Arrived in Chile and decided that Arica was the Chilean equivalent of Slough. Sat around being shat on by birds and eating lots of icecream..things got worse (!) when we were rudely awoken by Chilean border control deciding it was necessary for us to take our bags off and back on the bus at 2 am for no apparent reason!
Some of us did horse-riding in San Pedro. Having decided that the Spanish names for the horses were rubbish, we renamed them Walter, Kevin, Chuck, Daisy (which turned out to be a bloke – nice one Debbie!), Arnold and Jeremy. We all headed off to watch the sunset, where a random German lady knew about the sunset than Rob. Crossed the border into Bolivia, which was a wooden hut. After Rob’s hilarious April Fool’s, pretending the bus had broken down we headed to our jeeps. Tom, with an oscar-winning performance, convinced Emily that due to his financial situation would have to leave Quest – even managing to shed a few tears!
The first few days were spent checking out the Dali rocks, lakes, flamingoes and Rob falling off rocks. All American Climbing Team, my arse! On the first day we bathed in the hot springs. Although we consider ourselves pretty offensive tourists, we were put to shame by a guy in pink sunglasses who is now called the pink penis (three guesse why!). On the second day we saw the geizers (hot spots in the earth) and a volcano. It was such a nice change to have people cooking for us after the hot chocolate debacle in the Colca Canyon. We also renamed our group Qwestside..and so began Qwestside Story…
Girls and boys became two warring factions as to who would ride in the nice jeep to the salt flats the next morning. The boys concocted a plan of pure genius (Fred’s opinion, not Emma’s of course!) to get to the jeeps first, by locking the girls in their rooms with gaffer tape (thank you Quest budget!). With Rob as ring-leader and Soph and Emily joining forces, there could only be one result. Spent the day taking piccies on the Salt Flats, and enjoying the good weather and a pancake and beer breakfast (ironically suggested by the most responsible adult). We also enjoyed hearing a Bolivian myth about a lactating mountain creating the Salt Flats!
After seeing the Salt Hotel, we headed to the train graveyard, which turned out to be much less exciting than anticipated, except for Rob and Tom.
Returned to Uyuni to have the best pizza in Bolivia, and then to the night bus of hell to La Paz!