SOUTH AMERICA TIP #6 – Be prepared for all sorts of weather, even the cold!
TRAVEL TIP #13 – When travelling, always bring: a travel buddy, your patience, and most importantly, your passport.
I’m still continuing to recycle tips, only because they are still relevant!
October Break came a lot faster this year it seemed. It must be that teaching isn’t as terrible as when I first started out. Not that it was completely terrible, but not having to scramble to plan and mark and stay up late and manage classroom behaviour and contact parents and make tests and photocopy things first thing in the morning and figure out a new culture and a new language does have its benefits.
We originally had a couple people interested in going on our trip, but because of costs, it ended up being just Christian and I heading to Bolivia. Visiting the Salt Flats has been at the top of my list ever since I saw my cousin, Trevor’s, pictures after his South American adventures there, and I was very excited to cross it off my Bucket List!
We had an interesting flight path to get there which we booked because it was cheaper. We left Friday night and flew a short flight to Medellin for a 20-hour layover. In the morning, we explored Plaza Botero and rode the Metro system and the Cable Cars. I had experienced all of this before, but it was Christian’s first time in Medellin so it was a must. We also asked our hostel about visiting the grave of Pablo Escobar (especially with the Netflix show Narcos bringing back up Colombia’s past, we thought it would be neat to see), but apparently it’s not worth it. Perhaps another time if I’m really up for it. Things to also note about Medellin and the Paisa region in general – as we stared at the metro map, a random lady came and asked us if we needed help and she helped us buy our tickets! And then we shared a cable car with a young family from Manizales and the young daughter said her favourite subject was Math (woo!) and we had nice conversations with them. As we switched to the other cable car line, the family paid for our tickets preventing us from having to stand in line to buy more! Paisa’s are so kind. I think Costeños are slightly jaded from all the tourism on the coast, but they’re still alright.
That evening, we boarded a plane to Lima (adding another country to my airport count – does that count as visiting the country?), and then to La Paz afterward. We arrived in La Paz around 2:30am and stopped at the ATM machines to get some Bolivian money. We took a taxi to the hostel and were slightly sketched out. It was a Saturday night so fiestas were in full swing, but it was also some sort of festival so it was more so than usual. La Paz isn’t a very nice city in my opinion; there was lots of spray painted graffiti and it just seemed dark and unfriendly in a way. The people turned out to be very nice though, but there was something about the city I didn’t like, especially at 3am. As our taxi driver stopped on one street and said he was checking in with the hostel, we felt a little uneasy – were we about to be robbed? There are a ton of party people around us in the street, it’s 3am, dark, and we’re in a foreign country… so when the hostel guy came out to meet us, we jumped out of the car quick.
The next day, we took the opportunity to wander around La Paz. It’s much better in the daytime! The people are aboriginal looking and the women wear traditional dresses and many wear tophats, which is different. As we walked, we could feel the altitude taking its toll. La Paz is the highest capital in the world at 3640 m above sea level – that’s 1015 m higher than Bogota, 2160 m higher than Armenia, and coming from sea level in Cartagena, we noticed a difference! There was another cable car to ride there and a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains.
We had run into some passport troubles along the way to La Paz, so on Monday morning we went to the Canadian Embassy (and we were counting our lucky stars that La Paz was the capital and actually had an embassy). While running errands all day, we did get to see the city, and we got on a (k)night bus to Uyuni that evening. Arriving at 5:45am was absolutely freezing and I couldn’t believe we were still in South America. We found refuge in one tour company’s offices that were open already and they offered us tea and blankets! Then we checked in for our tour, ate breakfast, bought gloves, and went on our way!
Our tour guide was named Gonzalez and he was pretty awesome. His English was perfect and he knew a lot about the places we were going. We had 9 other people on our tour – four Brits (who teach in Lima at a school similar to us), two French people, two Italians, and one American. We stopped at various places over the next few days such as:
-Train cemetery – abandoned trains from when Bolivia used them for mineral transport
-Salt Farm – a family that uses salt from the salar, processes it, and sells it! There were also a bunch of souvenirs to buy in this area and I bought two knit sweaters!
This worker is sealing a package of salt that is ready for transport. I didn’t taste any though.
-Salar de Uyuni – THE MAIN ATTRACTION
The SUV was our transport for the tour. We spent a lot of time in it but it was broken up into a lot of different stops so it wasn’t that bad.
There was a place where a bunch of flags were out representing all the countries involved in the Dakar (race car-type thing) races on the salar. Look what we found!
Mini Christian is about to fall from Giant Katie’s hand
I’m a little piece of sushi!
Apparently dinosaurs like sushi too!
-Incahuasi Island – An “island” on the salar with many cacti
We also had to make our Canadian mark with an Inukshuk from the rocks!
-The local wildlife – llamas and flamingos!
-Lagunas, volcanic hot springs, and landscapes like Mars!
Above is us investigating the mineral-rich Laguna Verde and below is Laguna Colorada from afar.
Here are the volcanic geysers and hot springs. Don’t get too close! They were bubbling and steaming like crazy. This was also the highest altitude we went to at about 4900 m above sea level!
These giant rocks are the remnants of volcanic explosions where the hot magma cooled and hardened to this!
As you can see, in various pictures we’re wearing t-shirts and then all of a sudden switch to sweaters, scarves, hats, and mitts. The temperature swings were incredible each day, going from about high teens during the day to around zero at night! At one of the overnight accommodations, there were hot springs which gave an amazing view of the stars. It’s a lot clearer than Steeltown back home! The guide was awesome, our driver was cool too, our group was full of good people, and the sights were amazing!
After the tour, we hopped on a night bus back to La Paz. We were pretty exhausted after the overnight bus and the tour, so we were pretty laid back before we flew back to Lima, back to Medellin, had another 20-hour layover, then back to our Colombian home!
The whole trip went faster than October Break had come, but it was definitely worth it! Lucky for us, in another couple weeks, we have another week off (Cartagena’s Independence is apparently a bigger deal when you’re actually in that city). I’ll be here for a few days, but then I’m off to visit my old neck of the woods in Armenia! I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and my first Colombian home!
Katie En Kolombia 