This morning in Villazon was COLD. My hands were so cold I was losing dexterity. My butt retained the chill of the porcelin rim. And I debated about changing our flights & coming home early. I was not a happy camper-as often happens to me when I'm outside my comfortable temperature range. I used to pride myself on being minimalistic with travel & needing few amenities. Well, I've aged. I like my comforts. (And I'm sorry, Mom, for all the "bad" hostels I made you stay in. But I can promise you none were even close to as bad as the last two we stayed in Bolivia.) This may well be my last backpacking trip. I'm feeling too old. And I'm just not as flexible as I used to be. Or maybe I've just adapted to the comforts of American life. But I find backpacking much harder than I remember 6 years ago. And I'm missing my corporate hotels. Yes. This morning I woke up freezing & discouraged. And to top it all off my scalp is pealing-right at my part and I have a red spot in the middle of my forehead. So I also have a case if the uglies. Yes. It was a rough morning.
After a Luna bar for breakfast, we put on our packs & walked to the border. I actually slipped on a bit of ice. We know temperatures were at least below freezing. We exchanged money & got in line at the border. We walked across into Argentina & waited to be stamped out of Bolivia. That was the easy part. The harder part was getting into Argentina. This was hard because once again, there was an old Bolivian woman who did not want to play by the rules. Picking our battles, we let her stay in line & watched culture at play.
I have Argentine entrance until 2020 so says my visa. Thanks to all the extra pages-the guy couldn't find my visa. He found my visa and my passport was taken & I was told to wait. Chris had paid his entrance fee online & entered without problem. It was nerve wracking to have my passport out of sight & be told to wait. Chris got us a spot in line for customs & I waited for my passport. It was a long 4 minutes.
The line for customs was someone at a table looking into your bag. Supposedly, there was a line for women & one for men. Since the women line had all the kids and all the ginormous bags full of who knows what, I stayed in line with Chris & got through just fine. We were finally out of Bolivia.
We walked to the us station in La Quiaca, the Argentine border town. In asking for directions, Chris noticed that people were friendlier and the city felt safer. We paid $42 USD to get on a bus to Salta. This bus had a bathroom. Sold. Thus we are now happily on our way to Salta. Within the first 30 minutes Chris commented on the smoothness of the roads. This is Chris eating an empanada on our bus.
We also finally got answers about Uyuni and the Salt flats that we were not able to see. The Bolivian border guard said that the bus station collapsed. The ground sank in (obviously explains why there were no buses to there). Then we met other Anericans who managed to go to the Salt a Flats and said they were amazing but there were strikes. The strikers had previously blocked the roads to the bus station but yesterday (when we would've been there), the strikers blocked all roads in & out of the city. These Americans were caught in the middle of the strike where locals had sling shots, knives, and sticks. They said it was the scariest experience she had ever had (and she is an RPCV). Thus we are sad to have missed the beautiful sights but thankful for the Lord's protection.
The sun is out & I'm pleasantly warm as the bus passes by sheep & llamas. I'm ready to continue on this adventure & very thankful to have Chris by my side. And we passed some mountains full of color.
Our bus did not take us to Salta as promised. It took us to Juyjuy where we were told to catch another bus. But really that translated into get into line (2 times before you find the correct line) and hand in these vouchers for assigned seats on a specific bus. We decided to team up as a group of 4 with the afore mentioned Americans. We were outraged when our bus was not for another 2.5 hours! Then the ticketing agent kindly pointed out the time-we had missed the 1 hour ahead time change. That meant just over an hour wait. We set our watches accordingly.
We found some lunch & tried to connect to the internet. Again we purchased over-priced goods with the promise of wi-Fi only to be disappointed. The best find of the day was fresh fruit. Two apples & two pears for $1.23. And now we sit waiting for our bus to Salta. Once we get into Salta, we'll have the task of finding a place to stay in the dark.
Chris and I are still finding our groove of travel. This "free-styling" that we've done since Peru is a bit much for me. We've stayed in some terrible places with sub-par food (not that we could've done anything to prevent it). I'm hoping we can take some time tomorrow in Salta to research places to stay as well as our next legs of the journey. Because the going and not knowing prevents me from enjoying. It's been a L-O-N-G couple days of travel with unexpected detours. My hope is that with a bit of planning, we can find a balance between the "free style" and the planning.
We arrived in Salta at dusk. Chris had a hostel picked out & we headed there in a taxi. Thankfully, we got the last room and can only have it for one night. We'll be sleeping across from each other in twin beds, but there is wi-Fi and we have our own bathroom.
We did not have enough $$ to pay for the room so we headed out on the streets in search of an ATM. although we are in Argentina, we are very North and thus the population reflects indigenous influence (we look like tourists). I hate getting into a new city in the dark & having to find my way around. Also, the ATM would only let us withdraw $124 with a $6 usage fee. We also need to figure out a budget as bus travel is around $100+ per person.
We ate some dinner of gargantuan proportions and are now back at the hostel using wi-Fi and trying to find a place to rest our heads tomorrow night.
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