There and Back Again Part 1: Thanksgiving Break

Over the past few months, life has been very full.
This post is to retell the story of my first true adventure in Bolivia - an adventure which did not go exactly as planned. Over Thanksgiving break, (my first Thanksgiving away from home) a few of us teachers decided to take a trip to the Salar de Uyuni, which is an enormous salt desert in Southwestern Bolivia. (Wikipedia can tell you more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salar_de_Uyuni) We had quite the adventure. Maybe more than we had originally bargained for...

So here is the long version of the story (adapted from an email written after the trip)...which is actually still shorter than it could be.
Before I jump into some stories, here are some general pros and cons of the trip:
Cons (I'll do them first to get them out of the way):
-I got sick on the first full day of our trip. :( Our 12-hour bus trip to Uyuni turned into a 16 hour trip because of some blockades. By the end I was getting cabin fever. That itself wouldn't have been so bad, but I couldn't get comfortable to sleep. I ended up sitting on the floor resting my head on the chair at about 3 in the morning which brought me a few minutes of sleep in the long long night. Anyway, that morning my throat was sore which I attributed to a long, sleepy bus ride without much water. By mid-afternoon, I had chills, which I initially brushed off as the "sun going down." But, by dinner, I knew I was probably feverish. I wasn't hungry and I couldn't warm up, so I went to bed really early. After that I had a terrible sore throat, congestion, and headaches, and was just generally tired, which put a damper on the trip for me personally. However, I still enjoyed myself.
-One downside to the tour we took was the amount of driving between each sight" we saw. We spent the majority of each day driving through the middle of nowhere Bolivia (which is beautiful, incredibly diverse, and somewhat alien so we definitely had some good scenery to keep us occupied in addition to getting-to-know-you convos and reading.). The downside was that it took us a very long time to get to each place and we only spent 15-30 minutes at each one. I guess purely "sight-seeing" vacations aren't my favorite way to spend a break (especially considering the long to-and-back bus rides).
Pros: -We saw some AMAZING things! The Salar is really neat. It's just this huge, sprawling desert of salt that seems to go on forever (although it obviously does have an end!). But, one of my favorite thing was the Isla del Pescado which is an island made of coral, covered with huge cacti that pops up right in the middle of the Salar. The theory is that there was once a huge salt lake that dried up leaving the Salar behind? When you climb the coral and look out over the Salar, it looks like you are on an island in the middle of a huge ocean made of ice, covered with sparkling snow. Another really cool sight was the geysers. I've never seen anything like them before! We also saw flamingos in all of the "lagunas" we stopped at along the drive. I would never have thought you would find flamingos in the middle of the desert, but there are hundreds of them everywhere! Along the drive itself, I loved how the landscape changed from absolutely barren desert with mountains in the distance (no life at all - it kind of made me think of "Holes") to beautiful sapphire blue, absolutely still lakes dotted with pink flamingos to green shrubby mountains with little streams running through algae-covered rocks with the occasional llama thrown in. Honestly, that's just the tip of the iceberg! We also stayed in a hotel made out of salt bricks... God's creation is incredible.

-We had several fun moments during the trip including a few impromptu stops in the desert. For example during one of our breakdowns...First of all, we go over a bump and hear this "Bang!" and see a black piece of metal hanging in front of the window. Our driver coincidentally decides that this would be a good time to "get out and take some pictures" (anytime we had car trouble we were told we should "get out and take some pictures"). So we did. Rob had brought along a chicken suit for the Salar, which reappeared during our photo session in the desert.
-It was fun getting to know our Bolivian driver a little bit. At first he seemed a little annoyed by our group, but he warmed up by the end of the trip. I found out he does two 3-day tours every week (and has been for 14 years!) split up by one day in between. He doesn't get any days off. :( I did get to know a little bit about his family though, and I asked him what people believe about God in Uyuni. He told me generally but also added he didn't really know because he doesn't get to talk about it much with people.
-Meeting people from around the world who were traveling through Bolivia (A lot of Israelis and Europeans, some Japanese in the groups we met)

"Adventures" along the way:
-At one of our lunch stops, there were several other tour groups eating, taking pictures, and enjoying the Bolivian countryside. In the middle of our meal, we suddenly witnessed one of the other tour drivers violently throwing his passengers' bags from the roof of their Toyota. After he had thrown the bags down, he shouted a few things at them, reasoned with one passenger, and then sped off, swerving slightly back and forth. It turns out he was "slightly" drunk and when the group asked him about it, he blew up on them. The stranded group decided to split up (one person in several different groups) fror the day, and so we acquired a Japanese tourist named Yuji. Conveniently Yuji spoke good English, and Rob happened to speak Japanese, so we had fun getting to know our extra passenger. Before the group had packed everything up, the drunk driver raced back through the picnic area at break-neck speed, terrifying all of us around, to shout a few last words and get rid of some of their things.
-Tour Toyota Breakdowns: On the final day of our tour we almost lost a wheel! We sat on the side of the road for about an hour while our driver fixed the part that had broken. Later that day, we popped a tire. (A relatively quick fix along the way!) We all agreed, if you have to be stranded with a flat tire, the Bolivian countryside is a beautiful place to kill some time. :)

*BUT ABOVE ALL ELSE...Our BIGGEST Bolivian travel adventure was the bus ride home.
We had hoped the blockades would be done before last night, but we found out that they were in fact still taking place AND spreading. We settled in our minds that we would again be sitting for a 16 hour bus ride. But that was just the beginning...
Chapter #1: Getting to the bus. After arriving back at our tour agency, the women there told us the bus would leave at 8 bound for La Paz. We cleaned up (as in changed out of our dust covered clothes, put on deodorant, and rearranged our bags), and then we set off for dinner at a pizza place down the street. (On the way, I stopped to pick up what I think is the equivalent of Nyquil from the local pharmacy). Dinner was delicious. We relaxed, took our time, and headed back to the tour agency a few minutes after 7. During this walk, the wind was blowing dust everywhere, when suddenly...we met our tour director and her sister in the street racing toward us frantically telling us that the bus was, in fact leaving at 7, and was currently waiting for us! We grabbed our bags and speed-walked 4 blocks through the mini dust storm to the bus station. There we were told we each owed 20 more Bs because of the blockades and the extra gas required. We dug through bags, paid the moola, and took our tickets to find our seats on the bus...which was nearly full. Our seats were spread out throughout the bus, and we got on as quickly as possible surrounded by irritated Bolivians and backpackers who were ready to hit the road. I felt bad for the man sitting next to me, because as I hustled into my seat, I was wheezing (asthma), coughing (asthma + cold), and generally looking like I was infected with the plague. (I should mention, he had the outside seat and had to stand up to let me in and other times when I needed the bathroom during the trip). After the mad rush, we got settled in and hit the road. I took some medicine, listened to a few Podcasts and closed my eyes to get some sleep. (The seats on bus #2 were significantly more comfortable than bus #1, and I was actually able to fall asleep pretty quickly).
Chapter #2:What You Never Want to Hear Your Bus Driver Say
About an hour or so into the trip, I woke up as one of the bus drivers opened the door to the cabin and asked us passengers, "Alguien conoce el Salar muy bien?" (Meaning he was hoping a passenger knew their way through the great salt desert better than the drivers...) After a few minutes, he questioned, "Nadie conoce el Salar muy bien?" And headed back to the driver's seat. I laughed as I looked out the bus window and realized we were taking a very different route than the one we had come on. We were driving STRAIGHT THROUGH the Salar to avoid the moving blockades. Unfortunately, our driver did not know the way. We drove in some direction for a while, found a truck that seemed to know where it was going, followed it for a while, stopped following it, turned around in front of someone's house, and were generally lost in the desert for about 3 hours. I prayed that God would direct our driver and help him to find whatever road he was looking for, and at some point when I was asleep, he must have because...
Chapter #3: Bumpy Buses and How to Push a Bus Uphill
The next thing I knew, we were bouncing along a narrow, dirt and rock-covered road. It felt like the bus was a giant jackhammer based on the bounciness. Suddenly, we stopped. The bus had died...or was stuck...or...something. After about 10 minutes, the drivers asked everyone to get off the bus to help push (This was about midnight). We piled off the bus, everyone who could fit behind the bus struggled to push it uphill (I did not fit behind the bus). Next thing we knew, the bus was ROLLING back toward all of the people who had just pushed it! Thankfully, everyone got out of the way and the driver stopped the bus. I later found out that the bus battery has a problem that only allows it to start if the bus is rolling backwards. This became a pattern in the trip. The bus rolled back down the road, started the engine, and sped up the hill. We walked to meet it at the top. On the road again.
Chapter #4: Bumpy Bus Bathrooms
At this point, I decided I should go to the bathroom before I went back to sleep again. Now, no bus bathroom is particularly desirable. However, a bathroom on a bus, bumping at 40 mph along a dark road is...almost dangerous! I started my journey to the bathroom by running into two people who had stretched their legs across the bus aisle. They did not wake up and I stepped over them as delicately as I could while being thrown side to side by the rocking bus. I ran into Jess who was sitting next to the bathroom in the back of the bus. I spent the next several minutes yanking on the bathroom door, which is a VERY tight fit. It finally banged open, and I stepped in as gracefully as possible. I grabbed onto what I thought was a hold bar, only to fall against the door as the window opened. But that wasn't all...When I tried to open the bathroom door to get out...I was stuck. The door would not open. I body slammed it, turned the lock backwards and forward, pushed on it, hit it. But it wouldn't budge. The whole time, I was still being tossed backwards and forwards by the rocking of the bus. I decided to knock on the door, and as I knocked the door suddenly flew open and I fell out. I didn't see anyone awake so I didn't know if anyone had opened it (turns out Jess was my savior...she said this was a common part of her evening, as was being awakened by the door slamming into her as people tried to open it or didn't close it completely). On the way back to my seat, I stepped over the people who were blocking the aisle, and moved quietly to my seat, until the bus lurched backwards throwing me three feet forward where I grabbed onto what was conveniently my aisle, and climbed back into my seat. Back to sleep...for now...
Chapter #5: What You Never Want to Hear Your Bus Driver Say Part 2
Bump bump bump. I don't know how any of us were even pretending to sleep, but we continued bumping up the middle of nowhere backroads until...BAM! We hit something and stopped. Several minutes later, one of the drivers walked into the bus cabin asking..."Does anyone have a flashlight we can use?" I was still waking up and heard him say..."no electricity" somewhere in his request. Julie, a few other passengers, and I handed over our flashlights, and I laughed/prayed as I realized...our drivers were using our travel flashlights as headlights for the bus! Oh dear. Safety until daylight.
Interlude: Off-roadingI don't know when this was, somewhere between or after the lost/bumpy roads stage, but at one point I looked out of the bus window and realized...we were not driving on a road. We were not driving in the desert. We were driving through someone's field in their backyard!
Chapter #5: Another delay
6 a.m. rolled around surprisingly quickly, as we were once again hustled off the bus just as the sun was coming up (pretty sight!) to push the bus. It took a while, but we eventually were back on the road. Tired, cold, humored? (some of us) by the adventure, and back on the road. AND supposedly we were only about 4 hours from La Paz! (false)
Chapter #6: 4 hours...
This part of the trip was the longest to me. I just kept hoping to see something that looked like La Paz in the distance or...something...We crept along the road...sooo sooo slowly. After 4 hours...and more...we were getting closer. I could tell. But that's when...The bus died for good. The drivers tried to restart it by rolling down the hill into the traffic that was coming up. Didn't work. They messed with the engine. Tried again. Didn't work. Several passengers who were tired of the long wait decided to walk the rest of the way to La Paz (about 10 km) and so, about half of the passengers bailed at that point. The drivers eventually told us they were calling another bus. At this point, we decided to hitchhike back to La Paz. We piled off the bus and immediately were picked up by a mini-bus who took us and 2 other tourists to the highest part of the city (At the same time, we saw most of the remaining passengers climb onto another mini-bus that was passing by). We got to El Alto, but we still had a long way to go. Another mini-bus offered to take us to the central bus station. We gratefully accepted the offer, climbed onto the second mini-bus and made our way to the station. From there, Jess and I caught a cab and FINALLY arrived back in our lovely house, thankful to be home and off of all moving vehicles. I don't know if I've ever been so happy to take a shower and sleep in my own bed before.

In spite of the unexpected delays and "challenges" of the trip, I am thankful we were able to go on the trip. It is fun to look back on pictures, laugh about the crazy experiences, and thank God that we survived our journey through the desert and the mountains (even with some technical difficulties). Things don't always go as we plan. :)