Chile is different

With much sadness, we left Bolivia this morning on a cold, cold bus across the altiplano from Oruro, heading for Iquique, Chile - I spent the first four or five hours scratching ice off the inside of the bus window with a credit card, so that I could see what was going on.

And what a beautiful bus ride it was - a golden orange sunrise, followed by one of those clear, cold, crisp days that you only seem to get on the Altiplano. The highlight of the ride for me will also be one of my lasting impressions of Bolivia - three high, snow capped, perfectly formed volcanic cones reflecting in an altiplano lake. Llamas around the outside grazing. Campesinos (Bolivian peasants) working in the fields. And a pink island of flamingos right in the middle of the lake. Beautiful.

But arriving in Chile has been a shock to the system. After nearly two full months in Bolivia, being back in a 2nd world (nearly first world really) country is rather different. These differences can be found on so many different levels, from the obvious signs of the west like McDonalds (the only fast food place we saw in all of Bolivia was one Burger King in La Paz), construction cranes, supermarkets (no supermarkets in Bolivia) and helicopters (didn´t see any of them either) to the way that people dress (everyone dresses in a very western manner in Chile - no awayos or ponchos here) to the way that they look (one side of the border, the guards were all of indigenous descent, whereas on the other, they were all clearly of european descent), to the climate (a hot dry, sandy desert, vs the cold but equally desolate altiplano), the ever presence 80s pop music that the Chileans seem to love, the smell of the sea (haven´t see the ocean for a LONG time!) and of course, the way that they behave as well (yes, we´re back into the full-on making-out on park benches - it is Chile after all!). And for us, the biggest shock of all are the prices - dinner, internet connections, accomdation, everything basically quadrupled in price, literally overnight. We find ourselves thinking of everything in Bolivianos, and thinking how much we could get for that back in Potosi!

But we´ll get over it - it had to come eventually. Meanwhile, we have some exploring of this region to do - there are a series of geoglyphs (ancient rock drawings on the hillsides) that we came here to see in particular.

Random fact of the day:One more difference - here in Iquique, you can actually flush the toilet paper: In Bolivia, as in most other parts of Latin America that we have visited, the toilet systems are pretty old and can´t handle toilet paper. So what do you do with it? Well, used paper goes in a little wastepaper basket next to the toilet. Don´t worry, its not as bad as it sounds.