Uyuni - for all you salt lovers out there

On my dads birthday this year, I sent him a birthday wish from one of the most magical places I ever been to; Salar de Uyuni - the worlds largest salt flat.

It is basically a desert covered with salt and it felt unreal to be here. Because I've seen snow white photos from the salt flats before I just stupidly thought that it was gonna be really cold (especially since it was freezing in the morning when we left our hostel!) so I brought plenty of warm clothes. I didn't think about that this is a desert, and works like a desert usually does - super hot in the day and super cold in the night. Did I mention we didn't even think about putting on sun cream? Yeah I know. Stupid. My face is still sore from the sun burn from this day out..

Apart from the amazing views, the most fun part about this trip is trying to take funny photos. It is really a place to use your imagination!

Another small thing we didn't really realise before, was that some parts of this desert is covered with water, which makes it look much much cooler, and also gives you salt covered feet. (Not to mention salt covered jeans when you lay down to try to take cool photos..)

We went only went on a one day tour to the salt flats from Uyuni, which we booked with Tito Tours when we got to the little town of Uyuni the night before. There are loads of travel agencies to choose between in Uyuni. As soon as you get off the bus there are plenty of people ready to try to get you to join their tour. So you definitely don't have to worry about booking in advance, whether you do like us a one day or overnight (you can book trips to go through the salt flats to Chile! A pretty cool way to enter a new country!)

So the night before our trip, we simply went to the Tito tour office where two helpful women helped us to book, for a really good price, only 130 Bolivianos per person, which included lunch (and believe it or not, they were very understanding about my food requirements.. And when the lunch consisted of heaps of avocado, rice, veggies and potatoes - I am happy anyway) and a Spanish speaking guide who drove us around the salt flats along with the rest of our group. And apparently I'm the only one from the group that cannot jump..

We were picked up from the travel agency at 10:30 (although let's face it, this is South America, by the time we actually took of it was like 11:30), then we went to a couple of stops; a market and a old deserted train before we spent the rest of the time out in the white daze. After a few hours we were pretty tied though and it was a bit like, okay, I'm spoilt and have seen it now. And with that heating sun we were absolutely exhausted when we got back to Uyubi, where we had to go back to our hostel from the night before to pick up our bags and wait for the night bus to take us to La Paz. 

Oh and foodwise in Uyuni - super easy. It's a small place, where they only seem to have Italian/Mexican restaurants (honestly, all of their menus looks almost the same..but) = GUACAMOLE VEGGIE BURRITOS and PASTA. Can't complain at all.

A vegan in Sucre, Bolivia

It's now been a week in the cute little capital of Bolivia, Sucre. I still cannot believe that I'm actually in Bolivia. This is a country that I have been wanting to go to for ages - ever since I heard that McDonalds was banned from the country I've been interested to get to know this place. Turns out that Bolivians rather buy their burgers form the local street vendors rather than buying them from giant evil food chains. Apparantley though, this McDonalds-ban also has to do with the president being pretty anti-Western, so anti-Western that the clock on the constituation building in La Paz is anti-clockwise. The government claim that they are being creative and does not have to obey Western principles.. 

Speaking of the Government. Today the referendum is held, which means that the people of Bolivia vote yes or no for constituational amendments removing restrictions on the number of presidential terms. Because of this, everything in Bolivia is shut; all stores, restaurants etc. We were meant to leave Sucre today to go to Uyuni, but had to stay another night because all the roads are closed and there are no buses running. 

A week here has gone really fast though. I feel like all I've done is study Spanish and eat. So I can't really complain. I started a language school on Tuesday and have had private classes 3 hours a day for 5 days and only during this time I feel like my Spanish have improved lots! Could be because I have to use it alot, since it is pretty rare that people here understand English. Even my spanish teacher didn't understand much English. Sounds strange, but I think this actually made me learn more, only speaking Spanish during a whole class. 

Sucre in itself is a gorgeous small capital, crowded with many people. It is almost as if the town cannot hold all of its citizens. The streets are cramped all the time, mostly with locals but also some other tourists who are most of them here to study Spanish as well (there are so many Spanish schools to choose between here!)

The capital lies 2810 meters above sea level, and because of this we've had mild altitude sickness since we arrived. We've had some trouble sleeping and constant head ache, but it usually gets better with drinking tea with coca leaves. It is good that we have started off here in Sucre though, because I can already feel my body getting used to the altitude and we are gonna go even higher when we go to Uyuni and La Paz next week. 

And so, to the most important thing - food. Thanks AGAIN to happycow.net, my travel saviour, we've found some really good gems and it hasn't been hard at all to live in Sucre as a vegan. I've loved being here foodwise. I mean you'll find cheap avocados (that also taste divine) in the central market (where you can also find all veggies, fruits, bread, nuts and food you can imagine), but stuff that are really expensive at home are really common and cheap here. In an ordinary bread roll that comes with your quinoa soup, is made with chia seeds. This is definitely something I could get used to.

Here is a little list of the food that we've found during our week. Since there is only one fully vegan restaurant, we did go back to the same restaurant more than once instead of having to go to meaty restaurants where you have to ask for the ingredient for everything all the time.

PREM El Arte De Vivir
Open for lunch, and dinner (according to staff, but not in real life..)

Prem is the vegan mecka of Sucre. We went straight here on our first day in Sucre and fell in love immediately. Here in Bolivia, a breakfast usually only consist of coffee or tea and maybe a piece of bread and for lunch (almuerzo) they go ALL IN with a three or four course meal. Almost every restaurant offer a set menu for lunch, and so Prem does the same but of course, all vegan. 

We went for lunch here two times. For starters they served lentil soup and the other time quinoa soup and there is also a salad buffet available every day included in the set lunch. For main we had pasta pesto the first time, and the a shepards pie with soy meat and for dessert we've had rice pudding (which I'm not the biggest fan of unfortuantely..). Apart from all of that, you also get a drink and for all of this AMAZING food which makes you feel like you have to roll you way out from the restaurant, you only have to pay 25 Bolivianos (!)

After two lunches here though, I started to feel bad for not being able to eat it all up. I'm not able to eat that much in the middle of the day when it's hot out. So we tried to go by for dinner a few times, but all of the times it was closed (seems like they had trouble finding staff that's been able to work their shifts..). Which is very unfortunate as their dinner menu looks amazing - soya burgers, burritos etc. It's a shame that you can only get the set 3 course menu during lunch and not be able to choose anything else. Except for one time when they sold cupcakes for 4 Bolivianos..

Condor Cafe
Open 8:30am-11:30pm

Condor Cafe is the only vegetarian restaurant in Sucre that is opened from morning to evening. The great thing about this cafe is that much of the profits goes to their non-profit organisation, which aims to end poverty in Bolivia.

Unfortunately there aren't that many vegan options, but their daily soup is vegan and is only 8 Bolivianos! Their coffee is amazing and they also do delicious sandwiches (they have a falafel sandwich which I never tried, but it LOOKS good. Yep I know cause I was staring at others peoples orders..)

Other veg-friendly places we've visited

This Thai Restaurant That I Can't Remember the Name of!
Only on the road down from Condor, before the 25 de Mayo square!
Open for lunch and dinner

A really cosy restaurants which offers a couple of vegan meals. Chiang Mai Noodles, beer and crisps was a very good combo (Yes, the noodles are egg-free!)

El Germen 
Open for lunch and dinner

I think we found the darkest place in Sucre, when we found El Germen on a Thursday night. There was no one in there, it was quite and hardly any lights. A bit creepy actually, and I don't know why we didn't turn around to run, I guess we were too hungry. They do not have much vegan on their menu at all, the lentil burger and soy burger unfortunately contains egg, so I had a tofu and tomato fry thin instead which was lush. So I am glad we stayed in the end. And they did put music on in the background after we sat down..

Florin
Open morning - late

And so we found quinoa again. This time, in the form of a burger in a dutch owned pub. On Tuesday nights they have burger night, with 20% off all burgers that we took advantage off and only paid 26 Bolivianos for our burger with fries. That is basically the only vegan thing you'll find in there though.

Halfway through our 37 hour journey to Bolivia

I am so tired. But tired in an exciting way. Tired in that kind of way so that I just laugh at almost anything. This has probably by far been the longest Valentine's Day of my life. 

We've had an 11 hour flight from Auckland with Air New Zealand, which was great! Countless good movies and series to watch, wine and amazing vegan food (I know many people doesn't like plane food, but I usually love it! Maybe because I'm always super starving on planes, but still). 

I was only able to watch about two thirds of the documentary "He named me Malala", which both brought me to tears and laughter. Malala is one of the most incredible people I've heard of. She is so wise, strong and committed to working for girls rights to education and at the same time she is meeting Barack Obama and tells him her opinions about drones, (and we see her meeting all different celebrities, she's on talk shows etc) she is also a teenager like anyone else, someone who lives at home with her parents and in the documentary we see her fighting and joking with her brothers, we follow her to her new school in England and doing her homeworks. This is definitely someone who practise what she preach. She says that she misses her home and her friends from the Swat valley in Pakistan, to where she cannot go back because she would get killed by the talibans who are against her work for girls education (which in their world is totally wrong). But following her and her life was such an inspiration and I am so amazed by her. Did I say that?

I'm gutted that the plane landed in Argentina before I had a chance to finish watching it.. Although I am pretty happy that everything was on time, because we've had a little mission here in Burnos Aires so far that is almost over now. We had to change airport, from the bigger one to another one across the city. Luckily enough we had about 8 hours before the next flight to Bolivia takes off so we were in no rush until we realised that our bags didn't appear on the baggage claim. But in the last minute we managed to get a hold of a staff member who saved our bags from going to a different place. Thanks gosh!

At the moment we have 2 hours left until our plane takes off - so yep, we did make it to the other airport in the end but it did require me to force myself to remember the Spanish from school (I'm so happy we are starting our intense Spanish course in a coupe of days!) and I was able to order food for us for the first time ever in Spanish. 

Okay, it was just a very large tray of fries and a bottle of water. As most of you probably know, Argentina is not a good place for a vegan. 

So now we are a bit more than halfway through the journey. Next flight will take us to Santa Cruz where we have to wait for 10 hours, for a 30 minute flight to Sucre. Oh the joy of traveling, right?

Farewell New Zealand, you beauty!

This photo is almost exactly a year old now. I took it when me and Guy first arrived to New Zealand, before we knew anyone or anything here. On this particular day we had to go off to buy cheap pots and pans to be able to cook in the first little shitty hostel we stayed at. 

A lot has happened since. We've gotten to know amazing friends that we will really miss, we've had jobs that has taught us a lot and we have been lucky to be able to see almost every corner of this beatiful country. Ofcourse there have been x number of different kinds of struggles aswell, but it hasn't been anything that we haven't been able to work out together in the end. 

And so, tomorrow we are officially breaking up with New Zealand (I know we are so evil to break up on Valentine's Day!) and we will travel back in time when we continue our travel adventures in South America. So next time I'll see you, it will be from higher heights in Bolivia. 

Kia ora Aotearoa, thanks for having us!

And speaking of nice creams..

Just when I was happy that Ben and Jerrys released a vegan range of ice creams, but mostly annoyed that I am not able to try it yet since they do not sell any of their products in New Zealand yet (!!), I stumbled across this baby in the freezer at Pak N Save in the little town of timaru. 

Not only that - this Pak n save also sold ripe avocados that weren't ridiculously expensive = Avocado and nice cream for breakfast. Bliss.

Ben & Jerry heart vegans

I don't think many vegans have missed the brilliant news that my pre-vegan favourite ice cream brand Ben & Jerrys has released, not just 1 but 4 (!!!!) certified vegan ice creams. I screamed of joy when I found this out the other day.

Ever since I abounded Ben & Jerrys when my vegan life took over, I've dreamt about having their creamy, chunky ice cream again and I though for long that I would never experience it again (Half baked was like my drug for a long time!) I'm so excited to try all 4 and especially the chocolate fudge Brownie one! 

Instead of using cows milk, they decided to go to almonds to get that creamy textured they are famous for. 

There is honestly no more reason to not go vegan anymore. I hearby don't miss anything from my pre-vegan awakening.

The adventures that led us down to the south

That evening when I left you last, we took a walk from the hostel where we stayed at in Wanaka to go to Fransescas Woodfired Pizzas, to have the most amazing pizza, that I dare to say I've had in New Zealand. Even though it was after 7pm, it was still so hot and the que to the little caravan where they sell the pizzas from was long and I felt sorry for the people working there (but they still managed to be kind and in good mood, which I find very impressive!) Unfortunately they don't have a vegan pizza on the menu, but they were so flexible so that I could kind of create my own without cheese. I always say that you know that a pizza is really good, even if it tastes divine without any form of cheese!

The next day we took a little detour before heading down south, to Mount Aspiring National Park, where we did a 3 hour return track to see Rob Roys Glaciers. The scenery was absolutely amazing, but the track was mostly uphill that made us having to dip our heads as soon as we were close to one of the streams from the melting glacier.

This is without a doubt the coolest glacier of the ones we have seen so far, and yet I hadn't heard about Rob Roys Glacier until just recently. Even before I left Europe I'd heard about Fox and Franz Josef Glacier, which are of course cool to see as well, but they got nothing on Rob Roys! Maybe it is just not well known among tourists, because you don't actually have to pay anything to see them up close? Because as far as I know they don't arrange any helicopter tours or walks on the actual ice here.

It could be that and also the fact that just the road leading to where the track start is on a bumpy gravel road, which was kind of scary since it takes like 30 minutes on that road to reach the start. And the fact that you do have to have a sweaty walk for about 1,5 hours up to the top to see it all clear, and then go the same way back.

Anyway, it was totally worth it and I could've easily skipped seeing Franz Josef and Fox and just come here.

After that we were exhausted though and decided to drive straight to the next free camping site.  Up until now we had mainly used the camping spots that the Department of Conservation owns (don't know if you can say that DOC owns it, but you know what I mean!).

DOC has all kind of different camping spots some of them are free, some of them have a small fee depending on what facilities is on it. We have mainly used Basic Campsites which are always free, but they don't have much going on there, maybe just a toilet without flushing water or the Standard Campsites which costs 6 dollars a night, and usually comes with running water and toilets, maybe even cold showers and picnic tables sometimes if you're lucky.

However, it seems like the more south you get the less DOC sites there are so we have had to use an app called Wicked Campers, where all campsites there are out there are listed. It was via this app that we managed to find a free camp finally in this area, that wasn't too crowded (around Queenstown there are almost only camp sites for self contained vehicles, there's like one that is free for everyone and apparently that one is absolutely cramped!) and as we wanted to avoid that as much as possible to get a good nights sleep we went out of our way a bit and found a decent one with the best morning view.

We continued our way towards Queenstown, with a stop at this cafe in Cromwell, where the niecest man worked. Please go here if you get a chance. The coffee was so great and they had kittens  running around in the garden (= I'm sold!)

And so. This is the only reason we went to Queenstown again. This baby was so worth the trip back, the long que in the heat and the crowd of people around the towncenter (and the hassle of finding parking!) The Holier Than Though (fried tofu!!!) burger from Fergburger.

I made it vegan buy removing the aioli and adding avocado and it was seriously more divine than I remembered it from last time. I had to force myself not from eating it all at once (hey, I had to save some for dinner, right?). CHRISTMAS IN MY FREAKING MOUTH! 

As soon as we were full of burger, we left Queenstown as soon as we could to continue down even further south, to try to get away from the whole touristy crowd and everything, and so today we finally reached to most southern town of New Zealand, Bluff, where we hade a coffee (yes, take away soy flat whites is our daily treats to ourselves!) and as it is a rainy day, we went on to Invercargill to sit here in a boring library and do some stuff that just needs to be done.

It's only uphill from here!