Southern Bolivia leaves you breathless both from the altitude and the scenery. We’re entering Bolivia from Northern Argentina and making our way from Villazon to Uyuni, where we’ll take a three-day tour of the Uyuni Salt Flats and surrounding antiplano.

From Argentina to Bolivia: By bus, foot, taxi and minibus

After two months in Argentina, we’re heading to Bolivia for a couple of weeks. We take the bus from Salta in Argentina’s northwest to the border town of La Quiaca, where we’ll walk across the Bolivian border and then reboard a local Bolivian bus. It’s about a six-hour bus ride from Salta to La Quiaca and despite having driven most of this road on our northern loop of the region, it’s still spectacular.

On our arrival in La Quiaca, we’ve been told it’s about a ten minute walk to the border, but… which way? The half dozen gringos gather beside the bus with our mochilas (backpacks) slung over our shoulders looking at each other. There are no helpful signs saying ‘This Way To Bolivia’ or anything similar. Michelle asks a local, who gives a long and seemingly complicated series of instructions.

One of the other travellers asks her, “Did you get all that?”

“Of course,” she replies. “Walk down this road for four blocks, and then ask someone else.”

We made it…

Exchanging Money in Villazon

After a few more requests for directions and about a ten minute walk we eventually make it to the border and, after about twenty minutes of border formalities, we cross into Villazon, Bolivia. As soon as we cross the border it feels different from Argentina. Women are serving large bowls of steaming stew in the street and people are sitting on small stools eating. We have barely seen people in Argentina snack on the street, let alone sit and eat a full meal.

The Cholitas of southern Bolivia wear shorter skirts and wider hats than their counterparts in the north

Our fears of not being able to exchange our remaining Argentinian pesos are quickly dispelled, with multiple ‘Cambios’ right along the main strip. We relieve ourselves of the last of our pesos, replaced by Bolivian Bolivianos. (Bolivianos is a fun word. I may start calling our currency Canadianos).

Here in Bolivia we’re back to a ‘normal’ single official exchange rate rather than the craziness of the Argentinian system. We also won’t need a wheelbarrow to carry our stash of cash – where Argentina’s largest bill is the equivalent of CA$4, here it’s a much more normal CA$20 (100B). We have heard that ATMs here can be a bit erratic and some can eat your card, so we’ll be asking advice from other travellers on the best bank to use once we get to Tupiza, where we’re going to spend a couple of nights.

Getting to Tupiza by Bus

To get to Tupiza, we know we need to find the ‘New Bus Terminal’, or Nueva Terminal de Ómnibuses de Villazón. But with Villazon sitting at 3,400m, wandering the streets aimlessly is not the way. We hail a taxi and confirm the fare before departing (15B, or about CA$3 for the 15-minute journey).

At the bus station we’re introduced to what appears to be the norm for Bolivian bus journeys. A whole bunch of private companies all vying for your custom, by repeatedly shouting out where their bus is going in hopes you might be convinced you want to go there today. We find someone shouting ‘Tupiza’ and clamber aboard the 12-seat minibus, relieved that the bus is only sparsely populated, at least for now. Just us a a couple of women knitting as they chat. 

That relief is short-lived; as we get closer and closer to Tupiza (about two hours) the driver makes multiple stops for people flagging him down by the side of the road, and more and more people pile into the van. neatly dressed workers, school kids and mothers all pile in. Just when all of the available seating and floor space has been fully utilized and we think another person can’t possibly fit inside, they begin to reverse the process, until by the time we arrive in Tupiza bus station there’s just a small handful of us left.

 Similar to India and the Philippines, the drivers take decoration of their trucks seriously here 

Tupiza seems to have a fascination with Toritos, the little tuk tuk style taxis. Not nearly as much honking as in other cities though. 

Bolivia’s Day of the Sea

We’re just staying a day or two here in Tupiza before continuing on to Uyuni. We figured we’d stop here and acclimatize a little since we didn’t really know how long yesterday’s journey from Argentina would take, nor how we’d feel with the significant change in altitude. We’re staying in a very nice hostel called – wait for it – Butch Cassidy, because he came through here during his run from the law – with a great common room (this’ll be important later) and a nice buffet breakfast with fresh fruit, granola, bread, juice, coffee… our time in Bolivia is starting off well!

We talk to a nice couple from Holland, both slim and about 7 feet tall with better English than both of us, who tell us which bank machines are safe to use. We set off to find the nearest BancoFie.

As we arrive at the corner of the main square we realize that everyone has stopped and is standing at attention. On the far side of the square we can hear a brass band playing a jaunty tune with a fun triple-drum beat, which we later realize must be the Bolivian National Anthem. After the anthem there’s a parade, speeches and flag waving. Today (March 23rd) is the Day of the Sea. 

Now, you may be asking why a landlocked country like Bolivia has a holiday named the Day of the Sea. Well, to answer that you need to go all the way back to the mid 1800’s, when Chile, Bolivia and Peru (among others) were liberated from Spain by Simón Bolívar.

Back then, Bolivia’s borders extended all the way to the Pacific Ocean, bordering Peru to the north and Chile to the south. While their relationship with Peru was solid (and by solid, I mean the two of them had a ‘Secret Treaty of Alliance’ against Chile), there was ongoing tension with Chile. Their common border cut straight across the Atacama Desert, the driest non-polar desert in the world and, importantly, a rich source of guano (yep, that’s guano) and salt peter (used in both fertilizer and explosives).

There were various Boundary Treaties signed between the two countries over the years, but the guano really hit the fan (ha) when Bolivia declared a tax on saltpeter which, depending on which wiki article you skim, may or may not have triggered what came to be known as the War of the Pacific. Peru was quickly dragged into the war when that Secret Treaty of Alliance was revealed (whoops!).

The war went from 1879-1884, and Chile was ultimately victorious on all fronts. They controlled all of the Atacama Desert, as well as the entirety of the Bolivian coastline. The two countries signed a peace treaty in 1904, the non-ironically named ‘Treaty of Peace and Friendship’, which confirmed that yep, all of your coastline is gone, but to soften the blow we’re gonna build you a train line from the coast back to Bolivia that you can use. Which the Chileans did, and it was in continuous use until recently. Needless to say there’s still some bitterness about how this all went down on the Bolivian side. Hence the Day of the Sea every year.

For a small town stopover, Tupiza sure does have some nice views. 

Onwards! Upwards! Tupiza to Uyuni

Last night we carefully packed our bags in preparation for today’s bus trip to Uyuni. We’d bought our ticket earlier in the day and confirmed the departure time of 10am this morning.

We arrive at the bus station at 9:30, and… there is not a single bus in sight. Not only are there no buses, there are no passengers waiting. No piles of bags or crates of foodstuffs. No touts yelling the name of their destinations: “Potosi-Potosi-Potosiiii’….’Villa-villa-villa-villazon’… ‘Yu-Yu-Yu-Uyuni’. We locate our bus company, and they explain that there are ‘bloqueos de carreteras’ (road blocks) between here and Uyuni, so the morning bus has been cancelled.

Road blocks are a fact of life here. Protests are generally peaceful, but occur often, and are extremely disruptive. Today’s have shut down roads all over the country, including the one we need. There’s nothing to be done but go back to our hostel, beg him for use of the common area for the day, and regroup at 6pm. Oh yes, and hope.

On the plus side, because these protests happen so often, they’re extremely well organized. Today’s was due to finish at 2pm, and sure enough, by 3 we’re seeing all of the buses that are parked on the side of the road starting to fire up their engines and make their way to the bus station. Looking good!

Buses patiently waiting by the side of the road

When we arrive we’re treated to the reassuring hubbub of the station. Our touts are back! And most importantly we hear several yelling what we want to hear: ‘Yu-Yu-Yu-Yuni!’ We pile on board.

We’re proud of ourselves for scoring the very front seats of the top floor of the bus, right up until the moment we sit down and see that a large chunk of the windscreen has been replaced with a piece of plastic, and duct taped into place in what looks like a permanent solution. What exactly caused the glass to break is almost more concerning. 

The only drag about leaving at 6pm instead of 10am (aside from having to sit around all day) is that it’s getting dark out – and we’re missing out on what look like some spectacular views! The road’s been cut through these massive rock formations on either side, hemming you in as the road winds around and up. Always up. Uyuni’s another 900m higher than where we’re starting from, which was already head-splittingly high.

We roll into Uyuni at about 10:30pm and, with the hostel just a few blocks away decide to walk. Possibly a mistake. There are dozens of dogs out on the street. In fact, there are dozens of packs of dogs out on the street. Four of them (four dogs, not four packs) decide that they’d like to chaperone us to the hotel. We are less than enthusiastic about this decision, as when they’re not walking uncomfortably close to us they’re fighting with each other or with other packs of dogs. Eventually we reach our hostel and it’s only when the door is safely closed behind us that we realize how freaked out we both were by the experience.

But the hostel is awesome. We’re too late for dinner tonight (one of the online reviews we read said that the pizza – and I’m not making this up – the pizza reduced them to tears) but apparently the breakfast is in-cre-di-bull. And we’ll be back after our 3-day Uyuni Salt Flats tour. But gosh – look at the time. We need to get to bed so we’re ready in the morning to eat our brekkie and get the tour started! Our next post is ramping up to be chock full of some spectacular scenery… stay tuned!

In a Nutshell: Crossing by Land from Argentina to Bolivia

Taking the bus. We crossed into Bolivia from La Quiaca, Argentina into Villazon, Bolivia, via a bus that left from Salta, Argentina. We pre-booked our tickets using busbud.com. Everyone has to get off the bus at (well, near) the border and walk across the border. 

When you arrive in La Quiaca, the easiest way to find the border is to either ask someone ‘Where is the border?’ ‘Donde es la frontera?’  or just ‘Bolivia??’ They’ll point you in the right direction.

Exchanging Argentinian pesos for Bolivianos. It’s not necessary to change money before you arrive in Villazon. As soon as you walk out of the border crossing area you will see Exchange booths offering a similar rate to what you would get in Argentina.

Local SIM Cards. The carrier offering the best national coverage is Entel. You need to provide your passport when you buy a SIM card, or after a few days you will get a message saying your chip isn’t properly registered, and… bad things will happen. At best your sim card will lock, at worst your whole phone will be bricked. We bought SIM cards at the Tupiza bus station from what looked like an official store, and she took her passports and appeared to register them… and we still got the dreaded text. We went to an ‘official, official’ Entel store and got it straightened out, but it took some time. Also, here in Bolivia I have been storming through the data, faster than in any other country we’ve visited. Hmm. If you can, when you top up choose an ‘Unlimited’ plan which are a tiny bit more expensive but avoid the whole ‘where did my data go’ feeling.

Tupiza. It is a low key town and not a bad place to spend a couple of days. There is some fantastic scenery in the area and you can go hiking or horse riding. We didn’t partake as firstly because horses have demonstrated on more than one terrifying occasion that they don’t like him, and also because we were still feeling the effects of ‘la altura’. There’s some excellent family run restaurants that do a three course lunch for about $3.