Happy Trails

A day in the life of, a life in the life of me.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

The Wild West.


One night back in the Uyuni hostel, a day of chilling and waiting for our train that leaves at 2:30 a.m. With our two friends we keep one room on at the hostel to store our bags and relax. We pay for a full night despite leaving half way through. Only when we go to pay, the lady of the house thinks our behaviour is disgusting, complains that Rach is abusing the bed, although she´s meerly lying on it, and calls the police, who arrive and try primary school tactics to intimidate us. Realising it´s not worth the hassle we leave for the train station. 5 hours to go before its arrival. We do what most would, and order tequila, rum and beer. 2 a.m. finally ticks along when we get word that the train will be arriving but it wont be leaving for an indefinite amount of time.

We sleep on the stationary train, wake in the same place, to hearing different stories of departure time. Finally we chug out of town at noon, 10 hours late, giving us the opportunity to view the passing landscape by day light.

Cacti, arid, dusty, hot deep canyons as if the sun has beaten down without interruption, drying out causing cracks which get deeper. Opening up the earth where its visible of where water used to flow, although the possibility doesn´t look like it´s going to happen again any time soon. This is the wild west.

One night in Tupiza, a town in the middle of these red rocks, where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid met their fate. A fitting place for stories of cowboys, robberies and shoot outs.

3 Hours to the southern boarder, and easy crossing and 28 more hours on a bus to Buenos Aires. The cacti laden land continues into Argentina but we awake to flat green agricultural scenery that sees us all the way through to the outskirts of the city.