Pushed on through to Chile...

In a bar called La Luna, I spent the night chatting with a Peruvian from Lima I met named Javier. A couple of girls from Buenos Aires were putting on some sort of theater, entertaining though I didn't really understand what was going on. I met some Italians there, an entertaining group of three, Max, Vincent, and Marco.

The next day I went by bus to Uyuni, a 11 hour or so passage on unpaved roads in a packed bus. I arrived around 5:30 am, found a hostel, took a long nap. When I woke I walked outside, and there sitting at a table in front of my hostel were the Italians. We talked for a while in a mix of Spanish, Italian, and English, had a beer, then went looking for a tour company for a passage through the salar de Uyuni. After checking out several, we decided on one recommended by another Italian couple we ran into. The driver was experienced, and a mechanic as well.

The next mourning we set out for the salt plains. Being the rainy season, the whole of the salt plain is covered in water. This allows for some amazing reflections, it feels like your in a plane or something, other moments it is like being in a boat. The Land Rover we rode in was well equipped for the rough ride. Also along with us was an Israeli couple from somewhere near Tel Aviv. They spoke no Spanish, so were always asking me to translate into English, which I enjoyed at first but soon grew slightly annoying!

I had heard a lot of people talk about the Salar, about how amazing it was, and so forth. I figured it was cool, but had no sense of what it was until I arrived. It was like being on another planet, rocks formed by wind that looked like sculptures, a scale that boggles the mind, mountains of many different colors due to the mineral content, turquoise lakes, salt crystals floating in water that form perfect pyramids, high desert with no life, lagoons with pink flamingos flying in formation. Geysers spewing steam into the air, bubbling volcanic sulfur pools at 15,000 feet, hot springs, rocks used by Salvador Dali in his paintings, it was a place that sparked the imagination, made you think about this world and how complex, diverse and amazing it is.

I came to the Chilean border, passed through without incident, and found myself back in San Pedro de Atacama. That night I made the 18 hour passage to La Serena, and just a day after wearing my warmest of clothes, I was sitting on the beach, staring out at the Pacific Ocean in a bathing suit.

On the bus I also met a guy named Alexandro, a Chilean who worked as a guide, played music, recreates ancient native musical instruments for museums throughout Chile. That night I met up with him and we traded CDs, copying several on his brother's computer. Him and his girlfriend took me on a little tour of La Serena, and we ate some fresh fish in a small food stand next to the beach. It feels strange to be back in Chile, it is so western, so different from the world that was Bolivia and Peru. You can walk on the beach and hear people listening to Sublime and AC DC (Ug!) plus the accent is so different, so much harder to understand from Bolivia.

Now I have a little time to reflect on the last month and a half, all those places that I found myself, from the Pacific to Lake Titikaka, Machu Picchu to the markets of La Paz, it has been a journey I will never forget....