MONDAY JULY 8, 2013
Super early in the morning, Jelly came back around 6, tried to convince me to stay one more time, and then he drove Jess and I to a random spot on the road where we would meet up with a Jeep returning to SPA from a 4 day tour. After 45 or so minutes, a Jeep took us back to the Bolivian border where we had some trouble (as I knew we would) because we never got our visa from Uyuni. There was nothing in our passports to say that we arrived at Bolivia but there were stamps saying we left Chile, follow me? After a good hour of waiting and being jerked around (our new driver kept trying to take our passports, then our money for the visa, but luckily Jess didn't let him out of her sight. She tried to help with her Spanish, but it proved to be too complicated and the driver made her wait in the Jeep), I dragged myself outside and over to the border control office to explain what happened. The official finally got it, but still made each of us pay $80usd instead of the normal US visa reciprocity fee of $135usd. We left at last, on a bus back to the SPA border, where the sketchy new bus driver got us to skip the line and have our bags scanned. We went back to our same hostel, but because there wasn't enough space, Jess had to go to a hostel nearby for a night. I spent the afternoon resting and we`re spending the afternoon trying to find a new way to get to La Paz from here instead.
During our search, the first flights we found were super-expensive and or took more than 12 hours (to go a 2 hour distance)! After some serious Googling and searching through travel blogs and TripAdvisor forums, I found we could take an overnight bus to Arica, then fly from Arica to La Paz. Of course, we have to buy the bus tickets in person because Turbus won't accept foreign credit cards. On top of that, we went to buy our flight and discovered that SkyAirlines wouldn't work either! We tried most of the night to no avail. Finally, we gave up and said we'd start again in the morning. Jess, master rice-cooker, made us some plain white rice for dinner, which was the only thing I could stomach. Now we're heading off to bed for some much needed rest.
TUESDAY JULY 9, 2013 (Sorry, I messed up not creating a Day 5 post!)
Today dawned bright and early with hammering on my hostel wall at 8am. Somehow I went back to sleep til 10, then tried with Jess to buy plane tickets again. Still nothing. Alise, a girl who worked at the hostel, lent us her laptop again so we could Skype call the airline. Of course, we couldn't buy tickets over the phone; we had to go to an office in person. See, there's a very reasonable rule that Sky refuses to accept international credit cards less than 72 hours before a flight. So screw you, foreign tourists who have emergencies or last minute changes of plan. Now, we still had to change money for enough USD to reenter Bolivia, and also take a 2 hour bus to and from the nearby city of Calama to buy the stupid plane tickets. And yes, of course, there's an extra fee to buy them in the office even though it malfunctioned online. We bought the bus tickets for tonight, then changed money, and then hopped on the bus to Calama. Jess and I walked to the Sky office and for the love of God my debit card wouldn't work!!! Finally, it ran through. We ran back to the bus station hoping for a bus before 4pm. I got a ticket for 345pm, perfect, and then the lady informed me it was the last seat. Jess snuck on and waited for a free seat to buy. She kept switching from empty seat to empty seat until they were almost gone, and miraculously, sat in the last one as the bus left the lot. She ended up never having to pay for a seat and we raced back to the hostel to pack and catch our next bus. In our hurry, I forgot my iPod in my room! The overnight bus will be pretty miserable then :( without my Harry Potter audiobooks, I'm lost.
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