The South America Chronicles - Oche

We finally managed to escape Rurrenabaque! We were prepared to sit it out, but then we were hearing predictions of 6 more days of smoke and after another night of being plague by the mozzies, enough was enough. But we still weren´t so keen on the 20 hour bus ride, so instead joined a hired jeep all the way back. It was a fair bit more expensive, but it meant that the trip was only 12 hours and we didn´t have to spend the night on the bus. Not that the jeep ride was any fun, it was cramped, bumpy, dusty, and we had to travel back along those ´dangerous roads´again - though this time in the dark! But it is good to be out of the jungle and back on our way again. Though I will miss the spectacular red moons at night (another affect of the smoke I think).

We just had a brief stop over in La Paz yesterday, we weren´t feeling up to much sight-seeing, so we just watched Argentina beat the Irish in the rugby (go the Argies) and if we are lucky, we might even be in Argentina if the Pumas make the semis (they must be favourites to beat Scotland). The All Blacks picking up the Frogs for the quarter isn´t very fair, but if you are going to play them anywhere, I guess Cardiff is the place to do it. My friendly parasite seems to have returned, and now Anna has got it too. I suspect this time we´ve got Giardia from the river in which we swam with the dolphins. But we´ve picked up ourselves some anti-biotics and hopefully we will have the little buggers flushed out soon (or the Salt Flats tour won´t be much fun).

So last night we made our way down to Uyuni on another bus last night, though this bus was pretty good - hot meal, movie ("this is Sparta" anyone), reclining chairs, and a bar of chocolate I forgot about and melted all through my pocket! Though the bus trip still wasn´t the most comfortable, they put the movie on during the only bit of the road that was smooth and that you had a chance of some good sleep, and the rest of the trip was very bumpy, so sleep was pretty difficult. Arriving in Uyuni this morning we have organised ourselves to get on a Salt Flats tour today as there isn´t much to do around here and we are looking to make up those couple of days we lost in Rurrenabaque. We´ve also changed our plans slightly now and will head straight to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile from our Salt Flats tour and instead of going down the length Chile, we will cross back into Argentina and go Salta-Buenos Aires-Iguazu Falls-Lake District....we think. Has been a lot of umming and arring the last 48 hours about what our best route is from now on.

We also had to say farewell to Rogan yesterday as he headed off in a different direction from La Paz. Apart from losing a great travelling companion, it will also mean that we will be reduced to our limited Spanglish again (and that´s with a silent ´sp´). Rogan will go down in memory as someone who has even a more bottomless pit than I do. So, for us, it will be lots of book reading and euchre once again.