Chile to Bolivia to Chile to Argentina

I wish I were a better writer so I could explain how amazing and wonderful everyday here has been. Its unreal to live every day and really feel like its being lived to the fullest. I know its cheesy, and I kind of have to roll my eyes at myself, but its just great to be so happy and feel so right all the time.

ANYYYWAY...Getting from Chile to Bolivia was a bitch. Jason, Nili and I took 2 buses totalling around 27 hours to get from Iquique to Uyuni. The second leg of the trip was in basically a converted school bus. It was especially wonderful because we drove through terrain without a paved road. In the words of Nili it was like being in '' a giant vibrating machine.'' It was almost impossible to see as our eyeballs shook around in our heads. What made the trip especially special was the lack of bathroom and the extreme food poisoning I came down with half way through. I'll spare you all the details.

We arrived in Iquique at 4 in the morning. Nili slept on the bus while Jason and I played dominos with some local kids in the street. At around 7 we went to a hostel where we slept the day. That night we headed out for some ''American'' food at a local restaurant owned by a guy from Amherst, MA. It was especially random becaue Uyuni is one of the smallest least interesting towns I have been to yet. We ate fresh baked cookies with whole milk, and the best pizza I have had in ages.

The next day we headed off on our Uyuni trip. My group was 6 people. The three of us, A girl named Jamie from CA travelling alone on month 13 of her trip, a girl named Angela from Framingham, MA, on month 5 of her trip, also travelling alone, and a German dude on month 12 of his trip also travelling alone. At first I was a little concerned, as we have not encountered many Americans and was curious what the dynamic would be like, but these people were so awesome. The first day was pretty chill, we visited the salt deserts and took many crazy group perspective shots (i'll post them tomorrow and you'll see what I mean). Then we visited a train graveyard. Then we headed to our hostel in the middle of nowhere. From there was an amazing Mirador (look out point), that Jason, Matt, Angela and I decided to climb to. It was basically hard core climbing but was well worth it when we got to the top. All you could see was white salt straight to the horizon. Haha, oh yes, I skipped something important. Angela and Matt had been to Potosi, a mining town, the day before. In true boy fashion Matt decided it would be a good idea to purchase bolivian dynamite and '' blow things up.'' While, I was slightly concerned the other 3 thought blowing up a ginormous rock on top of the mirador would be a great idea. Despite being made fun of for saying I didnt want my eyes to blow out, I heard my moms voice in the back of my head and decided to walk about 200 feet away from the rock behind another gigantic rock and watch from there. Angela eventually followed me but the boys stayed close. After around 6 minutes the rock exploded. It was super cool looking and the sound around the mountain was awesome.

The next day we saw flamingos, a red lake, a green lake, and a white a lake, as well as a tree made of rock. Everything was cool. That night the temp dropped to around negative 15 C and we were staying in a joint in the middle of the desert with no heat or electricity. We decided to keep warm we needed to play kings and drink lots of rum. It was lots of fun and we all talked straight through the night and got to know eachother. It was amazing hearing other peoples reasons for travelling and their perspectives on being travellers in general. I will really miss them all though we will hopefully all cross paths in the next month or so.

The next day we arrived in Chili where Nili and I immediately caught a bus to Salta, Argentina. After getting on the bus we realized that the trip was 12 hours. Neither of us were happy about this, though the trip turned out to be the best bus ride so far. Sitting around us were around 20 Argentinian rugby players who attached themselves to us within the first 5 minutes of the trip. One guy had a guitar with him and they sang songs for most of the trip (including an adorable rendition of NY, NY). At one point, as the sun was setting outside, and the mountains were particularly amazing, and the boys were playing an awesome song, I looked over at Nili and realized we were both crying from happiness. Ah...I wish I could explain the moment, or the moments, but I cant. Life is good, life is good.

Last night we arrived in Salta at around midnight. Somehow while I was showering Nili made us plans to go get food with these 2 rastafarian argentinians. We ate sandwiches and spoke in spanish. Tonight we are going out to some cool music joints in salta with them. Should be fun times.

thats all folks....sorry for the length...
Nicole