Once we started to ascend into the desert, the weather got worse and worse and the whole road was covered in snow; not to mention our driver didn't cut on the heat, so it was just as cold inside as outside. All of a sudden, the van started to hydroplane and take bigger sways from side to side. I will admit, I didn't have my seatbelt on, so I was expecting the worse. We eventually did a 180, heading for the risen snow on the side of the road. I braced myself, and was picturing myself flying into the ceiling of this bus. Once we hit the snow, it was like a scene out of a movie, we tilted over, about 20-40 degrees, I'm just guessing, held that position and then landed back on all fours. The driver didn't say a word and just kept driving. Wtf? I wanted to go up there and punch him in the face; he didn't even say sorry or check if everyone was alright. Not a good start to the tour. Once we headed off, you could hear the clicking of everybody's seatbelt, including mine. Even though we had almost died, not 3 hours into this trip, our driver never slowed down; I was preparing for a relapse.
Once we got to the border, the driver had to drive off the road, because he almost ran into the back of the van in front of us. Jesus, get me off this van!
We eventually arrived at the boarder checkpoint to get out of Chile. It was so cold, and there's no such thing as heat around here, so there's no escaping it. We then headed over to the rendezvous point to have breakfast and break into smaller groups. A tear will not be shed for leaving this driver, that's for sure. As soon as we got out of the van, I unloaded my backpack and threw on all the cold gear I had. The extreme cold mixed with high winds, made outside beyond unbearable; everyone was huddle around the side of their van with no wind, grasping onto their coffee and tea as if it was a fireplace in their hands... I was right there with them. The wind was so bad, as one girl tried to enter a bus, the wind blew her over. This weather is no joke.
Luckily, I was with only one person from our van, he is Brazilian and speaks Spanish, English, along with Portuguese. We waited for the rest of our crew to show up but they never did. Only one out of the four came, Francisco, who is from Spain), our new driver had no clue where the rest of the cars were. If they were somewhat organized, they would have walkie-talkies, but no... that would make things too easy. We eventually left; I am somewhat glad, us three have a land cruiser to ourselves, I couldn't imagine three more people crammed in here. We made our way to the Bolivian boarder. The guard asked me, "donde esta tu visa," uhhh, " my tour company said that I could do all of this in Uyuni further in Bolivia," I replied. Luckily, the Brazilian helped me out with the translation because my driver was of no help, just yucking it up with some of the guards. The immigrations officer let me go, but my driver had to hold onto my passport at all time, which I did not like, but there was no other option. So now I am illegally in Bolivia, without a passport on me, awesome.
As we headed off, I could feel my fever coming back which was mixing with the high altitude; not a good combination. We stopped off at a couple lagoons, which did not appeal to me at all. When the weather is nice, the water is supposed to look like glass and birds are everywhere. Now there is snow and the lagoons are partially frozen over. The wind was so bad at one of the lagoons, I just opened my door, took a picture, and closed the door. It was miserable.
We stopped off at a hotel by a lagoon to have lunch, which was tuna and rice, a new one for me.
After I ate, I felt a little better, but that didn't change the weather. We headed off to see some more lagoons, only to get trapped in a blizzard. At some points, you couldn't see past the Toyota decal on the hood of his car.
We eventually bailed on seeing the lagoon and retreated north towards our hostel. After driving for hours through this terrible weather, we arrived at our hostel around 7pm, just in time for dinner. No lie, the bedrooms were colder than the air outside, luckily, I have a sleeping bag!
Everyone was gathered by the furnace. I really just wanted to jump into the fire I was so cold.
Since it is just the three of us, we have the food of six people, which is great, however, altitude sickness gives you a lack of appetite. We started off with some hot soup, which was unbelievably good; afterwards I was full. They then brought out some sold spaghetti, glade I filled up on soup and bread.
After dinner, we hung out around the fire as long as possible and then I crawled in my sleeping bag. It was actually not bad, of course, the sleeping bag is too short for me, but I was rather hot inside and the blankets covered the rest of my body.
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