En Route to Argentina

After a solid seven hours of bone jarring and teeth rattling in the Land Rover, our trip to the Salar came to a conclusion and we arrived back in the lovely pit also known as, Uyuni. I hadn't wanted to spend more than a couple hours there the first day and was certainly not keen on hanging out for any additional leisure time. On our way back from the Salar we picked up a little French gal who told us that the protests and roadblocks were significantly worse than a few days prior and that there was no way our bus to the Argentinian border would be able to leave Uyuni tonight. The sassy little wench was so adamant about the lack of possibility that she nearly had my friend Rould hoping on a combi to Chile so as to avoid the mess all together. This would have left me to brave the situation alone, something that I wasn´t terribly excited about. We spoke to several locals who had just come from the area the girl said was blocked and all refuted her information. Frenchi was not too thrilled on being wrong and thus the sassiness was only exasperated by these replies. We decided she was full of crap and that we would stick to the original plan. Immediately upon arrival back in Uyuni we checked in with the bus office and discovered all was a go!!! Momentary relief ensued. At this point I should mention that we were about to embark upon another tour of the silky smooth Bolivian country side but this time via a public bus (at the time of purchase tourist bus tickets didn't appear to be an option). Promptly, at nine PM we loaded up and took off, my first punctual experience in South America! Due to the fact that we were still cruising through the Altiplano in the dead of winter, I decided to don five pair of pants and equally as many tops, including several coats, a scarf, a couple hats and gloves. I looked hot in every sense of the word. We also found a stash of alpaca blankets provided by the bus company in an effort to protect against the cold. After wrapping my legs, I prayed the thing wasn't lay den with small pox or some other delightful disease... As it turns out all was completely necessary as the driver repeatedly insisted upon opening the windows to let the chill in... My layers were also beneficial in providing cushioning from the shock of the bus bounding down the pock marked road. Buses here soar down roads that appear to be comprised mainly of speed bumps with little regard for the ill effects such jarring may have on machine or mammal. The concussion your body receives each time the bus actually touches down is probably equivalent to that inflicted by shaken baby syndrome. Roughly ten hours later Rould and I rolled into the border town of Tupiza at the glorious hour of 7 AM. A quick walk of 5 or 10 blocks and there she was, Argentina, in all her glory! I don't know what it is about this country but it has been calling my name for months, maybe years... Agh a fresh breath of air, I was finally there. The border crossing was easy as pie and Rould and I could hardly contain our excitement, EVERYTHING was cleaner, nicer and better developed here and we had only come 50 yards into the country! At this point I was lugging wayyy too much crap with me (I had collected souvenirs for Krista to take back with her) and was struggling beneath my forty layers of clothing and copious bags as we made our way to the bus station in La Quaca??? or something like that, the border town on the Argentinian side. Being Saturday morning and all, the one and only bank was not open and we were left without enough cash to purchase our necessary bus tickets! Positive thoughts and prayers helped immensely as we arrived at the station we met a man willing to exchange our few Bolivianos for Arg. Pesos (albeit at a very poor rate) and then were able to buy bus tix on a credit card ($20 for 7 hours) Woo hoo! We only had to wait about five minutes until we boarded our bus to Salta, Argentina. Rould bought us some nasty fried dough for breakfast, a sweet gesture though... The bus was lovely and spacious and the roads in Argentina are actually paved!
About two hours into our seven hour journey to Salta, I woke from the first bit of real restful sleep I had in days because I realized we were stopped and people
were all a bother with something. I waited it out for about 20 minutes by watching some terrible Nicholas Cage movie about the end of the world. Then finally asked some girl what was up and can you even imagine my astonishment when she said there was some sort of political protest and the road was blocked? Yeah, not surprised... After about an hour or so we managed to somehow make it passed the mess in the street and continue on our way to Salta. Finally, a few hours late and really dirty, still wearing the four pair of pants I'd been in for the past several days, we made it safely to Salta! Raold and I looked at each other and both exclaimed in glee that we were "finally in Argentina!!!" Raold and I attempted to find a hostel based on the guide book's outdated recommendations which only resorted in a useless cab ride and subsequent 45 minute with all our crap on a mission to find another hostel... We finally found Terra Oculta, a tiny joint with only dorm space available. I was over walking and gladly accepted! Woo hoo my new home for a couple days!