Bolivia 6: My heart goes Shalalalala

First stop in the early morning: the fumaroles (steam vents). Not much to say about them, because we were 1) super tired and 2) super cold.

Next, a dip in the hot spring before breakfast. It seemed like this item was on everyone's itinerary, because the little pool soon became filled with tourists. However, the overcrowding didn't mar the awesomeness of the hot water. Total bliss, made all the more so by the brisk morning air.

The rest of the morning was more pretty lake-pretty flamingoes. Lunch was at some random little village. We were hanging out, waiting for yet another flat tyre to be fixed, when I realized that atop a big rock around the corner, was half a propeller plane. Yes, half. The tail half, to be precise. Apparently it crashed about 50 yrs ago and no one bothered to take it down.

The morning was also made memorable by the music being played in our jeep. For the last 2 days, we had been playing music frm Char's ipod. but it was running outta juice, so that morning we turned it off. The driver then decided to play music from his mp3 player. Unfortunately, it had only two songs on it. Yes, TWO. The first one was an English version of a popular Chinese song (Wen bie), and the second one had a chorus that went 'And my heart goes Shalalalala, shalala in the mooorrnning... (etc)'. Those 2 songs were on repeat the whole morning. That's a lot of shalalalalas. No one else seemed to be in hair-tearing agony except for me and Charmaine... We tried our best to sleep, but that nefarious 'shalalalala' invaded my nightmares for days afterwards. I'm not sure if it would've been better in the second jeep. The Australian guys in that jeep openly admitted to being big fans of Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys, and were conducting free-for-all karaoke sessions in their vehicle.

=)

It was a pretty fun trip.

After lunch we had a 5hr drive back to Uyuni. We stopped briefly at San Cristobal, a (silver) mining town. We could hear festive music in the distance. Our cook pointed out the men sitting by the road drinking beer. She said that these were miners back from work. They get paid at the end of the day, then spend that $$ and the rest of the evening drinking. Apparently, they need to drink because mining is really hard work. We asked about the music, and she told us it was a mass wedding. The Christmas period is a popular time to get married, because most people are on holiday.

The rest of the day was uneventful. After getting back to Uyuni, we hopped a night bus to Oruro and onwards to Cochabamba. The bus to Oruro reminded me of the chicken buses in Guatemala. We had assigned seats, but there were amazing numbers of people standing and eventually sitting and sleeping in the aisles. They are not at all shy about sitting on your armrest, or invading your legroom. It was quite an experience.

I had a good time at the Salar! 3d 2n is a good length for this trip. The landscapes are amazing, the weather was good, and I saw loads of flamingoes (my favorite birds because they can stand on one leg), and wild vicuna and llama. The people on our tour were also really fun to hang out with. However after 3days the endless drives in the jeep became quite boring... plus the food wasn't that good. No regrets though. It's like a 3 day trip to Mars!!--- Totally radical, but you don't wanna live there. [note to self: Jason Mraz songs are a perfect soundtrack for a drive around Mars. The shalalalala song is not so good.]