North of the Wall

Hola everyone!

Before I start writing this blog, I´ve got 2 announcements to make:

1. It´s in English this time.

2. I´m writing this particular blog on a sad note, as some bad news from back home arrived me last monday. However, I´m going to write this blog in the way I intended to while I was travelling, because the last 2 weeks up to sunday have been the best so far on this trip, and I want to both share that with everyone and also keep the memories alive for myself!

Bueno, that having said, I´ll continue where I left off: Santiago de Chile.
After recovering from my rebellious throat, I discovered the city by doing a walking tour, visiting the shopping mall and the human rights museum. Of those things, the latter was best. The museum was very impressive and informative, turns out only 30 years ago Chile was a very shitty place to live, with a dictator locking up or getting rid of everyone who used his brains, or was suspected to be able to do so (students, professors, etc). And surprisingly, uncle Sam had more or less helped the dictator rise, because the old president was a communist. So the ´Junta´ bombed their own presidential palace, killed a bunch of people and took over. Makes one wonder how so much blind hate can be practised on fellow citizens!

After this saddening museum I had an icecream.

Santiago wasn´t the most interesting city on this journey so far, simply because it´s too well organized, and therefor kind of boring..Oh I remember now, there was one thing kind of odd, in a great way though! Continental Coffee.. And no, it´s not popular for its´ coffee, rather the way it´s being served and by whom (girls in mini skirts, stockings and tiny tops, who made you feel a bit out of place at noon). So probs for that, Santiago. Furthermore it´s a great place to get on a bus to San Pedro de Atacama, in the northeast of Chile! So that´s what I did next, 27 hour bus ride to this little, very touristic but still authentic and pretty desert village, in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere in this case being mountains, salt flats, lagunas, snow-covered vulcanos, and a very beautiful view in any direction (without evidence of human presence).

The first day and a half I spent on exploring different ways of lying in a hammock, reading my book. Afterwards, I went for a little hike with Roel (met him on the ferry from Colonia to B.A.) and his girlfriend Linda, to see ´the ruins´, and a mirador (viewpoint). The ruins were really ruined, so we skipped those and climbed up to enjoy the sunset over the valley, which was very very hermosa (by the way, all foto´s taken in san pedro are already on facebook, uyuni is still to come).

The nights in Rural Hostel, San Pedro were kind of chilly, as there was no inside lounge, nor a campfire outside. And as you´ll surely know, nights in the desert tend to get freeeeezing! Daytime was a perfect 25 degrees, and I didn´t manage to spot a single cloud in 4 days! But those nights... brrr. Luckily we had an awesome group of people, warming our spirits, playing cards and drinking wine (except for me, being on an antibiotics diet, detoxing for 10 days). This is also where I got the best compliment a guy can get from a girl: `your tonsils look beautiful!´, by Christina the doctor from Germany, comfirming that my healing process was going well. That´s also where I met Amy, Kate, Hans, Zoë (Ireland, Ireland, Germany, UK), aaaawesome people, fucking bueno!

With Zoë, who is a great cook-best known for failed poached eggs, I did a tour to Lagun Cejar the next day. I didn´t really know what to expect as she had done the research and booking, so the surprise couldn´t have been more pretty! I won´t try to put it into words, just check out my pictures on FB and see for yourselves! Oh yeah funny detail; In the saltlagoon, which contains about 7 times as much salt as your average ocean, you can float effortlessly. Moreover, swimming in breast stroke was impossible because my feet couldn´t touch the water! The weirdest sensation! And the water was coooold ice ice ice cold, proper chest freeze occured to me.

The next morning I had to get up at 3.30 a.m. to be picked up at 4, heading towards the El Tatio Geyser. They are most active early in the morning, and the sunrise makes it look extra pretty. After putting on thermoclothes, hat, gloves, skiing socks and my warm jacket I felt quite ready, waiting outside for the bus to come and pick me up (at 4.30..).
What I didn´t forsee was the cold up at the geysers, bit ignorant as they are located at 4300 m altitude, whereas san pedro is only 2500 meters high. However, the geysers were very pretty (see pictures) and the thermal pool was not hot at all, only 25-30 degrees!!
That afternoon we went for yet another icecream, obviously we had to see which taste was best, and afterwards I had some well deserved hammock time. At night me and Zoë went stargazing, looking at the amazing sky trough telescopes. As there is close to no lightpolution in the wide area, the stars look amazingly bright, and the milkyway is very clear.
Highlight of the tour were the falling stars for me (3!!), so I should get lucky in the near future.., and the ring of Saturnus, which looked like a glow-in-the-dark sticker, quite cool.

After 4 wonderful days in San Pedro it was time to move on, back to Argentina, Salta to be precise. The ride trough the Andes mountains was beautiful, and therefor not boring at all. When I saw a sign next to the road saying ´caution´ randomly, and afterwards a Zebra path in the middle of the mountains, I was quite sure I was back in Argentina! When the lanes on the streets of Jujuy were demoted to mere decorations I was really sure. In Salta I took the public bus (3 pesos) instead of a cab (100) to Loki hostel, 30 mins outside of town, which made me very proud of myself!

Loki Salta is amazing! Laidback, nice pool, lovely beds, nice staff, and sweet mountain view:). I started my stay there with a relaxing pool day, and a party fridaynight! I went in town, with Koen (fellow dutchie, with whom I put Holland on the Bloodbombscoreboard!) and discovered that parties in Salta are just as fun as in say Cordoba, or BA! Oh and a loooot cheaper, 25 pesos for 1 liter beer:):):).

After a puny 6 hours of sleep it was time for the Choripan & Beer lunch, prior to the Rugby match Argentina-England. The first beer didn´t taste that well, but the choripan-kind of argentinian hotdog, way better though- made up for that. Afterwards everyone got their facepaint on and we were ready to go! The atmosphere in the stadium was great, not agressive at all but all the more passionate and fanatic, completed by some coloured smoke and fireworks! The English delegation of our hostel did their duty, and sang their longs out during the English Anthem, and probably made it to local TV, as they were interviewed about the game!

Saturday night was exactly how a saturday night should be; cheap drinks, lovely company, card games, some cool music(jezus how can shit be so easy?), and afterwards cabs into town for another night out! The highlight for this night was the cab back for me, having the driver turn up the cumbia music (typical south america beat, sounds abit like reggaeton but cooler), and some insidethecardancing.

Sunday was sad, having to say goodbye to Hans, Amy and Kate who were off to Iguazu, leaving me to enjoy my hangover with more chilling, movies and a few drinks. Monday was even worse though, it had everything a monday should have: boredom, so-so weather, missing the weekend and for me it even ended better by losing my wallet on the  way to the busterminal... It´s all been sorted out now so I´m over it, but at the time I was really angry with myself!
The police in Salta was really nice and helpfull, they even gave me a ride back to the Hostel! They were a good laugh, especially the male driver; when we entered a different jurisdiction they were discussing whether or not to inform the local police of our presence, he said: I don´t care, I´m hungry but when I get home my wife will be waiting with a bunch of insults because I´m late, and no food, bursting out in laughter! And Loki was really sweet aswell, letting me sleep there for free:)

So on tuesday I finally took off, heading north to Bolivia, to meet up with my friend from last winters skiing in Austria, Gea. On thursday we started our trip to the famous salt flats of Uyuni!

We were travelling in a caravan of 2 cars, containing 2 drivers, 1 cook (best cook in history), 4 french, 2 english, 1 gringo and 2 dutchies!
I have had so many laughs on this trip, it was really amazing.Especially  thanks to Chris, aka King of the Rabbit people, and former stuntman for Ron Weazly (who is a total dick according to Chris). Who is also known for great pickup lines in German, like ´du hast schone augen´, and ´ich bin wunderbar´. Andrew on his part kept a great English tradition of pantdropping whenever an opportunity occurs high, as pictures may show (yet to be posted). Dylan was really funny aswell, and dude, you made my day by taking the pictures of just the toys on sunday on the saltflats, still makes me laugh out loud behind my computer here..

Me and Gea shared a car with Kevín and Amandine, the nicest french couple I know, and cookie. We were subjected to inhuman amounts of Bolivian cumbia each day, the same song over and over again!! Luckily our ipods and the drivers peruvian cumbia saved us there. A little less dangerous than this was the sandroad covered in fresh snow whilst being in the middle of a Blizzard! Things started getting a little tricky around 5000 m high with as highlight a well performed 90· spin, with our car ending up next to the road. I don´t know if it really happened that way, but it surely felt like 2 weels were lifted off the ground there.

The hightlight of day 1 was the village of ruins, where the Englishmen could release all of their cynicism in a way only english people can, so good fun there. Due to a lack of interesting sights there, and maybe also because it´s true a most horrifying story was found there. The tale tells about the absence of racist parrots in the village, because they all have been slaughtered by the vicious and murderous rabbits living in the village, after the Spanish abandoned the village. True or not, I was happy to be safe and sound back in the car. Ah yeah about that car, what an amazing machine! For the experts amongst us: Toyota Land Cruiser 8V 4x4 drive.

Both the first and second night were freezingly cold, as there was no heating in the hostels we were staying in. Outside it was perhaps -5 or -10 degrees, which isnt that shocking. What made it really cold was the absence of heating, so there was no escaping the cold!
Or as the other car liked to call the situation; North of the Wall. Game of Thrones watchers, you´ll know what I´m talking about, non-watchers start watching, it´s awesome!

On day 2 we visited some hotsprings, no one wanted to leave, untill our evil cook forced us to get out and take her lunch. Afterwards we visited Lagoon Colorado, what´s in a name.. Red, various types of blue, ice, white, pink, green, and more colours were present in this beautiful lagoon. As were alot of flamingos. I´m still wondering flamingos, why do you live here in the cold, while you´re also capable of living in the tropics, birds!?

Day 3 started off nice and sunnily, and we went to visit 4 different lagoons, one even more beautiful than the last one! We also saw some more tame flamingos, so we could take photos from about 10 meters distance! For the beauty of the lagoons, I must again direct you to my yet to be uploaded pictures.
In the afternoon we drove back into civilization, which made me sad in a way! After two days being out there in the wild and just seeing beautiful nature everywhere, the buildings and electricity wires looked ugly and disturbing...

We spent that night in a hostel where everything except for the pooltable was made of salt. That damn pooltable.. After playing some frisbee we were subjected to lasanga, made by evilcookie. At this point we were convinced that she was getting back at us for changing the music in the car, because that lasanga smelled like armpit, according to our brittish friends. Kevín, as a frenchman being familiar with haute cuisine, looked at his plate with genuine disbelief, after tasting. Priceless.
To go with this beautiful food, we were given some seetrough, tasteless wine. So with some beers, the shitty wine and some whiskey we started a great last night, which resulted in stargazing.

After a few hours of sleep we had to get up, happily hungover, to enjoy the sun rising over the saltflats. The photos we took were jumping shots, no exception. You see after days of getting kicked out of the car just to take some pictures, we started making them cheesier every day. One of the highlights must be planking on the trainrails with 8 persons:).
Afterwards we entered the cactus island, an oasis in the middle of the huuuge salt flats (12000 square kms). We climbed to the top, where more cheesy pictures were taken, and where several pickup lines where combined into one, resulting in something like : Your eyes are beautiful, little pig, I´ve got 10 minutes. The middle line was fed to us by the french girls, claiming that this line would turn any french girl on crazily! Hasn´t been tested in the field yet.

Breakfast wasn´t dissappointing, and we slightly adjusted our opinion about the cook (until we saw lunch, aaaa those fishcakes!!!), and we took off to find a nice place to take the wellknown perspective pictures.
At a certain point Javier (the other car driver, ´Javier is a god´- Dylan) decided it was time. So there we went, armed with some small toys, and some genious pictures were taken indeed!
My favourites : Princess being decapacitated by Godzilla, with Chris shouting NOOO in the background; Andrews beerfall, and ofcourse the photo with just the toys.. classic haha! But I can´t tell you as much as the pictures can, so I´m eager to see how they´ve turned out!!!

Those four days have been really amazing guys, and I would like to thank you all for the great fun, trough the blistering cold we made it!
In Uyuni most of us went to Potosí, but I decided to go to La Paz directly, which is the capital of Bolivia (practically anyway).
I´m happy to write about Bolivia next time, but now my fingers are really numb, especially since I had to redo the last bit due to internet issues..
I hope you enjoyed it, and if you came this far reading I´m very proud of you!
So hasta Luego, if you´re in this story I truly hope we meet again!

Fucking bueno, Chau