On Salt, being a tramp, and the world´s best steak

Afternoon y´all,

Soooo - where was I? Salt Flats. Well, the journey there was a little more tricky than anticipated. What should have been an easy transfer to Uyuni turned into an impromptu stop-over in the tourist-hating hell-hole of Oruro, where we were ripped off, scammed, shunned and scorned and had a thoroughly unpleasant time. This was mainly on account of my inability to move any quicker than a pitiful hobble, thus causing us to missing two buses and me to be unaffectionately renamed ´limpy Longfils´. Anyway, when we finally arrived in Uyuni via nightbus we jumped straight onto a tour of the Salt Flats and sped away to one of the eeriest places in the world. Imagine being in a David Hockney picture entitled White/Blue. That´s the salt flats. Massive expanses (12000 squared km to be exact) of flat, white, 40 thousand year old salt, topped with cloudless blue sky, spreading out in a glittering, glaring, snow-like landscape. We had a lot of fun posing like idiots among the snow mounds, saw a train cemetery and some salt processing, and were whisked off to our salt hotel (a hotel made entirely of salt) by our inept, useless and bolshy guide to spend an afternoon awaiting dinner-time. And there was nothing to do there. After the initial 5 minute long novelty of staying in a salt hotel wore off, we explored the surrounding desolate desert and salt - akin, I imagine, to being on Neptune - to find only more desert and salt, and nothing of any more interest than a couple of unclimbable wannabe mountains. Nothing to do. Nothing. Absolutly NOTHING. Faced with such a predicament, (Grandma, do not read the rest of this sentence) there was simply no choice but to get *blind* drunk and entertain ourselves with a stuffed armadillo. We discovered said armadillo fortuitously on a window ledge and named him Kirky, after the illustrious Mr. Adam Kirk, esq.. Kirky was great.

The morning after the night before was spent nursing horrendous hangovers and trying to unravel the mystery of where-did-Kirky-go. (It turned out the hostel owner confiscated him and locked him in a room well out of harm´s way - (Spoil sprts!) - a room which, I should add, apparently underwent numerous drunken and thwarted break-in attempts to rescue Kirky by Pete and me). We were then taken to the Galaxias caves, where we shimmied through petrified cacti forests, marvelled at moon-like caves of ancient fossilised coral (which would have been underwater 40000 years ago when the salt flats were actually a lake), explored a cemetery in another cave, went to what was once an island and gazed out on its white sea of salt, and argued with our rubbish guide to make him take us to a volcano specified as a highlight of our tour. Numerous threats of reporting him to the Lonely Planet later, we got a good view of an awesome volcano, stumbled on a flock of flamingos and saw some (salt) water springs to pot. Not bad all in all.

And after Uyuni, the epic trek to Iguazu began. Commencing with an obscenely early bus (and a serendipitous view of a lunar eclipse!!) to Jujuy, our descent into trampery began. Wearing approximately 13 layers of clothing in a bid to ward off the subzero cold, not having showered for 7 days (too cold to undress!) and having slept and lived in the same clothes for 5 days solid (again, too cold!), we reached Argentina smelling terrible, looking destitute, and thinking we had finally attained tramp status. An overnight stop-over in a cash point with a bonefide tramp while waiting for a connecting bus proved us wrong, however. I now consider the true point of my acquisition of trampliness to be when I started to envy our tramp his cardboard box. Moving on...some 1700 km, a shower in Salta and several packets of Oreos (my favourite travel food - oooh, the chocolatey goodness) later, having passed through Paraguayan capital Asuncion and had a do-it-yourself city tour by Ruth, stopped over in the most corrupt city in South America, Ciudad del Este, we finally got to Iguazu. It. Was. Amazing. Utterly amazing. We spent a day on the Brazilian side (got stamped in, but forgot to get stamped out again...so I figure I will be in Brazil for the rest of my life??) and one on Argentina´s side. Got lots of photos. Got wet.

And one 17 hour bus journey later, and we are now in Buenos Aires. Perhaps my favourite place so far. We are staying in a funky hostel full of travellers, soaking up the sights, drinking red wine, seeing tango, and eating our body weight in the most excellent steak in the whole wide world. Mmmmm... Ruth and Matt fly home tomorrow, so one big night out tonight to celebrate our travels...and then it´s just me and Pete. Pete is currently masterminding a trip to Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia. Being adverse to the cold, however, I think I am going to stay put here in BA for the next while...and I will tango my socks off, eat meat, and let you know more about the awesomeness of Argentina´s capital next time.

Ciao for now

xxx