Grinder backpacking South America

Quote: Rigondeaux

I didn't know all the Chinese left Peru.

I believe the government encouraged them. Ten percent of the population but all from one province. Major departures in sixties and seventies.

Great report, thanks.
I was curious as to how much the tip you gave to the Uber driver compared to in the US. Was it like a HUGE tip for him? Worth as much as he usually made a day? I just have no idea what the average wage is there.

Quote: Hullabaloo

Great report, thanks.
I was curious as to how much the tip you gave to the Uber driver compared to in the US. Was it like a HUGE tip for him? Worth as much as he usually made a day? I just have no idea what the average wage is there.

I would say it would be the equivalent to about 5-8 hours driving with Uber depending on how much Uber takes.

We had booked a bus from Lima to Ica and then from Ica to Paracas to see the Ballestas Islands. We took the 9:30 am bus to Ica and arrived around 2 in the afternoon. The bus was large, comfy and as an added bones they sold decent snacks. Upon arrival we checked our bags at the bus station for the next bus and then grabbed a taxi (if you can call it that) to Huacachina which is pronounced "Wockacheena". This taxi was so small and decrepit that I was amazed it got all 4 of us to Huacachina 10 minutes away. Huacachina is very neat, it is a lagoon and palm trees with a small village that is surrounded completely by desert.

You can go sand boarding or rent dune buggies but sadly we were short on time so we explored instead. We grabbed lunch at one of the many spots available around the lagoon. We each got the combo lunch, mine came with cold potatoes in a cheese sauce and fried fish nuggets with fries and rice. The guy called the fish chicharron but I think he was just calling it that for the tourists. Either way the fish nuggets were very tasty so I don't care what he called them! After lunch we walked up the sand dunes which is a lot harder than it sounds. Walking uphill in sand is not easy luckily we didn't climb that high. The views of the village were pretty cool and well worth the climb.





We climbed down, emptied the 20 pounds of sand from each of our shoes and grabbed a taxi back to Ica. We had 30 minutes to kill in Ica so we went for a short walk and grabbed some gelato before boarding the bus to Paracas.

We got to Paracas pretty late, there were no taxis so we walked for 20 minutes with our heavy bags to the hostel. After checking in we went in search of dinner, after looking at half the restaurants in town (all crap) we ended up at one of the local spots I wanted to eat at in the first place. Kyle and Amy were already over eating local food at this point so they were trying to find western food. I on the other hand was thrilled with where we ended up. We ordered the combo dinner, if you haven't noticed yet they love their combo meals in South America. I got the clams which for some un-G-dly reason came with a ton of parmesan cheese melted on them. They weren't bad but at the same time they weren't good either. The seafood rice (I ate a lot of seafood rice in Peru) was excellent! I made a honest effort to eat as much seafood on this trip as humanly possible, when in Rome right?

We booked a boat trip to the Ballestas Islands for the next day before calling it a night.

In the morning we had breakfast at the hostel before heading out to the dock with our tour group. We took a boat to an island where we saw a bunch of birds, that stop felt mostly like a time filler and didn't seem necessary to the tour.
Kyle and Amy are too cool!

Then the main event! The Ballestas Islands are amazing! The Ballestas Islands are a group of small islands with a bunch of amazing wildlife. We saw a bunch of different birds before we came to the Humboldt Penguins!

Penguins are more interesting!



Those penguins are so damn cute, I am so glad that I got to spend a few minutes watching them in their natural habitat. The rocks are covered in tiny mussels and a few crabs here and there. The area has a very pungent smell and the water was quite frothy. The guide told us the smell comes from all the bird poo and it is full of nutrients. The government spends quite a bit to collect the poo, I can't say that I know what they do with it. I was sitting at the front of the boat and I was able to talk to the guide the whole time getting amazing information as to what we were seeing as we moved through the area. Next we started seeing a few sea lions here and there, then dozens and then hundreds! Sea lions are beautiful creatures and quite agile too! It was really neat seeing a sea lion climb out of the water after eating and using its large flipper to climb up this massive rock so easily.





Around this time we saw a few tiny baby birds and then we came to the beach where all the sea lions were hanging out. There were hundreds of them and they were so loud! The noise that they make is called a bark and boy were they all barking up a storm. I was in awe watching all these beautiful creatures interact with each other. I am so glad that we made the trip down to Paracas to see the Ballestas Islands, the tour was well worth the trip.
So many of them!



After the boat dropped us off we grabbed lunch on the boardwalk. I had raw fish in some sort of sauce and then fried fish and seafood.



The food was mediocre so we avoided that spot when he tried to get us to have dinner there again that night. He even tried to bribe us with free beer to come back but the food wasn't worth a return visit. We spent most of the afternoon by the pool at the hostel having a drink. Midway through the day I started to realize how burnt I got from being on that boat for two hours. My arms and shoulders were burnt which is normal but both of my hands had a bad sunburn on them as well which I have never had before. The sunburn would turn into a very funny looking tan over the next couple of weeks. That night Kyle and Amy went for Italian food (In peru... oy vay) while I went back to the place we had dinner at the night before. I had the seafood rice again and ceviche instead of the weird cheese clams. This is the point where I decided to stop trying ceviche, I just don't enjoy the heavy citrus taste. The two main things that a friend told me to have in Peru were ceviche and Pisco sours, I didn't like either of them lol.

The next morning we had a quick breakfast at the hostel before catching the morning bus back to Lima where we would be flying to Cusco from the next day.

The bird poop is a great fertilizer. It is also used to make explosives.

Was there a restroom on the boat? The water looked kind of rough.

Did you try the Inca Kola?

I've seen the cans and wondered how it compares to RC or Pepsi.

Great pics!

Quote: PokerGrinder

The government spends quite a bit to collect the poo, I can't say that I know what they do with it.

They use that for the froth in the pisco sours.

Nah.

Bird poop is great fertilizer and islands around the world have been harvesting it for ages.
Nauru is a good example:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/nauru
They pretty much destroyed their island trying to get all of it and now that it's gone they have a hard time making ends meet for the 10,000 inhabitants, (on an island with a 5 kilometer diameter). In the 60's they had the highest per capita income in the world.

I actually tried Inca cola for the first time one day after Paracas, it tastes like cream soda, I was a fan.

That's a lot of bird poo. Inca cola is great. It's in the "Mexican" section at the local grocery store. Seems to me that's kind of a "3 Mexican countries" kind of "Mexican" but I'm just happy to have access, I guess. My friend Pam is a Wisconsinite bartender. She gave more insight about the sour/egg thing. In Wisconsin, there are different liquor licenses and health requirements for bars/pubs/restaurants depending on if you make money from food 0%, <50%, >50% relative to alcohol revenues. And, at least in Wisconsin, eggs are food (but fruit garnish isn't). So bars without food can't add the egg to the drink.

Just about every egg laid in the USA has a high risk of contamination by salmonella. Are the eggs used in whiskey sours specially produced to avoid the bug, or is it expected that the alcohol kills the bacteria? I would double worry in a country like Peru.

The liquid in the glasses at the restaurant PG said was mediocre didn't look clear. I assumed it was lemonade, but, maybe not??

Lmao ya its definitely not Mexican. Inca Cola was created in Peru in 1935.

We got back to Lima on the bus from Paracas midday. We were staying by the airport out of convenience since we had to be at the airport for 3:50 am. Kyle and Amy refused to eat Peruvian food at that point so we ended up at a roasted chicken restaurant. My chicken and fries came with a salad, oh how I missed salad. South America is not big on salads for some reason, I was so excited when the salad came that I ate it all before touching the hot food. I tried Inca Cola for the first time and I was pleasantly surprised that this yellow soda actually tastes like cream soda.

After lunch we spent a good 30 minutes fiddling around with the one fan in this overheated room. The fan was slightly broken and no matter what we did to it the head would end up pointing to the bottom right. We eventually gave up and resigned to the fact that the room was going to be very warm that night.

Amy was tired and wanted to stay in so Kyle and I went to a couple of casinos. I had four on my list that I wanted to visit but there were a few more on the same street that we stopped at. All the extra ones that we found ended up being slot casinos so we left quicker than we entered. Our first stop was Miami Casino where I won 15 Soles over a couple hands. Luckia Casino Kyle decided to play too and won while I lost 20 Soles. There was a weird moment where a man in a suit came up behind us and demanded our name, he kept saying "Nombre". We eventually gave him our name, he left and we laughed out of confusion. Next up was New York Casino (they have a weird USA city obsession with their casinos) where we both won a few Soles and had some free tasty pork with rice. Our last stop of the night had no tables anymore but they had a free buffet so we had dinner, why not? The pork was good, octopus was not so good and the fruit was a nice touch. We headed back to the hostel to grab a couple hours sleep before our flight in the morning.

Let me start by saying NEVER FLY WITH PERUVIAN AIRLINES! Ok, now that I got that out of the way we can move on. Every Peruvian Airlines flight that Kyle, Amy and I took over the next week was either delayed or cancelled. We were booked on the 5:50 am flight to Cusco but 36 hours before the flight we all got emails saying that flight was cancelled and we had been moved onto the 4:50 am flight. We arrive at the airport for the flight only to find out it has been delayed! The flight would get delayed one more time before eventually leaving for Cusco. More on Peruvian later...

We landed in Cusco and took a cab to the hostel, he spent the 20 minute ride trying to sell us tours through his company. I guess trapped tourists are a good audience to sell tours to. We got to the hostel and I immediately started feeling funny from the elevation. Cusco is 3400 meters (8000 feet) above sea level so altitude sickness is very common. I almost fell over from light headedness when we were climbing the stairs in the hostel. The hostel provides coca leaves to chew on or to make tea with that really helps with the altitude. I had some tea, grabbed a spinach and mushroom omelette and then went to the movie room to sleep for a couple of hours since we couldn't check into our room yet.

I woke up 2 hours later and checked into my bed and then slept for another 2 hours, early morning flights are awesome! When we all woke up we headed to the market, we bought some random snacks and souvenirs before heading out to explore Cusco.





The night pictures didn't work very well.

I forgot to mention how nice it was to have chilly weather after the insane heat of the last few weeks. It was about 5 Celsius in Cusco which was a huge drop from Lima and Paracas where we got burnt every day. Kyle and Amy had Subway for dinner...

We got lucky that Amy checked her email because we found out that we had to pick up our previously bought train tickets to Machu Picchu that night before they closed that night at 10. We ran around like crazy people trying to find this ticket place, the first one was closed then the travel spot we went to had an old lady who told me where to actually go. We rushed over to the next office which was luckily open and we were able to get our tickets printed. Kyle and Amy went back to the hostel and I went in search of food as the place I was going to eat was now closed after the ticket ordeal. The only thing I could find at that time of the night was a place that served me hot dogs and fries, not fancy but it did the trick.

like your shirt......go sox

Quote: ontariodealer

like your shirt......go sox

Seems like they are going to last place.....

I didn't read everything. Did you see the Nazca Lines?
I remember the central square of Cuzco like it was yesterday.....
I remember the oasis in the sand dunes clearly!
I remember pisco sours.... we were on a tour and were served them at every stop.....

YOU ARE A FREAKING LUCKY GUY!!!!!!!! (And smart...)

Quote: SOOPOO

Seems like they are going to last place.....

I didn't read everything. Did you see the Nazca Lines?
I remember the central square of Cuzco like it was yesterday.....
I remember the oasis in the sand dunes clearly!
I remember pisco sours.... we were on a tour and were served them at every stop.....

YOU ARE A FREAKING LUCKY GUY!!!!!!!! (And smart...)

Hey! They are just letting everyone get a lead to make it more interesting this year!

I didn’t get to the Nazca lines.

Me too but I was there 2 months ago lol.

Again me too but read previous comment.

Ugh pisco sours...

I always thought people that had lived at high altitude for generations would make great athletes, like Kenyan marathoners. However, I don't hear about Peruvians in that context. Is it because they tend to be short?

There's some kind of corn mash moonshine that Peruvians who live in rual areas are known for. Did you have a chance to try any of that?

Quote: Ayecarumba

I always thought people that had lived at high altitude for generations would make great athletes, like Kenyan marathoners.

I don't know about Peru, but there is a Mt. Everest Marathon:
http://everestmarathon.com/
Nepalese took the first 18 places, (with the top woman at 9th), and a Austrian took 18th.

The course varies from 3,550 meters, (11,646 ft), to 5,369 meters, (17,614 ft).

There are some interesting video's and documentaries about it. Sherpa's seem to be pretty small too, so I'd guess the Peruvians would probably give them a run for their money.

No I am not sure what drink you’re talking about? Oh wait, are you talking about chicha? I had that in Colombia, it’s gross lol.

Quote: PokerGrinder

No I am not sure what drink you’re talking about? Oh wait, are you talking about chicha? I had that in Colombia, it’s gross lol.

Sorry, it wasn't corn based. It's yucca based. It's called masato. For some reason, it's a woman who has to chew it up to mix in her spit because raw yucca is poisonous. The spit has enzymes which break down the starch in the yucca to sugars which can then be fermented into the hooch. It appears that the production of chicha is similar, but it is corn based.

And c'mon PG, you drank TOE. Peruvian woman spit has got to be a couple steps up from that.

Quote: Ayecarumba

Sorry, it wasn't corn based. It's yucca based. It's called masato. For some reason, it's a woman who has to chew it up to mix in her spit because raw yucca is poisonous. The spit has enzymes which break down the starch in the yucca to sugars which can then be fermented into the hooch. It appears that the production of chicha is similar, but it is corn based.

And c'mon PG, you drank TOE. Peruvian woman spit has got to be a couple steps up from that.

I drank chicha. We were guests at a small village and our guide basically told us it would be rude to not drink some, or at least fake it. The dental hygiene of the 'spitters' left a tad to be desired. But I actually drank some. Forgetting the spit, it still tasted bad.

I had forgotten this episode in my life until you reminded me.....

Quote: SOOPOO

...I had forgotten this episode in my life until you reminded me.....

Hehe... I'm sure the bowl of chicha didn't help your brain cells.

This time on the travel channel... Machu Picchu!

Kyle, Amy and I woke up at 4 am to get to our 4:50 am bus to the Machu Picchu train. It was raining and there was a heavy fog that morning. The bus ride was quite bumpy which made it really hard to drink hot coca tea on a bouncy bus. We arrived at the train station about 2 hours later where we had about 25 minutes to use the bathroom and grab drinks or food. I walked around the street that led to the train but didn't find anything that I wanted to eat outside of a banana. Most of the stuff was overpriced as they had a captive audience. Once we had passed through the gate to board the train I found a little cafe that had pastries and I bought a chocolate croissant.
Waiting for the train.


I was very glad that I had because the meal served on the train was gross! They gave us a wrap with nasty cheese, a bit of chicken and a ton of carrots inside. We also got a side of the nasty cheese and a drink. The train ride took about 2 hours to reach Aguas Calientes which is the city at the bottom of the valley below Machu Picchu. The 360 train had a neat feature, there was a train car that had a open top and sides to see the amazing scenery or as they called it the "outdoor carriage".




When we got to Aguas Caliente we went in search of food. Amy and Kyle made us look at half a dozen restaurants because they wanted pancakes, I had my eyes set on some alpaca. We settled on a restaurant and the waitress sat us at a table. The prices were not surprisingly very expensive as they were in the whole town. My alpaca was good but nothing special.

Alpaca is a tougher meat, not as tough as the horse I ate in Colombia but still chewy. It was good even though the cook way over salted the mashed potatoes and gravy that came with it. We had to find the waitress after about 20 minutes to place our order and then we never saw her again other than when she dropped off our food. When we were done I went and asked her for the bill. She gave it to me with a 20% service charge on it, I chuckled inside and told her I wasn't paying it in Spanish. She immediately took it off the bill, I assume that is normal especially when the service was nonexistent. Tipping in Peru is very small if at all. Most places will add 10% and then nothing more is necessary and at small places locals leave 1-3 soles as a tip. The garbage cans in Aguas Caliente are frogs which is awesome!


From Aguas Caliente you can either hike up for 2-3 hours or take a round trip bus for $24 USD, we chose the latter. When we got to the top we were approached by a few guides, we haggled with a woman and got down to 120 soles for the 3 of us combined. The guide was very good and I'm glad we had her with us. Usually I don't like having a guide because I find that they give way too much information for my liking. This was true at times with her but Machu Picchu is one of those places where it's great to have someone to explain different areas to you. We spent about two hours walking around Machu Picchu and taking a ton of pictures. It started to rain a bit near the end of the guided tour but we managed to not melt. We paid the guide and she went to find her next group of tourists.


The lighting made this a tough picture, this was the best one that I got.






We spent another 20 minutes or so inside, mostly playing with llamas. The llamas didn't seem to care that we were there and didn't react at all to being pet. They were eating and that was the most important thing to them. The llamas were quite wet because of the rain but how often do you get the opportunity to pet a llama?


Our original train tickets had us waiting for 4 hours after we were done in Machu Picchu so we went to see if we could grab an earlier train. They had one but it was a $24 up charge which I happily paid. Amy and Kyle chose to stick around and wait, to each their own I guess. I grabbed a empanada and some Peruvian corn nuts at the train station. Peruvian corn niblets are much larger than the corn that we are used to in North America. The train ride was uneventful, I watched Netflix most of the ride. The train provided food was much better this time. They served us a chicken and avocado sandwich without any of that nasty cheese. When the train arrived we were hurried into large vans instead of a bus, they said it had something to do with rock slides due to weather but I didn't see anything on the drive back. I was worried that Kyle and Amy wouldn't be able to get back to Cusco that night but they got back without any issues.

I spent the rest of the night taking it easy in Cusco. That whole day was very long and it took everything out of me. I am very glad that I did it though as it was an amazing experience. The train tickets round trip to Machu Picchu were $150 USD, and the entrance fee for Macchu Picchu $45 USD. I'm not sure if I should include this in the price but the round trip flight from Lima to Cusco was just over $200. The reason I listed that is I don't think many people go to Cusco if they aren't going to Machu Picchu. Overall it was an amazing but expensive experience that I would suggest to anyone interested.

The morning after Machu Picchu I had an 11 am flight to Lima with a long 10 hour layover in Lima before we flew to La Paz, Bolivia. Kyle and Amy were taking the flight a few hours after me to Lima for cost reasons. The flight was again sadly on the terrible Peruvian Airlines and what a surprise... it was delayed! I know that I have said this before but I will say it again, I will never take Peruvian again! Luckily it didn't matter that I was delayed for 90 minutes as I had a very long time before my next flight. Kyle and Amy however were delayed for 4 hours (on Peruvian) and were seriously worried whether they would make the flight to Bolivia (they did).

Upon arrival in Lima I was thrilled to find out that I was able to check my bag, I really didn't want to carry that thing around for the next 8.5 hours. I spent the next 30 minutes attempting to get enough people to do a Pokemon raid in at the gym in the airport without knowing who in the airport was playing. Yes I am a dork. After more than 30 minutes we got enough people and were able to do the raid. I had decent Chinese food in the food court, the options were pretty limited. A guy I met on the plane from Cusco happened to be in line behind me and helped me order as my Spanish is pretty pitiful. I face timed my Baba because it was a few days before her birthday and I wouldn't have any wifi for a few days in Bolivia on her actual birthday. She always gets so excited when I call her from random countries; I think she has mastered the Face Time thing at 92 years old with help from Aunty Susan. The next couple of hours crawled by while I watched Netflix. I sat on the floor against the wall so I could use the charging plug and made old man noises when I attempted (don't worry I succeeded) to get up a few hours later.

That night was the Super Bowl between the Patriots (I'm a huge fan) and the Rams. American football isn't a very big thing in Peru but I was able to get the bar to turn on the game for me. They didn't know what game I was asking for and seemed surprised when they found the channel. I bought a cinnamon bun and sat at the bar watching the game. Around halftime my stomach informed me that the Chinese food was a bad idea After a quick trip to the bathroom I made my way through security. Security in Lima are on my sh*t list. They took away 2 snow globes that I had bought in Cusco because they said they don't know what liquid is in them. I fought with the lady for a couple minutes before moving onto her supervisor who also wouldn't budge. Pissed off I gave up and walked away mostly because I didn't want to miss the game. I have taken snow globes in my carry on luggage through more country borders than I can count and I have never had an issue. Can't win them all I guess.

I watched the second half of the game outside the TGI Fridays where Kyle joined me eventually. With about 4 minutes left in the game I walked towards the gate on a commercial and found another TV. The woman at the gate said it was last call but the ticket said I had 10 minutes until the doors closed. I asked them if I came back in 7 minutes would I be allowed on the plane and she said yes but I really needed to board now. I took that answer and told her I'd be back in 7 minutes. I went and watched the TV around the corner. I got to see Gostkowski hit the game clinching FG with 1:13 left in the game and then I boarded. Kyle laughed at me as I got on. I watched the last minute of the game on my phone with the last little bit of data on my SIM card. Like I said I am a HUGE fan.

We got to La Paz just before 2 am and took a taxi to the hostel, one of the shittiest hostels that I've stayed in. It somehow took them 25 minutes to check the 3 of us in, the night staff seemed like they had no idea how to check someone in. Normal check ins take 3 minutes, 5 if they are slow. The check in turned out to be the least of our issues at this hostel.

We woke up at 9 the next morning and booked our Salt flats tour at the hostel agency for the following day before we went out for the day. We also changed USD to Bolivianos because you can't buy them outside of the country. Walking in La Paz is quite the workout as everything is either uphill or downhill. We went to a popular restaurant to get saltenas which is a local favourite. They are very similar to empanadas or for someone who doesn't know what that is, a pizza pocket I guess lol. We had the beef, chicken and Hawaiian ones. The beef and chicken ones each had some veggies and sauce in them while the Hawaillan was ham and pineapple. I burned myself on the chicken one; I didn't realize that it would shoot scalding hot liquid at me when I bit into it. They were good but I much prefer empanadas to saltenas.

Our next stop was the San Pedro prison which is right in the middle of the city. It is such a weird concept to have a prison there right across the street from a park. I got yelled at in Spanish by a guard for taking a picture and he made me delete it. We walked to the market as it started to rain, the rain is so cold at that altitude. I bought some finger puppets for my cousin and an alpaca sweater for a friend. Kyle tried to pay with a 100 bill and was told it was fake, clearly it had come from the hostel as that's the only place we bought money.
The women wear interesting outfits in Bolivia.


We went back to the hostel to rest for awhile and deal with the money. I told the girl what happened and she claimed that she couldn't help us. I told her she would because she is the one who gave us the fake bill. Then she said we had to wait to talk to a manager the next day and I said no we are leaving at 5 am. After 10 minutes she finally exchanged the fake bill that SHE gave to us lol.

We were told that it can get really cold in the salt flats and we weren't sure if we had warm enough clothes. The plan was to go for dinner and hopefully find somewhere to buy some warmer clothes. After searching the area Google maps took us to for a good 15 minutes we managed to find the restaurant Kyle wanted to go to and wouldn't you know there was a little shop right there too. I bought an alpaca sweater which is super comfy and we all bought a hat and gloves made of alpaca. All my stuff cost me about $36 Canadian. Dinner was meh because whenever Kyle or Amy chose a restaurant it was most likely western food. I had a burger and a Cajun salad, both were fine but both were not what I would choose in Bolivia. We grabbed some muffins for breakfast and some random cakes at a roadside stand, Kyle ate mine as I thought it was crap. We hit up a supermarket to grab snacks for the next couple of days in the salt flats and I also grabbed some more sunscreen because I accidentally left mine in my carry on leaving Peru and it was taken away.

Here is where the hostel became more useless. I got to my room around 11 pm and there was a note saying I needed to come see the front desk. I had booked a bus from Uyuni to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile for after the salt flats tour while Kyle and Amy were going back to La Paz for a few days before going home. I went to the front desk and waited 10 minutes for my turn while she helped other guests. When it was my turn she told me that the borders with Chile had been rained out. I asked what that meant and she told me I should talk to the girl who booked my trip. She started to call for me, couldn't get her and said she would call a different number. Mid call she hangs up and goes to check in 3 guests that just arrived. I looked at her and said where are you going you were helping me, she said they needed her. I was amazed, how do you stop helping the person that waited patiently to help other people? At this point I am frustrated, despite me asking her to finish helping with my problem she spent the next 20 minutes doing other things and then didn't understand why I was upset when she got back to me. She finally got the girl on the phone who explained that I might be able to get a bus once I was in Uyuni that would take a little longer but their bus won't be able to go. She apologized and told me to get my refund for the bus from the front desk girl. I asked for my refund and the girl said she couldn't so I just laughed. She eventually ok'd the refund and we then had a math problem on the bill. She had trouble figuring out how much I owed for the room and a bottle of water minus my refund. She told me how much which was too low, I told her how much it should be (Kyle is with me at this point) she gave me another number that was still too low. After I tried to convince her how much I owed her Kyle told me to give up and just pay less if she wants me to. This whole thing start to finish took a hour for what should have been a simple "your bus is cancelled and this is why" plus a refund. Let's just say this hostel didn't get a good review on hostelworld. On the plus side the beds were comfy and I met a couple of nice people in my room. My short stay in La Paz was, well just that, short. There is nothing that I would go back to La Paz for or Bolivia for that matter now that I have been to the Salt Flats.

I've definitely enjoyed the pics and detail in this report!

Thanks for the report!

At least she didn't try to give you your refund with the counterfeit $100!

Funny how one bad customer service person (over multiple interactions, though) changes your perspective of an entire country. Glad you were persistent.

BTW, I edited for 1 picture format that had blocked it showing properly. Great report! Thanks for posting it...4 months later. Lol.

More still to come Babs, the next instalment is almost done. I’m a horrible procrastinator. Wait until after I’m done this report I’m still planning on finishing my TR from Europe last September. It’s a good thing I keep good notes lol.

Quote: PokerGrinder

More still to come Babs, the next instalment is almost done. I’m a horrible procrastinator. Wait until after I’m done this report I’m still planning on finishing my TR from Europe last September. It’s a good thing I keep good notes lol.

I like it this way. That way it's not rushed and spreads it out thruout the year.

PS- Babs get back to practicing for Jeopardy.😀

To me the Salt Flats of Uyuni are a ‘bucket list’ item for world travelers.
Congrats.

Quote: SOOPOO

To me the Salt Flats of Uyuni are a ‘bucket list’ item for world travelers.
Congrats.

The salt flats were absolutely amazing, it was cool to be able to cross off two “bucket list” items in a week (Machu Picchu).

I’ve been able to cross a lot of amazing ones off in the last few years. Angkor Wat, Taj Mahal, Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, Pompeii and climbing Mount Vesuvius, Coliseum in Rome and of course I took a shot with a human toe in it lol.

made me think about bucket list items. I really don't have any. Kinda makes me sad.

Quote: GWAE

made me think about bucket list items. I really don't have any. Kinda makes me sad.

You will. Get the kids grown first, then you'll develop a few once they're out of the house.

I actually don’t have a bucket list at all, I just want to see and experience everything. I don’t think any of my travel has been because I HAVE to do this one particular thing.

Quote: beachbumbabs

You will. Get the kids grown first, then you'll develop a few once they're out of the house.

I don't think I have a bucket list. The only thing that I know I want to do is a vacation in the Greek Isles.

snow globes? I have no idea what is in them, probably glycerin, water and food coloring, but mentioning such innocuous materials might help.

Quote: DRich

I don't think I have a bucket list. The only thing that I know I want to do is a vacation in the Greek Isles.

Dr. and Dr. SOOPOO are leaving for honeymoon in Santorini on Friday. If you come drinks will be on me.
We went on cruise to 4 Greek Isles and Montenegro last summer. Wifey loved Greek Isles and decided to go for a week and vegetate on what is considered the most beautiful one.

Hopefully I can give you valuable advice!

The whole Uyuni trip although amazing was an absolute sh*t show. We flew from La Paz to Uyuni at 8 am. We arrived and were picked up by our driver at the airport where we were then taken to the tour company's office. As we were driving we could see that the town was under water from all the rain that they had over the previous few days and it was still raining.
I took this on the morning that I left Uyuni.

When we got to the tour offices we found out that because of the water they were making some necessary changes to the tour. We wouldn't be able to stay in the salt hotel on the salt flats as it was under water so we would stay in Uyuni instead. They also weren't sure if we would be able to go in the hot springs on the second day. Finally as I found out in La Paz both land borders with Chile were currently closed and they didn't expect them to be open any time soon. I tried to get as much information from them as possible. What I found out was that the main border crossing would be closed for at least a week and the other crossing most likely would be closed for 4+ days which would make me miss my 3 days in San Pedro De Atacama and the flight I had booked to Santiago. They told me to check back later that day about the border as they should know more then. We consolidated our belongings down to the essentials and left the rest in their locked room at the office due to the weather making driving with extra luggage not advisable.

Our first stop of the day was at the train cemetery which made a lot more sense then the cemetery that I thought we were going to. Accents are hard to understand sometimes. I don't remember the back story of the cemetery, basically there were a bunch of old rusted trains with graffiti all over them. We spent about 30 minutes taking some interesting pictures.



Our next stop was the salt factory where they take the salt from the salt flats and turn it into useable salt. The guide explained the various stages of the process. He also showed us how they make bricks out of the salt to build the buildings. The guide gave a girl and I each a finished bag of salt to take home. The girl didn't take it, she was afraid what the border might think. I decided to take a picture of myself in front of the piles of bags to prove it was salt if they questioned me at the border. We spent some time buying a few souvenirs at the shops out front before we were served lunch. Lunch was beef steak, quinoa, avocado and some raw veggies that I didn't trust as they were washed in water that we aren't supposed to drink.


This was the final step of bagging the salt for sale.

The buildings are made of salt.


Next up was the main attraction, the salt flats! Wow! That's the best way to say it, just wow! There was about 6 inches of water on top of the salt flats which creates the most amazing mirror. We drove on the water for about 30 minutes taking as many pictures as we could. When we could see other cars driving in the distance it looked like they were driving on a lake. The whole experience was so neat. We got to the middle of the salt flats where there is a building to relax or get a bite to eat. There is also a hotel and a place where people plant their countries flags. The flags get destroyed by the wind so some of them including the Canadian flag were hard to recognize. I did my best to not get my clothes covered in salt which meant a not so attractive rolling of my pant legs to my mid thighs, you have to do what you have to do. My flip flops which have a small padded section soaked up a lot of salt water, I washed them later but they took days to dry. After stopping in the middle we drove a bit further and took some more pictures. At this point the sun started to go away and with it the mirrored ground. It also started to rain so we thought it was a good time to head back.
The pictures don’t do the salt flats justice.




This was after the sun went away and it had started to rain.


The drive back is when everyone started to try and figure out what they were going to do. I needed to figure out how to get to Chile and the couple in our Jeep had a booking at a salt hotel for after the 3 day tour, the problem was that the hotel was completely flooded. Half our group would stay in a hotel in Uyuni with wifi and half in the hotel attached to the salt factory that didn't have wifi. We were able to convince our guide to let us stay in Uyuni with wifi.

When we got back I managed to get into the shared shower first (first shower means guaranteed hot water when there isn't much) and get as much of the salt off of me as possible. When I got out of the shower I was told that the secondary border would almost certainly be closed for the next 4 days which meant I wasn't getting to Chile if I stayed for the rest of salt flats tour. I spent the next hour frustrated as I used the terrible wifi while texting/calling my mom back in Canada to try and find a way to Chile. Somewhere in that time Kyle and I went off on each other for the first time on the trip, it was bound to happen. I had left my wet towel on the floor in front of my bed and for some reason this pissed off Kyle, he got pissy with me telling me to pick it up to which I responded that I was busy and I would deal with it later. He got even pissier and told me to pick it up or he'd throw it out of the room. I told him to back off, that I was dealing with something more important than the wet towel that wasn't even in his way. He threw the towel out of the room, I went and got it yelling at him for being an ass and put it back where it was mostly to piss him off. I continued to yell at him as he walked out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom. I heard him walking back to the room so I started yelling at him again because I was really angry but it wasn't him... It was the old man from our jeep, I apologized and Amy and I laughed pretty hard about that. Later that night after I had figured out my travel plans we both apologized to each other for being as*holes.

Basically what I figured out was if I stayed for the rest of the tour I would have to fly back to La Paz where I would fly to Santiago via Lima, this was an extremely expensive option that would eat away at half of my time Chile. Pass. The next option was to get a hotel in Uyuni and wait for a couple of days alone (Kyle and Amy were flying back to La Paz) hoping that the border opened. Pass. The final option I figured out was that I could skip the second half of the salt flats tour (flamingos and hot springs) and take a bus from Uyuni to the Argentina border, take another bus to Salta, Argentina and then fly from Salta to San Pedro De Atacama via Santiago and Buenos Aires. This option seemed to suck the least and cost around the same as waiting it out in Uyuni for 3-4 days.

I booked the flights (mom did, my wifi was terrible) and when the guide picked us up to take us to dinner he dropped me at the tour company to figure out a bus to take. The lady working was very helpful and almost got me on a bus that night but it was leaving in 10 minutes and I didn't have my bags. She thought I would have to wait until the next afternoon but they found me a 6 am bus going to the Argentina border. I booked that, grabbed my luggage that was locked in the tour company office and headed to join everyone else for dinner.

They served us chicken, potatoes and soup for dinner and it was all very tasty. Two of the girls from our tour were extremely sick from wind burn. It was doubtful if they would be able to continue the tour the next day. Amy was extremely burnt from the salt flats, I had a bit of a burn but nothing to bad.

I was extremely pleased with our trip to the Salt Flats, they were absolutely breath taking. The salt flats are in a very remote area but they are well worth the trek to see the amazing natural mirror.

To start this is a wall of the hotel that we stayed at in Uyuni. The whole wall is made of salt bricks and the picture is also made of salt.


The journey to San Pedro De Atacama, Chile was not the most direct travel route that I have ever constructed but sadly it was the best that I could do. The first leg was a 6 hour bus from Uyuni, Bolivia to the Bolivian border town of Villazon departing at 6 am. I set my alarm for 5:15 but I woke up on my own around 4:45 so I got out of bed and got ready to go find my bus. First hurdle, finding the bus station in the dark with hotel wifi not working. I started walking outside (stepped in a puddle) until I found a guy who told me I was going the wrong way. I turned around and found the bus without too much more trouble. I changed my wet sock when I got to the bus and loaded my big backpack underneath the bus. The bus was mostly empty but we picked up a few more people along the journey. The bus ride wasn't too bad, I took a seat in the very back and went back and forth between watching Netflix and trying to catch little bits of sleep where I could. We stopped halfway and the driver said we had 10 minutes, I got back from the bathroom 5 minutes later and the bus was already pulling away. If I had actually come back in 10 minutes I would have missed the bus.

The bus arrived at the station and I started talking to a German girl, an Italian guy and an Argentinian guy (this sounds like the start of a joke) who all spoke pretty good English. I walked with them to the border that was 2.2 kilometres away. 2.2 kilometres wouldn't be that bad but when it's 35 Celsius and you're carrying a 25 pound backpack and a 7 pound backpack it gets very uncomfortable very quickly. Along the way we stopped at one of the many currency exchanges to pick up some Argentinian Pesos, I exchanged $40 USD which didn't end up being quite enough but I didn't want to end up with too much for my very short trip into Argentina. Just before the border we said goodbye to the Argentinian guy as he wanted to buy shoes before crossing the border. The 3 of us crossed and amazingly got through in less than 15 minutes. Interesting note, Bolivia doesn't stamp you out of the country like most countries I've been to. We got our Argentina entry stamp and headed towards the bus station.
The Argentina side of the border.


The European couple were going to be camping in the border town for the night so we said goodbye. I was going to grab lunch and they were not sure what there plans were. The restaurant I stopped at only had Spanish menus so I just pointed to a guys plate that had chicken and fries and said 'Pollo por favor" they seemed to understand. Little did I know I had ordered a 4 coarse meal. First up was salad with chicken, yams and potatoes, next was the sweet and spicy chicken with fries, rice and bread rolls. When I finished I washed my hands and tried to pay but they brought me more food. The lady brought me a fruit cup so I ate that and asked to pay but she brought more food! She brought me a big bowl of soup which I politely turned down as I really didn't want a giant bowl of soup at that point. Also who has soup after there meal is gone? That seems so weird but I guess that's probably normal in Argentina.

When I walked out of the restaurant the European couple was sitting on the bench up the road so I went and hung out with them for a bit while they had a beer. Shortly after, the Argentinian guy from earlier in the day found us again. I grabbed an ice cream while they drank some more beer. Eventually the Argentinian guy (Gabriel) and I found a van that was going to Salta and off I headed on the next part of my crazy journey. I paid 300 Pesos for the van to Salta, a guy at the bus drop off in Villazon tried to charge me 850 Pesos. I might not speak much Spanish but I know when someone is trying to way overcharge me.

About half way to Salta we reached a police check point where we were told to get off the bus and take all of our possessions with us. The police checked everyone's stuff one by one looking for drugs I assume. They even played people's instruments to make sure that they were real and not being used for smuggling. When it was my turn he looked at my passport and waved me on without checking my bags. I guess I didn't look like a drug smuggler to them. I now know that I can easily smuggle drugs into Bolivia since I am a nice Canadian!

We then waited on the bus for the rest of the people, then we waited some more and then a little more. We waited for 90 minutes total, I slowly found out what was going on the best I could. Some passengers had bought costumes in Bolivia for Carnival in Argentina, they didn't have receipts which was a problem for some reason. Gabriel the Argentinian I met on the first bus told me that the police in Argentina are very corrupt and they were just shaking down the passengers for money because the costumes were expensive so they figured the people were well off. Finally the passengers just left the costumes there and we were back on the road. They apparently took about $2000 USD worth of costumes from the people on the bus.

The rest of the journey was mostly uneventful, a couple cop check stops but those were quick this time. The last check stop a cop came on board and checked 6 local's ID cards and my passport. It caught me off guard when the cop spoke to me in English. I almost forgot, there was a mother with her two kids on the bus and for most of the bus ride her 3 year old slept on the floor of the bus in the aisle on a blanket. I can't say I have ever seen that before, especially not in North America.

The bus's final stop was in Jujuy, Argentina. Gabriel helped me find a private car to Salta for 250 Pesos before he went on his way. The van told me it would be about 20 minutes while he waited for other passengers. I grabbed some street food, fries with cut up hot dogs in them. The driver didn't find anymore passengers so we left Jujuy. The drive took about 90 minutes. I had trouble keeping my eyes open, I was beyond exhausted from the long day. The driver dropped me at a gas station in town and from there I had to take a taxi to the hostel. I left the hotel in Uyuni at 5 am and I didn't get to the hostel in Salta until 2 am. I checked in and crashed until the morning.

The next day was spent mostly roaming around Salta until my 7 pm flight to Santiago via Buenes Aires. I had almost run out of Pesos so I walked to the currency exchange in the insane heat to change $10 more. Halfway there I found a different exchange place and exchanged there at a slightly worse rate because when I'm only changing $10 who really cares. On my way to the exchange place I found this amazing blue castle building. It was odd to see this building in the middle of the city. It was hard to take any good pictures because the buildings are so close together that I couldn't get far enough away to get the whole building into one picture.








I stopped for lunch on my way back to the hostel and had a tamale and a tiny empanada. The tamale was so tasty, if I wasn't so short on pesos I would have gotten another one.



I visited a few casinos in the area to try and collect chips while I was there but sadly the casinos don't open their table games until 6 pm and my flight was leaving at 7. Around 4 I tried to find a restaurant but everything was closed for the afternoon so I ended up grabbing peanuts and Powerade at the small grocery store instead. At 5 I took a taxi to the tiny airport, 3 gates is barely an airport. I used the majority of my remaining pesos on a chicken caesar salad in the airport while I waited for the plane to board. The flight was uneventful, the plane did have hardwood floors which I've never seen before.

The flight landed in Buenos Aires and I walked to the other terminal to check in for my flight. I went to find some food but I didn't have quite enough pesos for a sandwich. I was only short about $.40 USD and waiter told me not to worry about it. I felt so guilty because not only did I not have enough for the food but I had nothing to tip, heck I didn't even know if people tip in Argentina. I ended up leaving the tip in USD not knowing if he could easily turn it into pesos but it made me feel better. After I ate the odd tasting beef, ham and cheese melt, I went through security before a quick boarding to Santiago.

We arrived in Santiago and we've now moved into the next day, I'm obviously getting very tired but the journey still has one more leg. When I landed I found out that I sadly would have to pay $50 CAD for my luggage to be checked. While trying to check in for the flight Latam's (the airline) systems crashed which created a huge mess of people. They started doing manual check in and manual boarding passes for 500+ people. Most of the staff had no idea what they were doing so the lines weren't moving at all. I eventually stopped waiting in the line when it was obvious that I was never getting to my flight on time. I went to the very front and started telling any staff who would listen that my flight was leaving in a hour and I didn't have time to wait in line. After about 20 minutes of bugging them a lady put me next in one of the lines. I got my boarding pass and checked my bag without paying the $50 since their computers were down and I rushed through security to my gate. When I got to the gate they were running behind too because of the lack of computers. They eventually got us boarded and off to Calama. I was starving when I got to my seat so I convinced them to sell me a ham and cheese croissant and a Sprite while the plane was still boarding. I managed to fall asleep for about a hour on the flight basically due to pure exhaustion, I woke up with a very sore neck.

From Calama to San Pedro there is a shuttle that costs 20,000 Chilean pesos or $40 CAD for a round trip ride. The shuttle takes 1 hour and we sat around for 30 minutes waiting for them to fill the van. I had so much trouble staying awake on the ride to my hostel in San Pedro. Luckily once I got there they let me check in at 8 am so I could sleep. I quickly had the free breakfast before crashing for the next 7 hours. My journey from Uyuni to San Pedro was insane but I was happy to have arrived.

To recap, 6 hour bus from Uyuni to Villazon, 4 km walking in the sun to cross the border and get to the bus, almost 6 hours on a bus to Jujuy, 90 minute private car to Salta, flight to Buenos Aires, flight to Santiago, flight to Calama and then 1 hour shuttle to San Pedro. Oy vay!

The “blue castle” is actually a church, the Iglesia Nuestra Senora de La Candelaria de La Vina.

Quote: PokerGrinder

I visited a few casinos in the area to try and collect chips while I was there but sadly the casinos don't open their table games until 6 pm and my flight was leaving at 7.

In similar situations, both in the US and abroad, I have adopted a practice that may or may not work in South America -- I convince the cashier to sell me a chip, then (usually) I play a spin on a slot machine so that I can maintain my claim that I collect chips from casinos where I have gambled. I described my first experience with this technique early in this post.

In regards to the “bricks” of salt, what is the secret to separating out the impurities when they do it by hand? There’s so much brown stuff in them, the bricks look like wafer cookies; but the pile of crystals look pure white.

I don’t remember sadly, that was explained by the guide.

you would think the salt bricks would deteriorate over time

Quote: GWAE

you would think the salt bricks would deteriorate over time

Like adobe, I assume some sort of waterproof/water resistant covering is placed over the bricks to shield them from the elements. Othewise, it would really suck when it rains.

When I arrived in San Pedro on the shuttle the street in front of the hostel was flooded from the huge amounts of rain that they had been getting for the past week.


I didn't overly care until I woke up 7 hours later but once I did I realized that the whole town was flooded. I talked to the guy who worked at the hostel and he said all the tour companies were cancelling tours for the week. Interesting problem to have but relaxing for 3 days after moving nonstop for over a month wasn't a terrible thing. The water was so high on the street in front of the hostel that every time a car drove by water got pushed through the front door. At first the worker tried pushing the water back onto the street but soon realized that wasn't working so he started pushing the water inside the hostel onto the grass in the courtyard.


I met a British guy at the hostel and we decided to go in search of a restaurant to grab some dinner. This was made a little harder by the fact that it had started to rain again and the power had gone out in a lot of this small town. We ended up finding a restaurant that was running on their backup generator. I ordered a sandwich that came with a huge slab of goat cheese, ham and avocado on a fresh roll. Chile is expensive on its own but San Pedro is even more expensive because of its location. The sandwich was $15 which is a lot after some of the minuscule prices I had paid in other countries. We then walked in the rain while dodging massive puddles to a bar we had seen earlier. The bar regained power shortly after we got there and they had a live band. They had a special on Pisco and coke but I had already learned in Lima that Pisco is very strong and it tastes terrible so I took a local golden beer on draft instead. With our drinks they dropped off a plate with 3 chips and some weird dip because Chilean law says that you can't serve alcohol without food.


I tried the chips and dip but they tasted terrible, I'm not sure if anyone even eats them. We spent the next hour at the bar listening to the live music and then headed out. The whole hour that we were at the bar we had a drunk Chilean guy telling us how Pisco is their drink even though it was created by Peruvians in the Peruvian town of you guessed it, Pisco.
The bill was dropped off in a mini shopping cart which is awesome!


The British guy went off to go drinking at another bar, while I headed back to the hostel. At the hostel I met 6 Brazilians who I would spend the majority of the next two days with. That night we played UNO while it continued to rain for most of the night. Interesting fact that I learned was that Brazilians are the only South American country that doesn't speak Spanish, they speak Portuguese.

In the morning I joined the Brazilians for the free hostel breakfast which consisted of fresh bread, tea or coffee and puffed wheat with yogurt on top. The yogurt and puffed wheat was not a good combo at all, most of us passed on eating it. After breakfast we explored the town since it had mostly stopped raining outside of a drizzle here and there.
When in doubt take a picture of a church.


We stopped at a pharmacy that had an ATM so the girls could grab more pesos. They struggled to get the machine to work so I played with the pharmacy worker's dog for 15 minutes. After the girls were finally able to get money out of the ATM we headed to the market in the middle of town. There was a huge crowd and as we got closer we saw about 20 police setting a perimeter around someone, that someone ended up being the Chilean president. I wasn't able to find out why he was in San Pedro due to the language barrier.




We spent 30 minutes looking around the market, sadly I wasn't able to find a second alpaca sweater like the one I bought in Bolivia in the right size. I did buy a couple of handmade wood carving magnets.

This was one of the least flooded streets in San Pedro.


We stopped at a deli like place and I grabbed bread, salami and almonds so I would have some food in the hostel and not have to pay the town's high prices for basic meals. Next we stopped at a tiny grocery store where we all chipped in to buy ingredients that Lizza needed to make Pasta for the 7 of us for lunch. The pasta was excellent! She made a sauce of onions, tomatoes, cream, bacon and Parmesan and mixed the noodles into the sauce. Between the hearty meal and the exhausting travel to get to San Pedro I was quite tired so I napped for 3 hours. Like I said earlier it wasn't a bad thing that I would get to relax for a couple days without much to do.

When I woke up the group decided to play UNO and then Asshole (card game), apparently no matter what country you are from everyone knows Asshole. After about 90 minutes we were getting hungry so we went to a pizzeria a short walk away. I was amazed that we were able to get really good wood fire pizza in Chile. We split 3 large pizzas between the 7 of us. Some of the Brazilians didn't speak much English so they were all speaking Portuguese, I just sat there eating my pizza oblivious to what was going on.

After dinner we walked around looking for something to do when we found a market. After checking each stall I was able to haggle the price down on a couple of snow globes. I then failed multiple times to find an alpaca sweater that was the right size, apparently they don't make them as big in Chile. I rejoined the group and found them dancing and cheering for no apparent reason. It turned out that they were buying these cheap mystery jewelry packages for about $0.40 USD. They each bought one and then told me I had to buy one too. For 200 pesos why not, the locals thought they were nuts as they screamed and cheered as I opened my mystery package. My package had a necklace meant for a child which meant it was the right size for me to wrap around my wrist twice as a bracelet. I actually ended up wearing it for the next two weeks until it started to annoy me.

We headed towards a karaoke bar that a guy on the street was advertising for. On the way one of the girls paid to sit in a little booth on the street while two people did a puppet show for her. She laughed hysterically, she loved it.


I can't imagine how a puppet show could be that funny but I didn't care to pay and find out. I tried to ask her what they did in there but she had trouble explaining it in English. The karaoke bar was fun, no I didn't sing because nobody should have to endure my singing. I wish that the girls I was hanging with had the same thought. Two of the girls went up and tried to make me regret having the ability to hear. I had a really good local Chilean beer called Kuntsmann that is brewed in Chile by a Chilean German family.


Btw this is Andreza and we love her :)


After a couple hours I had a massive headache so I headed back to the hostel with a couple of the girls. I said goodbye to all the Brazilians, 4 of them were leaving in the morning and 2 in the afternoon.

Since all the Brazilians left the next day I spent the whole day doing exactly nothing! I woke up at 8 hungry, had some salami and bread and went back to bed. I woke up again around noon and had bread and salami again for lunch. I spent a couple hours writing an update (yes I know I am still writing the same trip report 6 months later) and fighting the horrible wifi to upload pictures to imgur. I eventually got the update sent out before falling asleep again. Laziness at its finest! When I woke up I went out looking for dinner. It was drizzling so I didn't search very long before I settled on a place that roasts chickens by the dozens and serves them with fries.


I got the smallest combo they had and it was easily enough for two people. I took my food back to the hostel and relaxed for the rest of the night. I really had no energy or desire to do anything. If it wasn't raining outside I might have ventured out again but I was content to just sit and read my book for the rest of the night. At 11:15 the group that was drinking in the common area were given a warning that the common area was closing in 15 minutes. At 11:30 the worker tried to get them to leave the area but the group said they were finishing their drinks. 11:45 and midnight he tried again, then finally around 12:15 when I could still hear them while I was getting ready for bed. I went into the common area and told them all to be quiet as the common area was closed 45 minutes ago. They said they were finishing their drinks, I told them the worker told them an hour ago to finish up and I wanted to sleep. I have no problem being the asshole when it's needed. This is the only downside that I have found with hostels, sometimes you get people who just don't give a crap about the other guests.

The next morning I had breakfast with a couple of Israelis before packing up and checking out. I had booked a hotel in Calama (where the airport is) because the next day I had a 9 am flight. The shuttle picked me up, we drove around and picked up 5 more people before making the hour drive to the Calama airport.
I didn't notice the salt covered mountains while I was sleep deprived on my way to San Pedro.


At the airport I found a taxi to take me to my hotel. When I checked into the hotel they tried charging me a $20 tax because my entry visa said "other" instead of "tourist". I told them I was clearly a tourist and after about 10 minutes she told me to go to the visa office that was a 15 minute walk away. I walked to the office in the insane heat only to be told the person I needed to talk to wouldn't be back for 2 hours. This conversation took a while due to the language barrier. I went back to the nice air conditioning in my hotel room and then two hours later I did the whole thing over again. I finally got to talk to someone at the office that said that I have the correct visa to not pay the tax which means the hotel was trying to scam me, great! I went back and told them this and they played dumb, I assume they have a pretty high success rate on getting foreigners to pay them their fake tax. On the way back from the visa office the second time I looked for some food but all the restaurants were insanely expensive. They wanted $20-$30 for a basic meal, there is no way in hell I was paying that.

My plan for the night was to visit the casino in town and collect a chip. I looked online for the address and Google said the casino was closing at 7 which made absolutely no sense but I rushed over there just before 5 because I didn't know if they kept the weirdest casino hours in the world. I got to the casino and no surprise the casino doesn't close at 7 and the table games don't open until 7 which meant I had 2.5 hours to kill. I had already paid my 3300 peso one time entry to get into the casino so it wasn't like I could even leave and come back. The entry fees were different at each Chilean casino, how do they come up with 3300? That is such an odd number. I looked around and found a few slot machines that were vultureable and then I walked around a lot. I had dinner at the restaurant, a chicken Caesar salad. The time would have been much easier to pass if they had wifi, of course that would have been too easy. I checked out the second floor and then on my way down the spiral staircase I managed to fall flat on my face. The final stair of the staircase was larger than the rest of the stairs which equals me on the floor. A nice couple checked to see if I was ok, I wasn't hurt too much but my ego took a hit lol. I walked over to the BJ at 7, they hadn't started opening it yet. The pit boss told me 20 minutes, then 20 minutes later told me 20 minutes again. The dealer wouldn't deal his first hand until 8:10 a full 70 minutes after they were supposed to open the table. I learned during my six weeks in South America that nothing runs on time. I ended up having another chicken Caesar salad while I waited for them to open the table. I was still hungry and it was cheaper (6500 pesos) than any food I was going to find on my way back to the hotel later. I ended up winning 5000 pesos which basically covered my entry fee so in all the trip was a success minus the falling down the stairs part. I called it a night and went back to my room to watch the Fyre documentary which was excellent!

I am so close to being done writing up my South America trip! My goal is to be done before I go to Cuba, it probably won't happen.

Quote: PokerGrinder

. I learned during my six weeks in South America that nothing runs on time.

Including trip reports.
I was surprised that you at first fell for the visa scam at the hostel.
Do you think those trinket boxes could have been a form of gambling?

Quote: EvenBob

Naw, it's a socialist paradise. I remember a
guy from there 10 years ago on the gambling
forums who crowed and crowed about how
his country rocked and USA sucked. I wonder
what he's saying now.

Hugo chavez was elected in 1999. By 2002, venezuela is at its economic height. Chavez increased oil royalties angered US corporations operating in venezuela. Since 2011, Usa has blacklisted venezuelan oil, the largest oil reserve in the world. In 2011, state (venezuela) oil company PDVSA was hit with U.S. sanctions, while in 2013, state arms manufacturer CAVIM was also sanctioned. More sanctions were imposed in late 2014 against Venezuelan government officials. After Chavez dies, Maduro becomes pres in March 2013 and inflation rises above normal. In 2015, hyperinflation begins. In March 2015, U.S President Barack Obama issued an executive order imposing another round of sanctions, and describing Venezuela as an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the United States. This was the most controversial round of sanctions, and sparked widespread condemnation in the region. The Obama administration was eventually pressured into admitting Venezuela doesn't pose a threat to the United States, though the sanctions remained in place. Trump has considered military action against venezuela but decides to sanction venezuela for now.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/world/americas/venezuela-crisis-facts.html

Kind of rude to throw facts into someone's fantasy world when they build their whole life around avoiding them.

Quote: Rigondeaux

Kind of rude to throw facts into someone's fantasy world when they build their whole life around avoiding them.

I friend whose father was a navy pilot during vietnam said that his family wonders what the vietnamese and koreans were fighting each other for. That is a very long story if you want to know. Cuba is a long story. There are many long stories.

Verterans are confused what happened in vietnam. I saw a self documentary. a soldiers point of view of a confused soldier.

Quote: FleaStiff

Including trip reports.
I was surprised that you at first fell for the visa scam at the hostel.
Do you think those trinket boxes could have been a form of gambling?

I didn’t fall for it, I refused to pay the tax.

The trinket boxes? With the bracelets inside? Not really all the prizes were crap.

Quote: PokerGrinder

... that someone ended up being the Chilean president.

I'm not sure who that guy was, but it wasn't the President of Chile. He looks like this:


Maybe John Belushi is still alive?

Lol the joys of not speaking the language. We were told that it was the president 🤷‍♂️