Salt Flats Day 1: Too tired for salt

I was not looking forward to the bus ride to Uyuni. Famed for being the coldest journey in all of Bolivia, the night ride is also 12 hours long and unforgiving when it comes to bumps. However, in some sheer stroke of uncommon Bolivian luck I was given the seat above the engine. Sure, it was a little louder but it blasted hot fucking air onto my body for the whole journey. And for that I am thankful. Got off the bus and proclaimed how good the "heating" was without knowing... oh, the envy in the other passengers´ eyes...

Found another girl, from Belgium, wanting to book the Salar tour for that morning and we both got into the car of a woman from an agency booking said tours. We didn´t have to book with her but the offer of a warm (and free) ride to the central plaza was a pretty good one at 5:30am in the morning. Yes, the bus was early, the second inappropriately bus I have caught in South America (the other arriving early at the Argentinian border before it opened). Amazing how the buses are never early arriving in the afternoon, or in the evening... can you tell I´m getting a little frustrated with this continent??

So we got to the plaza where nothing much was open, joined the others from our bus to a place for an expensive breakfast that also came with heating (bonus) and waited for the agencies to open. The one that had picked us up looked appealing but I wanted to shop around.

Gladly I was right, as it appeared I could get the tour better and cheaper elsewhere, and another agency downright pointed the finger at my first agency for having drunk drivers. So I didn´t go with the first agency. Or the one that pointed the finger, just for being bitchy. That one I went with was super cheap, and I still maintain to this day that it is the cheapest price I have ever heard for this tour. Boom. And the wind blows in my direction.

The first day of the salt flats tour takes in the actual salt flats - the biggest in the world I think - so it was all about bright white and dry skin. But it was spectacular. I was still getting to know my car - a kooky French couple, 2 cute Bolivian girls and a typically crazy guy from Buenos Aires - and we were all speaking Spanish so at least that was good practice.

After my last days in La Paz and then the bus ride to Uyuni, I was feeling pretty tired and even though the view was fantastic out my Jeep window, I could not help but fall asleep. So I drove through most of the salt flats with my eyes closed. Nicely done.

We stopped for lunch - again along with the rest of the Salt Flats tour crowd, much to my disappointment - at a nice Island with lots of cacti on it. One was about 9m tall and reportedly over 900 years old! Good effort. Lunch was nice except for the meat being so tough it almost ripped my other moler out. I went crazy with the dental floss after that puppy.

Accommodation for the first night was in a salt hotel, made as the name suggests entirely from salt. You had to walk the floor with shoes on since it was loose salt (and no one wants to be a wrinkly prune), the beds were basically hard slabs of salt with a mattress and the walls were constructed with bricks made of salt. The furnishings were mostly dried out, hollow cactus trunks that make for great lamp shades because of the little holes where spikes used to be... and when it wasn´t salt or cactus, it was alpaca. I felt right at home in my poncho.

As it was, I roomed in a double with the Argo boy who I was beginning to think was quite cute, but I was so tired by the end of dinner that I basically just downed a glass of wine and retired to the warmth of my bed. The shower had no hot water until the next morning anyway so I was sleeping salty and dusty. As was to become the norm in the coming days...

2-Hour Hotel Rooms

So these last two days have been a bit of a sun-soaked, Spanish blur... but in a super good way. My first day on the job had me starting at 10, which meant crawling my hung body out of the temporary dorm I was shoved in last minute the night before (forgot to even put sheets on the bed!!) with a swimming head trying to absorb all the information I was being told about what to do etc. Just breathe.

The day got better for me as I became more human, and every person I met that worked or stayed at the hostel was really cool. I love meeting new people so I can tell this will be the perfect environment for me. Just maybe a little dangerous for my liver.

The staff live either at the hostel in a staff dorm or down the road a few kms in the staff house, but they often hang out before or after their shifts cos, well, they aren`t really spoilt for choice for activities outside the waterfalls around here. So there are always people to talk to, and often people I serve at the bar will stay there and talk to me, so I am making friends at lightening speed.

The work is super easy, just serving drinks and taking food orders... I learnt all I needed to know in the first few minutes! But my favourite part is my workmate... as with most of the people here, he is a beautiful Argentinian BUT the nicest guy and quite reserved in terms of flirting so a bit of a challenge for me. Does he like me?? We shall see...

After my shift finished, I got stuck into the beers and when the others finished at 10pm-ish, I grabbed my luggage and jumped on the bus to the staff house, where I had finally been assigned a more permanent bed. Woot! I am rooming in a house with 4 rooms, couple of beds in each, and my sweet roomie does not speak a lick of English. So that will be good for my Spanish! So far, however, we havent`t actually SHARED the room as I have partied a little since entering the household... ahem.

As soon as I dropped my luggage, I saw the others were changing their clothes and they asked if I was coming. Coming where? Cuba Libre, of course! Sweetness in a jar.

We first went to another hostel to drink in town and then to this club, which was pretty rammed... they open quite late here, hours about 1 - 6am, and everyone was dancing. But FUCK ME it was hot!! I was sweating balls. Had a good boogie with the guys from my hostel then saw a bunch more arrive with some guests, and it was on. Boom boom BOOM.

The music was mostly reggaeton so I was in heaven, and when it came to the podium, well I can just quietly say I rocked that shit fo shizzle. Actually had a crowd of people cheering and chanting my name (god knows how they knew it, maybe it was just my friends haha). My inner stripper really came out with that pole, I never knew I had it in me! haha... Must be all that "research" I have done in stripclubs...

At one point I saw a cute but super young guy who I kissed then bailed on, after I found out he was just 18! Oops. Then a girl from Buenos Aires came along, translating through my hostel workmate worked out she wanted to take me to a hotel and I agreed. Meh, she was hot, I was up for it, she said she`d pay...

So this is when the weirdest part of the night comes along... we get in a taxi and go to a hotel in the middle of nowhere down some dirt road, that has rooms you can get for 2 hours if you want. Whaaaaaaaat... weird. I was in a drunken daze by this stage (at this point you`re thinking "this girl is a FOOL, why does she get herself into these situations") but all was good. Apparently these hotels exist here cos most people live with their parents and need somewhere to hook up with people haha...

Had some fun, but was sooo tired and eventually she let me pass out. Woke up at about 10:30am with new idea if it was day or night due to pulled blinds, and was blinded by the sunshine when I clambered out of the room. Repeated questions of "where do you live" in almost incomprehensible BA accented Spanish (mostly she just wrote on her phone and I read the Spanish from there) were meant with my answer of "no se" (I don`t know) but that I did know it was near a cementary.

Thankfully the town is so small there is only one cementary so we drove what ended up being just 2 blocks away (could have walked!) and I was dropped off near the cementary. After a failed try to get into "my" house and being met by a confused young guy who clearly wasn`t my roommate, I finally found the house I was staying in and got in. Had to climb through the window cos the key to my room was sticking, and still had no bedsheets but didn`t care. SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP.

Good times back home = slack blogger

So I know I've been mega shit with keeping up in the blog stakes, but I have good reason! I am back for a short time only in my home country and trying desperately to see all my besties and family as often as possible. It's good being back for a short time cos everyone makes the effort to see you and you enjoy every second much more than if I was here forever - it's shiezenhauzer though because some people are just so busy and I don't think I will see them!! Oh well, can't please everyone.

Over the last few days, well almost a week, I've managed to go to the place I used to keep my horse and see the lady that lives there, one of my old school teachers who is just so lovely. Left my sunnies at her house which sux balls. Many a hungover day I've been punished since.

Being back here has really mixed me up emotionally... from the mini-anxiety attack I had on the plane here to the growing appreciation and love I have for this intensely beautiful country. And a developing longing to see the rest of it...

Anyway, as I finish this blog I'm writing from London, where I've just landed and it's going to be another hectic 24 hours so I won't likely get a chance to update any more blogging until I get to Slovenia.

I NEED SLEEP!!