crossing the andes, aka, landing on mars

IT´S UPDATE TIME, MI GENTE

we are in... san pedro de atacama... in Chile! (AGAIN.) that´s right folks, after 12 days in argentina (I discovered this by examining the stamps in my passport) we are back in the C-town! i am not quite sure how or why this has happened but anyway our next stop is BOLIVIA and that is pretty exciting!

we got here by taking a 12 hour bus. normally we take buses during the night-time if they´re that long but we had to cross a border, which is kind of impossible at 3am, so here we are. also turns out the scenery between Salta and San Pedro de Atacama (i.e. the mountain crossing over the Andes) is pretty much the most amazing thing I have ever seen, so you wouldn´t want to miss it by travelling at night. it was so beautiful I felt like they were making a joke out of it. as Lion said: ¨hey, you want desert? WE´LL GIVE YOU A FREAKIN´ DESERT.¨ the best part (though there were lots of best parts) was when we noticed that the moon had risen over these craaaazy red rock structures. it looked like Mars.

the worst part was experiencing the truly winning combination of 1) altitude nausea and headacheyness (as did Lion), 2) a stomach bug which came upon me halfway through the bus trip as I realised that I was running kind of low on toilet paper (before you are disgusted, don´t worry, I figured it out without anything gross happening) and 3) my mp3 player battery dying. (but Lion was very nice and lent me her mp3 player for a while to take my mind off things. also, she filled out my customs declaration for me and then I just raised my sick little head in order to sign it at the end. thanks, little one!)

all up... certainly a mixed bag of a bus trip. however, several tablets and some coca leaves later I was feeling a bit better. (don´t worry Mum, coca leaves are not the same as cocaine. you would need about a busful of coca leaves to make about a gram of cocaine - okay not that I know the maths but it´s something like that - and I had five leaves. it´s just a herbal-remedy kind of deal. it tasted like crap but maybe it helped a bit?)

oh! also, we saw hookers! that was wierd. we had to walk to the bus station at about 6am this morning in Salta, and it was still (just) dark, and there were all these women in short skirts (I think one may have been a man but I am not sure) standing in the middle of the street near our hostel. ¨things your Mum might not want to read about on your blog #234¨

okay I should go a) find Lion b) rest and acclimatise to the ol´ altitude and c) eat dinner, so that´s all you get for now. but stay tuned... another post is being drafted!