Well, cama, my ass. This bus was certainly not on par with what we had experienced in Peru, but fortunately, it lasted only three hours, most of which I slept or read through, having become recently absorbed in "The Hunger Games." When we arrived in Potosi, Guy and I bid farewell to Clive, bought our tickets for Uyuni, and began the hunt for lunch. You would think, given that Potosi serves as a connecting point for several destinations within Bolivia, not the least of which is Uyuni, which alone greets over 400 tourists each day, that restaurants would have sprung up by the dozens along the route in front of the bus station. But alas, we walked back and forth, unable to find anything but a pathetic little luncheonette where they hadn't even turned on the grills yet. Nearly an hour after we ordered, our food appeared, we stuffed it into to-go containers, and returned to the bus station. Only when we had found our seats and settled in did we realize that we had forgotten utensils. Thank god for hand sanitizer.
The trip onward held few surprises, although I had not quite understood what it truly meant to ride in a bus over rocky terrain without the benefit of pavement. I still think some of my internal organs may have been shaken loose. Guy, still suffering lingering pangs from his food poisoning and perturbed even further by the teenager behind us who felt no need for headphones when watching some straight-to-DVD action flick, grumbled his disapproval", as he had so many times that week: "Fucking Bolivia."
Yet there was beauty in the largely barren landscape, dappled with trees and rocks. The mountains sometimes in a group, sometimes rising out of the earth, solitary as gravestones, their sides largely green and brown, but sometimes slashed with vivid orange or red, or even a deep purple, like a bruise. And the earth itself, glowing like copper in the sunlight, so much that I almost thought myself in Santa Fe.
Sometimes miles and miles would pass without any sign of civilization. It reminded me of the journey from Arequipa to Puno. James and I had been looking out the window at the arid landscape. We'd seen nothing-- not a building, not a fence, not a soul-- for miles, when suddenly we saw one man clad in jeans and a button-down, standing at least 100 yards from the road, on a cell phone. And then nothing again for miles. We had both burst out laughing trying to imagine the story behind his being there. James had imagined that the man had begun the previous night a stag party in London, only to awake where he was. "Guys, I just woke up, and I seem to be in the middle of nowhere in South America."
At the two-hour mark, the bus stopped to allow for a bathroom break. With no bathroom. Somehow, a small restaurant with candy vendors outside of it did not have a restroom, or at least one open to customers. And so I had the pleasure of once again joining a group of unacquainted women in finding cover behind the local fauna and, for the first time, of accidentally peeing on my shoe. Lovely.
When finally we arrived in Uyuni, Guy and I checked into our dorm and made a study of 5 or 6 tour operators. I leaned toward one of the cheaper outfits, while Guy felt so pleased with one of the more expensive ones that he booked it immediately. I attempted to contact James via the abysmal internet cafes, and finally set a time to meet him the following morning and pick an operator. Then Guy and I stopped in a pizza joint on the main strip where our hostel was located, then returned to settle in for the night.
I had just gotten my kit ready for the shower, when the power went out, or at least was reduced to such a low-level that the lone lightbulb in the room barely radiated at a capacity greater than a firefly's butt. The hostel staff soon appeared bearing candles wedged into wine bottles and assured me that the water would still be hot, so I took my first candlelit shower. Rather relaxing actually. And with that, I was ready for sleep.
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Location:Uyuni, Bolivia
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