Feb. 24th...ish Boarders hunger sets in and to this day Protein Bars are one food I cannot EAT!

I am being literal in my opening explanation

Where the air is thin and people are thick, where deserts and skies meet to embrace and no distinction is made between the twain, where mountains take shroud by using the clouds, and more stars in the heavens have never been seen, Welcome To Bolivia!

The road north was not necessarily an easy one.  Though we made 2 stops in route to the norther boarder of Argentina and Bolivia, the poor bus service, refusal to exchange more currency, and one quit disagreeably customs officer made this trip exhausting.
From our last stop in southern Argentina we left a small glacial town and headed north all the way to the infamous Mendoza   Here we rested and enjoyed the town for a short couple of days and booked a 7:00am bus ticket to Bolivia.

After deciding that it would be best to sleep for the majority of the 25 hr. trip before us, we proceeded to stay up all night.  That evening before leaving we enjoyed an all night BBQ and some long goodbyes.  I was able to sleep away the first 13hours and when I awoke it was 8 pm and I was hoping I would be able to stay awake a few hours and then sleep away the night.  (I should stop here to inform you that the bus service to Bolivia apparently loves the Wayan Brothers, Monic, and Eddie Murphy as these were the only movies being played)!  I am truly thankful God allowed me to sleep through this time of my travels haha.

Next we spent several hours going through customs and exchanging US$ for Bolivian Pesos and purchasing train tickets.  Now it was time to eat! We ate several plates of chicken each as it felt as if we were going to starve.  We stuffed ourselves to exhaustion and it felt so good.

Let me explain. 28 hours earlier we realized we had only enough Argentinian currency to catch a cab to the bus station.  Not wanting to pay the exchange fees and have pesos left unused when we crossed the boarder we decided to eat only what God provided or that we could purchase with on visa.

Our bus service turned into a nightmare and we had no food.  Also because the bus was running late they did not stop long enough for passengers to enjoy a restaurant.  WE WERE EVEN LEFT ONCE!

We ate protein bars which we our mother had tucked away for us weeks earlier when we left NC and those were all we had eaten.  When we finally had reached the boarder we tried to hurry the mile or so from the bus stop to the crossing, but found ourselves exhausted due to high elevation and thin air.

The train ride up the Bolivian Andes and to the Desert

Finally we made it proudly presenting our Bolivian currency to the guard.  He however was only interested in US$ cash.  This made no sense, but after a confusing several hours we were finally on the Bolivian side and in a little wild, west town of Bolivia.  We stood there clinging anxiously to our train tickets to Uyuni with about four hours to spare until 2:30 that afternoon.

So we bought chicken, bread, coke.  It was a fantastic feeling and even that long train ride deep into the Bolivian desert seemed so peaceful and so relaxing.  I had just crossed a boarder into my 9th country and each bus, train, taxi, or boat ride was now taking me one step closer to home.