The Countdown Begins…

Our trip is drawing to a close, and while we’re working on catching the blog up to present day, we wanted to send out a real-time update to those of you who have been following along religiously (i.e. hi Mom!)

We just got off a 24 hour bus from Tacna, the southernmost city in Peru, to Lima, and have decided to stay here until we fly home on June 3. For those of you who read our first post and are thinking, weird, I thought you guys hated that place, let me explain…

I don’t think we gave Lima a fair shot the first time we were here. Leading up to our trip, we spent months obsessing over the gear we’d bring, wrapping up our jobs, canceling contracts, etc. We gave very little thought to what we’d do when we actually arrived, and when we rolled into Lima – jet-lagged, disoriented and almost immediately sick – the reality of our new, nomadic lifestyle in an “undeveloped” country somewhat overwhelmed us.

I don’t take back the fact that Lima is a gray place where you are in constant danger of being run over by a taxi, but that’s true of many big cities. I see now that when we were first here, and throughout the first weeks of our trip, we were never quite…comfortable. We were having a great time, but most days involved a certain level of anxiety; the people were strangers, speaking the language was painful, and getting around and finding a place to sleep and eat seemed like a complicated puzzle we were constantly having to solve.

Gradually, without us even noticing, this all kind of faded away, and now I laugh about the things that concerned me back in December. How far we’ve come as travelers hit me just a few weeks ago when we crossed from northern Argentina into Bolivia, so I’m going to share that story.

Unlike past border crossings, we were completely unresearched and had made zero plans. We had a bus ticket to the border town of La Quiaca and some vague information about a train to Uyuni that I had found on a website last updated in 2013. We also had about $5 in Argentine pesos.

For some reason ATMs in that part of the country really hated us. For the last few weeks we had been going to different banks, trying several times in a row to withdraw cash and getting lucky maybe 10% of the time. It was like using a penny slot machine as an ATM.

We didn’t have enough money to enter Bolivia or get a bus to a different town if we failed to get cash in La Quiaca, so we were running the risk of having to grow dreadlocks and sell woven friendship bracelets on the sidewalk (I can only assume that the other gringo travelers we saw doing this had been in a similar predicament and it hadn’t ended well).

Still, we felt pretty okay about our situation. Instinct told us that things would just work out.

We gave the ATM one last try in the morning before our bus left and, jackpot! We were able to take out enough to at least buy a Bolivian Visa.

When we arrived in La Quiaca, we weren’t too sure where to cross the border, but we figured if we walked north we were bound to run into Bolivia. Surprise! A few blocks later we found the “river” that separates the two countries.

The customs official wouldn’t let us pay for our Visa in pesos, but agreed to let us go into Villazon (the Bolivian border town) to change our currency to Bolivianos and come back…as long as he could hold onto our passports.

If you had told us at the beginning of our trip to just go ahead and leave our passports with a Bolivian police officer we would have hyperventilated. And while I wouldn’t normally recommend this practice, our read of the situation this time was that it would be fine. We changed money and came back and, surprise! He gave us our passports without any ass-hattery.

Next challenge: where might this train station be, and are trains to Uyuni still a thing?

For the next hour and a half we walked around Villazon with all our luggage following sketchy directions (locals do not ride the rails much apparently). We finally stumbled upon the station, but alas, it was closed for siesta.

We had sweated through about three layers of clothing and were officially over-hungry. We let out some swears, bought some food, came back two hours later and, surprise! The station was still closed. Actually that’s not really a surprise for Bolivia but we decided it was a sign that it was time to give up and get on a bus. Bummer since a train sounded infinitely more comfortable than 8 hours on a gravel road with no toilet, but thems the breaks.

We bought a bus ticket to Uyuni, queued up at 4:00 when our bus was supposed to leave and at 4:20 finally asked the agent WTF. He laughed at us and showed us his watch. There had been a time change when we crossed the border and our bus didn’t leave for another 40 minutes. This also meant the train station had still been legitimately closed when we were there earlier. Damn.

We didn’t have the time or energy to walk the mile to the station a third time with all our stuff so we decided I’d run there and leave the bags with Kristy.

“What would make it worth ditching the bus tickets and taking the train instead?” I asked.

Kristy: “It has to be less than $20 total and leave before noon tomorrow”.

“Deal”.

I ran to the station and found that the train was indeed under $20 but didn’t leave until 3:30 the next day. Tough call, but the conditions had been clear, and the prospect of 24 more hours in Villazon was undesirable. I ran back and we got on the bus.

In retrospect, busing was our only subpar decision as our salt flats tour guide told us later, “that’s the most dangerous road in Bolivia! ALWAYS wait for the train!” Also, the bus got stuck in the sand several times, so the 8 hour ride turned into 10 hours. Also, the bus driver played exactly one song on repeat for all 10 of the hours. This is not an exaggeration; we feel that the only explanation is that he is a member of the band that created the awful jam that still haunts our dreams.

Finally, after a very long day, we pulled into Uyuni at about 2 a.m. The driver pulled down a random side street, turned off the engine and lights and we sat in confused silence for about 15 minutes, assuming that some business was being attended to before we proceeded to the terminal. We finally timidly asked what was going on and a man who spoke some English explained that there wasn’t actually a terminal in Uyuni. This was the final destination, but there were no hostels open at this hour so everyone was just going to sleep on the bus.

“Ummm, not us.” We were skeptical that no one would be willing to take our money at any hour in a tourist town and we weren’t spending another minute on that bus. We easily found a cheap hospejade a few blocks away; we’d officially arrived.

Looking back, I can’t imagine any amount of research or worry would have made this day go differently, and our lack of stress showed me how much we’ve grown. At times we were annoyed. Tired and hungry, sure. But we never felt like we were in a situation we couldn’t figure out.

Anyway, as my wife would say after a super wordy explanation: “long story short…”, we’re giving Lima another go now that we’ve evolved. And instead of spending our last days in motion, we’re staying put, eating lots Peruvian cuisine, drinking Pisco Sours, reflecting on our trip, and enjoying being together and completely unencumbered before real life hits us.

We’re in the bay area starting the 4th, and back in San Diego around the 13th – looking forward to seeing you all, hopefully over a burrito and/or a real beer and/or a real coffee.