From the Deep Soth to the Altiplano

We’ve decided on a detour from our original itinerary! The basic idea was to head back into Chile, to San Pedro de Atacama. But we’re writing this from 2,950m in the town of Tupiza in southern Bolivia, where Simon is a little breathless but Jon is taking it all in his stride! So what has happened?
We set off on a morning flight with LAN from El Calafate to the Aeroparque in Buenos Aires, where we found what must surely be the world’s best airport bookstore. One entire wall is devoted solely to Latin American novels, with other parts of the shop specialising in poetry, politics or sociology. They have a decent selection of Mario Vargas Llossa, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, together with the entire series of the complete works of Jorge Luis Borges. Quick! Our flight to Salta is boarding; put those books down and hurry along through security! So our second flight of the day catapulted us as far northwest as it is possible to fly in Argentina. The city of Salta didn’t try very hard in persuading us to tarry, however: we needed to obtain some bus tickets, and fast! We were expecting an arid landscape, with weather to match. But it was drizzling in Salta, and the large bus terminus began to offer some alluring alternatives.
There was a late-night departure available to La Quaica, a frontier town which sits in the far north of the country on the border with Bolivia. The price was a bargain, and the otherworldliness of Bolivia was calling loud and clear. A massive Hawaiian pizza and a bottle of local Chardonnay later and the deal was done: we would head for Tupiza. Where? Read on…
The night bus was semi-cama and we awoke around the 07.30 mark as we drove into La Quaica. The rain had been torrential during the night, causing the sand and dirt of the streets and surrounding countryside to turn into thick, coffee-coloured mud. Shopkeepers and stall-holders tried in vain to brush this mess away from their doorways. We found a café and constructed a fantastic breakfast of very strong coffee, media lunas (small croissants brushed with a sweet syrup) and peach milkshake. Then it was onwards on our march over the border into Bolivia. Land border crossings are always great fun, especially if we can get to walk over. This one was almost in the same league as entering into Bangladesh!
Over on the Bolivian side, the town is called Villazon. Here the main street is lined with craft shops and money changers. It seems that the Bolliviano-US Dollar rate is 6.9. Try as we might, it’s impossible to better this rate; the price of everything here is a revelation in comparison to Argentina! The women look stunning in their array of skirts, bowler hats and bright, multicoloured shoulder blankets. In fact, many of these ladies were wearing the shoulder blankets over one shoulder and under the opposite arm in order to carry their young children on their backs. We seem to have entered a truly magical world, and it feels very much like we are back in Asia.
At the bus station we think that we have missed the 08.30 departure for Tupiza…. But wait, there’s a time change we seem to have forgotten about: the clocks go back an hour; plus, the bus was over half an hour late leaving. There’s no semi-cama for us here, thank God! This is a REAL Bolivian bus, with ordinary people going about their daily business and an over-enthusiastic young laxative salesman giving an impassioned oration. Yes, it’s surreal. Yes, it’s wonderful!
The journey to Tupiza began quite steadily, but as the bus climbed to higher reaches the roads faded out into bumpy, muddy tracks. With this, the landscape also changed into what just about everyone would imagine a desert to be like, but with a twist! Sure there were rocks and stones in varying shades of beige as well as sandy patches, but the abundance of prickly cacti really made it. Canyons, gorges, thin and tall towers of rock all complemented the desert landscape, and their multi-coloured strata took us mentally to the Wild West! Perhaps they are trying to complete a new, paved road which winds its way northwards, intertwining with the railway from Villazon. But it looks like this project has ground to a halt, and in any case the most fascinating parts of the journey are when we make a detour down a dirt track into a tiny, mud-brick village. The adobe houses aren’t even finished off with whitewash in this part of the country: the village landscape resembles that of the places we encountered in Rajastan, or perhaps the settlements in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco. After the glitz of Argentina, this jolt into the
Developing World becomes all the more sudden and shocking. But it puts us firmly back where we want to be!