In the great land of the Steak !!
Well hellooooooo from Argentina !!
Ive been in Salta now for a night, and am already in love with the city, and country. Its warm.. no, its HOT, Im wearing boardshorts and things again!.. and at a measly +1200m altitude, the breathing is easy and weather sweet. Its a very nice change to be in a European-styled city, where the buildings all have roofs and the toilets have toilet paper in them!
I spent the last day on trains and busses getting here from Uyuni - Bolivia, our last adventure spot in that crazy crazy country. We (Me, Gaby, Paul & Aaron - the aussie contingent) finally escaped from Adventure Brew hostel in La Paz and got a bus to Cochabamba, a beautiful lively town, for an intersting dance party in an old hotel. It was fantastic to hear LOUD music again with real BASS.. the night was complete with fireworks in the air, and fireworks in the crowd.. no one was injured ;) We went out to some clubs the next night with some locals we met, but alas didnt have the latino stamina for all night dancing so made it an early one and vamos'd to Oruro the next day, another pretty little town with crazy market that we made the most of for our impending salt flat adventure in Uyuni. We all caught the train and met an aussie/sth african couple Elizabeth & Aidan on the way and made a group for the 3-day tour of the Salar de Uyuni. We lazed around for one day and saw all that the little town of Uyuni had to offer.. something in between a ghost town of the wild west and some strange other-world space port !"@#($!!!~
We left mid thursday morning with our guide and driver in an old Toyota Landcruiser, leaving the town that hadnt had any power for the last 24 hours. As such, the petrol station couldnt pump any fuel, so we drove to San Cristobal in the hope of filling up there... so the 3-day tour turned to 4 days as we spent an unscheduled night in San Cristobal.. undeterred we spent the night drinking and playing cards and having a great old time.
Friday, we were off ! On what was supposed to be the 'boring' day of long driving and little to see, it was amazingly spectacularly beautiful. The desert landscape, colours and contours were like nothing I'd ever seen before, truly incredible. We got to see Dali's rocks.. a surreal natural landscape and the valley of the rocks.. basically a alley with big rocks :)
Followed up by Laguna Colorado.. pink coloured water with pink coloured flamingos.. my first flamingos! We finished the day off with the sulphurous geysers and then Laguna Verde, coloured green by copper and arsenic and right on the border of Bolivia-Chile.
The second (third) day was a cruisy one, more lagunas, more flamingos, an active volcano and a rock shaped like a tree! We arrived at our pre-salt flat accomodation with plenty of time to spare, and spent most of that looking out over the massive, flat, white space that we were to visit tomorrow.
We missed the sunrise unfortunately, something to do with our guide being super pissed-off at something, and taking it out on us for the rest of the day, which we clearly took a lot of notice of when you see the photos.. This was the day that we were waiting for, hours of mind-bending salt flat illusionary fun taking photos with our ridiculous props and similarly silly imaginations. A fantastic couple of hours in the blinding-white environment, followed by a quick visit to the environmentally unfriendly salt hotel-now-salt-museum-due-to-public-outcry, and another quick stop at the salt mines.. we were home by early afternoon, tired, dirty, sunburnt and landrovered-out, a fantastic trip !!
We saw Aaron off that night, back to Adventure Brew hostel in La Paz to continue working, had a couple of hours sleep then Elizabeth, Aidan and I got the 3am train to the border of Argentina (9hrs), crossed over rather effortlessly and got a bus to Salta (7hrs).. and here we are! We were ravenous by the time we got in and hunted down somewhere for a good steak, and my oh my we werent disappointed !!!!!! Best steak Ive had in about 9 months.. I think Im going to like it here :) :) :)
So i'll hang around until Gaby gets here, and then probably hang around a little longer then head south to the wine region of Mendoza, the capital of Buenos Aires, and hopefully some nice coastal town with some waves until I head off from Sth America in a month... off to London and Holland before my last stop in India (wish my belly more luck!!!!)
OOOOOooo K .. its been nearly 4 hours in here getting all these photos and emails sorted, I hope you have fun looking at this little bit of my trip, it was a blast !!!
(( Uyuni & Salar de Uyuni ))
(( Other Peoples funny photos ))
Ciao ciao friends !
Lots of love
Brendon
Ive been in Salta now for a night, and am already in love with the city, and country. Its warm.. no, its HOT, Im wearing boardshorts and things again!.. and at a measly +1200m altitude, the breathing is easy and weather sweet. Its a very nice change to be in a European-styled city, where the buildings all have roofs and the toilets have toilet paper in them!
I spent the last day on trains and busses getting here from Uyuni - Bolivia, our last adventure spot in that crazy crazy country. We (Me, Gaby, Paul & Aaron - the aussie contingent) finally escaped from Adventure Brew hostel in La Paz and got a bus to Cochabamba, a beautiful lively town, for an intersting dance party in an old hotel. It was fantastic to hear LOUD music again with real BASS.. the night was complete with fireworks in the air, and fireworks in the crowd.. no one was injured ;) We went out to some clubs the next night with some locals we met, but alas didnt have the latino stamina for all night dancing so made it an early one and vamos'd to Oruro the next day, another pretty little town with crazy market that we made the most of for our impending salt flat adventure in Uyuni. We all caught the train and met an aussie/sth african couple Elizabeth & Aidan on the way and made a group for the 3-day tour of the Salar de Uyuni. We lazed around for one day and saw all that the little town of Uyuni had to offer.. something in between a ghost town of the wild west and some strange other-world space port !"@#($!!!~
We left mid thursday morning with our guide and driver in an old Toyota Landcruiser, leaving the town that hadnt had any power for the last 24 hours. As such, the petrol station couldnt pump any fuel, so we drove to San Cristobal in the hope of filling up there... so the 3-day tour turned to 4 days as we spent an unscheduled night in San Cristobal.. undeterred we spent the night drinking and playing cards and having a great old time.
Friday, we were off ! On what was supposed to be the 'boring' day of long driving and little to see, it was amazingly spectacularly beautiful. The desert landscape, colours and contours were like nothing I'd ever seen before, truly incredible. We got to see Dali's rocks.. a surreal natural landscape and the valley of the rocks.. basically a alley with big rocks :)
Followed up by Laguna Colorado.. pink coloured water with pink coloured flamingos.. my first flamingos! We finished the day off with the sulphurous geysers and then Laguna Verde, coloured green by copper and arsenic and right on the border of Bolivia-Chile.
The second (third) day was a cruisy one, more lagunas, more flamingos, an active volcano and a rock shaped like a tree! We arrived at our pre-salt flat accomodation with plenty of time to spare, and spent most of that looking out over the massive, flat, white space that we were to visit tomorrow.
We missed the sunrise unfortunately, something to do with our guide being super pissed-off at something, and taking it out on us for the rest of the day, which we clearly took a lot of notice of when you see the photos.. This was the day that we were waiting for, hours of mind-bending salt flat illusionary fun taking photos with our ridiculous props and similarly silly imaginations. A fantastic couple of hours in the blinding-white environment, followed by a quick visit to the environmentally unfriendly salt hotel-now-salt-museum-due-to-public-outcry, and another quick stop at the salt mines.. we were home by early afternoon, tired, dirty, sunburnt and landrovered-out, a fantastic trip !!
We saw Aaron off that night, back to Adventure Brew hostel in La Paz to continue working, had a couple of hours sleep then Elizabeth, Aidan and I got the 3am train to the border of Argentina (9hrs), crossed over rather effortlessly and got a bus to Salta (7hrs).. and here we are! We were ravenous by the time we got in and hunted down somewhere for a good steak, and my oh my we werent disappointed !!!!!! Best steak Ive had in about 9 months.. I think Im going to like it here :) :) :)
So i'll hang around until Gaby gets here, and then probably hang around a little longer then head south to the wine region of Mendoza, the capital of Buenos Aires, and hopefully some nice coastal town with some waves until I head off from Sth America in a month... off to London and Holland before my last stop in India (wish my belly more luck!!!!)
OOOOOooo K .. its been nearly 4 hours in here getting all these photos and emails sorted, I hope you have fun looking at this little bit of my trip, it was a blast !!!
(( Uyuni & Salar de Uyuni ))
(( Other Peoples funny photos ))
Ciao ciao friends !
Lots of love
Brendon