as there was less traffic. He continued to go
into smaller and smaller streets, going deeper into the poorest areas of Lima. We asked if he knew
where the bus terminal was and his answer was “yes it’s just round this
corner”. We knew fine well it wasn’t round the corner so just assumed he didn’t
know where it was so got his to ask directions. The man he asked told him it
was miles back the way we came and when we asked the driver where we were going
he again said “it’s just round this corner” that’s when we started to feel
uneasy. At one point he crashed the car into a lamppost down one of the
backstreets; he quickly backed up and drove on. When he reached another spot
where there were less people he got out, took a good look at the car and got
back in. By this time we had been in the taxi for an hour and a half and had
missed any chance of catching the bus anyway. Louise said to him “look sir, the
bus has gone, we’ve been here an hour and a half and we’re lost, we want to get
out so we can get another taxi’ That’s when he started speaking in
English, he said “ok, I’m sorry, I want
your money, your documents, your passports and everything” it took a minute for
me to register what he had said and what was going on and my mind blacked out
for a few seconds altogether. It was only when Lou, who was sitting in the
front, started crying that I even realised he was pointing a gun at us! I took
all the money that I had on me out and threw it at him, Louise did the same,
shaking her purse out and handing him all the money we had. He then started
yelling at us in English “get down, get down” By this point, Louise was crying
uncontrollably and I felt seriously sick and generally terrified. I didn’t know
what he was trying to say so I was shouting at him too “what do you mean, get
down or get out?! Get down or get out?!” With my yelling and Louise having a
minor panic attack in the car he freaked out a little, pushed open my door and
told us to get out. For some reason I grabbed my rucksack from the back and
Louise managed to grab hers too, I also said “thank you” to him but I’m not
sure why. He drove off leaving us safe with all our stuff minus 400 sol!
Thankfully I had all the passports, bank cards, documents and important things
in a money belt under all my clothes so he didn’t know I had them and
fortunately got away with everything. As Louise was still hobbling from Trujillo I helped he
across the street where a bunch of the locals helped us out. They gave Louise
stuff to drink as she kept vomiting up water and calmed her down whilst I
phoned the other volunteers and our desk officer. The local people were so kind
and helpful to us which was especially good as our nerves were in bits. There
was even a guy who spoke good English who turned up and helped us. He
accompanied us to the local police station and translated all the bits we
couldn’t say (fair to say our English wasn’t very good at this point let alone
our Spanish). I then had to go and identify the place where the car had crashed
whilst Louise stayed in the station. The locals again were very keen to help, I
had originally thought the car was white but they told us it was grey which
obviously was going to be a better lead than what my confused memory was saying
to them. They also told the police what
they had seen of the man and what kind of car it was, all stuff that wasn’t
quite clear to me at this point. After we had given all our details to the
local police force we were driven to the tourism police offices where we spent
hours giving full statements and getting questioned. We were absolutely
shattered by the end of the day and thankfully the director of the project in
lima let us stay 2 nights with the other
Project Trust girls to chill out and prepare for the next big event…the
30 hour bus to La Paz.
The bus to La Paz
thankfully went really smoothly. We watched movies and slept most of the time
so it passed fairly quickly. The first night in La Paz was spent with
the Bolivia
volunteers. It was Jacks birthday so we went to their house for drinks then hit
the town. It was really good seeing them again as the last time we saw them all
was on training! We spent the next 2 days in La Paz,
sightseeing and generally chilling out. We also ate our first curry in 9 months
at the “world’s highest curry house” which was awesome! After La Paz we headed to
the capital city of Sucre.
Whilst there we went to an amazing market in Tarabuco where I bought a
ridiculous amount of Alpaca jumpers and socks, ate some local street food and
basically just did the whole gringo thing. The day we left Sucre
we spent at “Cretaceous
Park”. Basically 30 years
ago a cement company unearthed a wall covered in more than 5000 dinosaur
footprints which is apparently the most found in the world. There’s a museum
there now with skeletons and models of the dinosaurs which have been made to be
exactly as the dinosaurs would have been. For a dinosaur freak like me it was
pretty cool and I really enjoyed it! Next we headed to the city of Potosi which I’ve been
told is the world’s highest city (?). Sadly the only thing there really is to
do in Potosi is
visit the mine which neither myself nor Louise were keen on as small spaces
just don’t do it for us. However we heard that it was an amazing place and an
amazing experience. In Potosi
we were feeling a little homesick. The experience in Lima
was still fresh in our minds and we had since had another close encounter with
a taxi on our way to the hostel in Potosi
so we decided to take it easy for a couple of nights. We made spag bol, bought
9 movies for 50p on the street (totally illegal but sooo cheap!) and spent a
day lounging about, watching movies, drinking tea and feeling like we were at
home again! Sounds like a bit of a waste of a day but we haven’t felt so
relaxed in a long time! That evening was spent playing cards with our dorm mates,
drinking something vile we called “Raz” and building a fort out of our bunk
beds (yes I think we had probably drank too much “Raz”). After Potosi
came the big trip. Bolivia’s
claim to fame. The Salar De Uyuni.
We arrived in Uyuni at 5pm on the Wednesday
and spent 1 night in the backpacker’s hostel there. We’d booked a spot on a
tour leaving the next morning with the Bolivian Project Trust in country reps,
who also happen to run Salar de Uyuni trips! There was a group of 6 of us
altogether. Myself, Louise, Rudy from New Zealand,
Alan from Hong Kong and Clement and Basilia from France. It was a pretty awesome
group; we all got along really well and had some great banter. We spent 3 days
touring round the area of the Salar. The first day we visited the Salt flats
themselves along with the Train cemetery, salt hotel, salt museum and Los ojos del Salar. The Salt
flats are like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It’s just white as far as the eye
can see and I’m guessing further. The sky was so clear that it contrasted
amazingly with the salt. It was amazing fun to take photos on too! We got hold
of a plastic toy dinosaur and got some great shots with that along with some
cool jumping photos and general silliness. In the evening we sat playing cards
and drinking vino with the group. We managed to get a 15 person game of
presidents going which was great fun! The next day was pretty busy. We visited
lots of volcanic rock formations, mineral mountains and loads of stunning
lagoons including Laguna Colorada; a lagoon which is made bright red by algae
and microscopic organisms. We also saw a surprising amount of wildlife like
wild chinchillas which were adorable, llamas, alpacas and in the lagoons were
huge amounts of “Sexy Flamingos” as our guide liked to call them. I was
surprised to see flamingos in such a cold climate but apparently their really
keen on the algae in the lagoons so they stay there most of the year then fly
to Chile.
The 3rd and final day was a long one. We got up at 5am and headed to
the volcanic geysers. It was Baltic cold despite the fact the ground was
spitting out 190DC air! People had warned me it would be cold but I didn’t
realise how bad it would be. When we got to the hot springs I could even face the 10 second
freezing cold walk from the changing rooms to the hot water, neither could
anyone else in our group so we all passed on the chance of our first wash in 3
days! The final stop on the tour was “Laguna Verde” and “Volcan Lincancabur”.
We then dropped Alan off at the border to Chile so he could continue on from
there whilst the rest of us headed for the long journey back to Uyuni. Back in
Uyuni Lou and I made the decision just to go straight home to Piura in the quickest time possible. We
hopped on the bus to La Paz from Uyuni, and then straight on
a bus from La
Paz to Lima
(another 30 hour trip) then after 3 hours in Lima,
got straight on a bus to Piura.
It was as quick as we could possibly make it although it still took us a total
of 58 hours on a bus…
So that’s the tales from Bolivia! I’ve
been home in the Aldea for just over a week now and found settling back in far
easier this time round after travels. Not much has changed in the Aldea, however in my town of Piura there has been a significant change. On which has made my life here very different...the supermarkets are finally selling bacon! In total, I only have around 9 weeks left
here which is pretty scary as I’m sure I’ve said before the time is flying by.
In 3 months’ time I’ll be home with my family and sleeping in my own bed and
starting yet another chapter of my life. It’s crazy to think that it’s almost
been a year!
Anyway, Ill close up for now. Watch this
space!
