South American Beginning

Hola, Have made our way quite quickly from Santiago in Chile to Bolivia, for the intention of being in a cheaper country and staying for a while in the one place. We took a 24 hour bus ride north from Santiago to a place called Calama and then another couple of hours to San Pedro which is near the Bolivian border. Here we stayed for 3 nights, did some activites, i.e. biking, and seeing sunsets and lakes. It´s the Atacama Desert, so very dry and very, very dusty. Painfully so. The town itself has character and loads of really nice restaurants. It´s the place to take tours across into Bolivia. So this is what we did for 3 days. There was 6 of us in our 4WD, a couple we had met in Santiago - Elika and Rick from the UK and a couple they had met on their way up - Lorna and James from the UK. Brits everywhere. Once over an unofficial, quite dogy looking border crossing in the middle of the desert (that Ian managed to ask in Spanish for 90 days on our visa instead of the usual 30 days - well done him), we started our 4WD experience. It´s hard to describe. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. But spectacular mountains and colours. No proper roads - how on earth our non-english speaking guide knew where to drive, or which mutiple track tyres to follow is beyond me. Probably the coldest place on earth, or so it felt. Bumpy. Long days. Stopping at lakes and accommodation in the middle of nowhere. The altitude took us to over 5000 metres at some points. This meant cold nights. Surprisingly we managed to be warm with our rented sleeping bags and multiple blankets, but had trouble sleeping, as the air was so dry and the altitude gave you headaches. The asprin came in handy! The whole reason we put ourselves through this was to see the Uyuni Salt Flats (the biggest in the world!!) We are now in Sucre for up to 1 month. After a bumpy 10 hour bus ride. It´s a town with loads of character and the weather is much better here. We had a lunch yesterday with Elika and Rick (main meal of the day) for under 2 pounds - bread, entree, soap, main, desert and tea. Of course didn´t need to eat last night! We have been lucky to find ourselves a lovely place to stay for 7 pounds and have paid for a week upfront. The luxuries of your own hot shower and Sky TV. We are booked into Spanish classes to start on Monday and have 4 hours a day for 5 days, and then have to do a couple of hours outside class each day, so it´s pretty intense. But that´s OK because we would like to be fluent before we leave Sth America, and intend on picking up some extra classes in Equador and maybe elsewhere. Had our exam this morning to work out where we are at and only managed to write my name and email address, out of a two page document asking you to fill in the gaps using adjectives and verbs in Spanish! All I know is single words (not sentences), so I could have written a list. The oral exam also didn´t really go that well. Half the time I guess what people are saying, by picking up a couple of words. Ian has actually been studying the phrase book, so I´m intending on learning off the back of him! Looking forward to staying still, learning Spanish and getting to know the town. We are starting off lessons in a group of 4. We do have the option in our second week to just be in a class on your own, and we will also consider living with a family, to help us practice it aswell.