Life in the Altiplano

Bolivian bus travel is quite an experience after the comfortable bus rides in Argentina. In Argentina you pay 10 times more but buses are mostly new and comfortable and they serve wine and food on board and always have toilets. This is not how it is in Bolivia. Buses are old, the wind blows through the walls, windows don´t stay shut, buses are packed with people and sometimes people just sit on the floor. Sometimes the bus stops for an hour without an explanation at the most random little village. Sometimes someone yells “baños” and people run out and pee next to the bus and jump back in. We took a bus from Uyuni to Tupiza (travel time officially 6 hours, real travel time 8 hours) starting at 6 am. All the locals had huge blankets and warm clothes with them, and within the first minutes we knew why… A lesson learned: always take the buses during the day from now on. It is freezing.

We arrived in Tupiza in the afternoon. We were happy to sleep in a warm place for a change and just relax for a few days. Tupiza was the perfect place for that. It is a small town with amazing quebradas around it. People are friendly, food is good (even if every restaurant has exactly the same menu) and it is very safe. A river runs through the city, but in the dry season most of the water is hiding somewhere else and the dry river is used for different purposes: dumping rubbish, moving donkeys and horses around the city, some even drive trucks down there. You can easily spend a few hours just exploring the markets filled with textiles, shoes, spices, electronics, and whatever you might need. Besides watching local people living their lives, there is not that much to do in Tupiza. Which is a good thing.

After a few days relaxing we decided to do horse riding for 3 hours, which is a cheap and fun way to spend the day. Horse riding seems to be the safest and the most comfortable way to explore the surroundings of almost any town in Bolivia. Our guide was a boy surely no more than 13 years old, but the horses knew the route through the valleys already so it was easy enough for us even without any experience with these creatures.

From Tupiza we took a bus to Potosi, one of the highest citiest in the world at the elevation of 4,090m. It is historically an important city, because of the silver mines (also known as the most dangerous mine in the world) that brought wealth to the people and made it one of the biggest cities of 1600's. Even if the silver is gone a long ago, the mines are still working, now digging up other, less valuable minerals. Because of asbestos and all the other nasty stuff the miners breathe, they are likely to die 10-15 years after entering the mines. Over 8 million slaves and workers have died in the mines. Toxic gases, their devil Tio who lives in the mountain, high risk of getting silicosis and big explosions are still not enough to scare away the workers hoping to hit a rich vein of minerals. Average pay for all this is about $10 a week. Also young children, whose parents cannot afford school, work there. The children start their day the same as older miners: chewing coca leaves, that reduces appetite, helps to concentrate and helps working in the altitude.

You can do tours into the mines, but it is dangerous and quite sad. We thought it would be interesting to visit, but mentally bit too much for us, we decided not to, even if the miners are usually happy to get visitors. Later on we saw a documentary about the miners, and we were happy with our decision.

Instead of doing any tours, we spent days just walking around Potosi (enough excercise in these altitudes!), visiting a museum, enjoying good food and planning ahead. Soon we had enough of freezing cold nighs and constantly having trouble to breathe, so it was time to move on again, this time towards lower grounds to Sucre.

Leaving Argentina

From Cafayate we took a bus to Salta, the main city of the state with the same name. We read that it has a population of over 500'000 people and as we both aren't big fans of cities we weren't expecting too much....

The drive towards Salta leads through the Quebrada which we visited last week and we were able to see all these amazing colours and rocks again! Somewhere on the way the driver went out to check the tires and at the next bigger village we stopped at a "gomeria" and the mechanic worked hard for almost an hour with help of the driver to change the one tire that had blown up with loads of "helpful" advices from locals that gathered around our bus... The weather changed rapidly when we got out of the gorge and it was overcast and cold in Salta.

 

There aren't many attractions in the city, it's basically just a place to stop between two buses or to do tours from. One "attraction" is a cablecar on the hill next to the bus station called "Cerro de San Bernardino" (almost sounds like home for swiss people...) with a view over the city and the mountains (the last only with good weather though). We were glad to have spent another couple of hours and spent another few with looking for a museum which we eventually found closed....

Salta from the hilltop

Happy to move on we took another bus the next morning toward San Salvador de Jujuy - normally just called "Jujuy" - this time on the top front seats with a great view of everything happening on the road (much more than back home...) and arrived in Jujuy in the late afternoon in the same weather, just a bit colder again.

Jujuy

Jujuy is quite a big city it appears much smaller though, with hundreds of market stalls in every place not taken by the traffic and mostly run by indigenious people from Argentina and Bolivia. The hostel we booked was called "Yok Wahi" and we recommend to stay far away from this place as it is run down, barely warm water in the freezing cold bathroom next to the freezing cold bedroom and staff that leaves you wait outside the hostel on the street for 10 mins... (later it turned out to be a different hostel than we booked over hostelworld.com but with the same e- mail address and way description but both hostels accuse the other of cheating and using the same name...)

Jujuy

The next day we took a local bus to Humahuaca, again on the top front seats, able to see the amazing gorge we drove through! Humahuaca is a pretty town in the mountains on 2400m, full of Indios (and herds of tourists) surrounded by nicely coloured mountain ranges. It's also the place were we dropped our postcards with stamps worth over 60€... On the way back we caught the local, local bus which seemed to stop at every house we passed.

Humahuaca

Finally, the next morning we boarded our coach toward Chile, again on the best seats! (Yes, on purpose) We highly recommend this trip over the Andes, with superb views changing after every bend and climbing over a pass at almost 5000m, passing several salt flats, herds of donkeys and llamas and this all with walking speed, the big bus gasping for air so as everyone aboard (and at least one lad puking because of the altitude). The exit stamp at the argentinan border was quickly done and we kept on moving. After the highest peak the road went steep down, flattening out in the desert of Atacama where San Pedro the Atacama is located where we stopped at the customs and had to queue for over an hour and they even scanned our backpacks, the first time so far in south america. Just after the sun dropped we found our hostel where we will spend the next week adjusting to the altitude and doing trips to nearby sights...

 

Desert town, wine heaven

Arriving to Cafayate felt like we had come home. Cafayate is a small town with a population around 12,000 and only 40 rainy days a year. It's surrounded by mountains, cactuses, desert and vineyards. It's a cute little place with just enough restaurants and shops to keep you entertained, but not too much to scare you away. There is plenty to do around Cafayate if you are into desert and nature sights. We were planning to stay in Cafayate for a few days, but ended up staying 8 nights and even then we felt like we could have stayed longer.

 

We decided to rent bikes to explore the surrounding area and do a hike up to a waterfall, which sounds very nice and easy until you realise that it's midday with 30 degrees and you're going uphill only. What was 5km on a bike felt like much more, but eventually we found the hiking trail to the waterfall. We were told by locals that the waterfall is impossible to find without a guide. We tried to follow the river anyway, but had to admit that they were right. We got very close to it, but the last climb up was too dangerous when you are just trying to guess the right way, so we gave up and instead just enjoyed the afternoon walk. And it wasn't a bad walk at all.

 

Next day we did a tour to Quebrada de Cafayate, which is a long valley following a river between colorful mountains. Amazing shapes, colors and views.

 

One day we spent tasting wines in the vineyards in town, and the next day was for recovering... Never tried wine in ice cream form before.

 

Before leaving we wanted to go to the ruins of Quilmes. It is an archaeological site, ruins of a 1000-year-old city that was inhabited by 5000 people. They are supposed to be the best preserved ruins in the country. A must see. They make tours from the town, but it was a bit pricy for us, so we decided to take the local bus instead. The only bus going early goes at 6 in the morning, next one is at 2 in the afternoon, so we decided to take the morning bus. It's an hour ride from Cafayate and after that it's a 5-kilometre walk in the dark before sunrise. Desert nights are freezing, but the sunrise over the cactuses and mountains was worth it all. We finally made it to the ruins in the early morning light. We were only expecting some ruins, but nobody told us that they were located partly on a mountain hill with a breathtaking view over the valley. So we climbed up the hill to have a breakfast with a view over the ruins while the sun was getting up. Not a bad start for a day.

We spent the day exploring the ruins and wondering the purposes of the buildings, chasing llamas and goats, trying to spot wild guinea pigs and birds and just enjoying it all. In the afternoon we caught a bus back to Cafayate.