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July 21st, 2007. Posted 19:57
Hi all! It´s been to long again! Last month has been hectic! After we got back from Uruguay, I had another check up with the eye doctor in Buenos Aires and it was all good to travel on. And so we did! A day later we left BA with the overnight bus to go to Iguazu.
On the way to Iguazu we stopped for one night to break the bus ride. We stopped after a long 12 hours in a Iguazu Tigre bus full of cockroaches (ARGGG!!! HORRIBLE!!). Instead of relaxing, we decided to stay away and take another bus for an hour to visit some Jesuit mission ruiens. Lovely step back into history. Very impressive what these missions were able to set up back in the 16th century!
The next day we took a bus for the last 5 hours to Peurto Iguazu. Relieved that we made after all the uncertainty with my eye trouble and finally had some nice weather (it was sunny and +20 degrees), we treaded ourselves to an icecream! How nice!
Unfortunately the next day the weather had changed and we visited the Iguazu National Park in the rain, but still had a wonderful time. What an amazing site!! Just unbelieveble! The waterfalls are so enourmous! The amount of water that goes down is stunning! The view on the biggest fall so close by! Just amazing!!!
And it wasn´t just the water and falls that amazed us for 3 days. The park´s wildlife is just as amazing! We saw many colourful butterflies, tucans (the big and small kind), guinea pigs, a crockadile, lots of different birds and even monkeys! Sal got so excited when she spotted them! It´s so nice to see monkeys in the wild! We even saw a mamma-monkey with a little one on the back!
The plan after Iguazu was to travel through Paraguay to northern Argentina and then up to Bolivia. Well… that plan didn´t really work… To get to Paraguay we had to travel through Brazil and we didn´t know that Sal, being Australian, needed a visa for both those countries. That itself ain´t a problem, but it does come with a price and we thought it was a bit crazy to pay over US$ 100 to stay in Brazil for less then an hour (just in the bus getting to Paraguay) and one or two days in Paraguay… so we changed the plan (as we have done so often this trip) and decided to stay in Argentina and travel via Resistencia to Salta in the north-western top of Argentina.
Well, that plan worked up to Resistencia. When we got there (after another 10 hours in the bus) we tried to find accomodation in Salta, but that turned out to be impossible due to Argentine holidays. So instead of staying 3 days or so in Salta, we decided to head for Bolivia as soon as possible and only stay in Argentina one more night. After a lot of phonecalls Sal finally was able to find us some accomodation in Humahuaca, close to the Argentine-Bolivian border.
Humahuaca is a gorgeous little town. Very much how I pictured little towns in Argentina to be like! Cobble stones, small streets, church in the middle, dust, cacti, more dust, locals having a nap on the street corner. Just gorgeous! And at 3000 meters we were also getting used to the high altitude earlier then we had planned.
The next morning we were heading for the Bolivian border, where we planned to take the train to our first stop in Bolivia; Tupiza. We crossed the border without any problem and after a bit of a hectic que at the train station we were able to buy 2 tickets to Tupiza. In Tupiza we planned to do a couple of hikes at altitude (Tupiza is at 2950 meters) in preparation for the Inca trail early August, before travelling on.
Well, that preparation didn´t go as planned… The first day we took it easy, slept late and did a lovely hike in the afternoon for about 4 hours. Lovely as it took us through a canyon and the scenery was just stunning! Red hills covered with cacti, we pictured ourselves in a cowboy movie! Thinking we could be jumped by Indians at every corner of the very narrow canyon. So the hike was nice, but what was not nice was that Sal got a bad headache by the end of it…
We knew the altitude could bother us, but as we had been at 3000 meters for 2 days already we thought we would be alright. We were wrong! We were both out of breath very quickly when the hike took us uphill. I also didn´t feel my best and we decided to call it an early night.
The next day started well, with both of us feeling good, but with how we felt the day before in mind, we decided to just take an easy strole and not strain ourselves so much. That started off well, but Sal started feeling bad again quite soon. So we went back to the hotel and Sal felt sicker and sicker. We stayed at the hotel that afternoon and night and the day after Sal only left the bed to go to the toilet. Not good. We were puzzled by what caused her to be so sick. Could it be the altitude? Or was it just that she ate something bad? She did have a bad veggie lasagna the night before…
Additional problem was that we planned to leave Tupiza on a “southwest circuit” tour to Uyuni and that left the day after she had been in bed all day… Luckily, and with some help of some medication, Sal felt well enough to give it a go and hup on the 4×4 to do the tour.
At the moment we have just arrived in Uyuni and finished the 4 day tour. Sal made it through it! It wasn´t easy on her, but she hung in there and got through it, while still being able to enjoy the tour. And the tour was very enjoyable!
OK, maybe not all the time spend in the jeep… about 9 hours a day was a bit much, but it was worth it! We saw the most amazing landscapes! Deserts, lagunas, vulcanos, flamingos, thousands of llamas and to top it off the largest salt planes in the world, Salar de Uyuni! A 4 day tour we will definitly remember for a long time!
Now we are waiting for the bus to take us to La Paz! Very strange to actually be in La Paz tomorrow morning. Especially as I left Australia and said goodbye to Sal´s sisters, I told them we would meet again in La Paz, and that just sounded so weird at the time, and now it will actually happen! Looking forward to see them both at La Paz airport on the morning of the 25th!!
That´s it for now! Hoping to upload some photos in La Paz!
Take care you all and keep smiling! X
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