To end our time in Bolivia we met up with our spanish school friends- Claudia, Vish, and Paul and started a three day journey to the Salar which is the Bolivian salt flats in Uyuni, which is also in the middle of the desert. I am so happy we got to experience this with such amazing people. We piled into a jeep and drove across massive vast space. The salt flats were unbelievably white for as far as the eye can see and so bright that sunglasses were needed.
The salt on the salar is excavated for use, but isn't exported as much as I would have expected. The salt is super cheap so it's not very profitable.
We spent three days exploring catus hills and huge rocks in the middle of the hot desert. We saw blue, red and green lagunes and hundreds of flamingos. Our last morning we woke up early to see gysers as the sun rose. Frost covered the ground next to the hot gysers. 
After the gysers it was time to cross the border to chile. The difference was immediately noticed. We went from unpaved roads across Bolivia to paved highways and roads with emergency exits. Our bus driver said "welcome to civilization." not a funny joke after loving Bolivia so much.
Prices were also a shock to the system in Chile. We went fro paying $4 in Bolivia for a hostel to $14 in Chile. We now switch hostels to save an extra dollar or two.
The people in Chile go out of their way to help you and are so kind. We have explored Santiago and eaten completos (which are hot dogs filled with anything you can imagine.) We have experienced the Chilean Pacific ocean while eating seafood and having the best Chilean wine in Valaparaiso for Hilary´s birthday. I got a taste of Patagonia by going south to Pucon, where we repelled from waterwalls and enjoyed the volcano beach.
Chile was interesting to research before coming here and then while we were here learning more about it because of their brutal history. The economy in chile is grower very fast but people are still getting paid the same and are increasingly unable to buy the things they need. The gap between rich and poor is so huge. Embarrassingly I was trying to make a Brittany Spears concert in Santiago at the beginning of our Chile trip (we didn't make it because of the prices of flights, so we took a 20 hour bus ride instead.) We would have seen the concert at the national stadium which is the place where thousands of Chilean citizens were held and tortured during the Pinocet regime.  It´s just crazy thinking about how recent that was and now soccer games and huge concerts are held there.

Weekend trips

During our stay in Cochabamba we ocasionally did weekend trips. We went to the jungle, we got taken out by our spansish housemates and all of thieir friends and we were taken to a national park. The jungle was unreal! So green and so hot! We saw every kind of insect and amazing birds. We explored natural river ponds that we could swim in. Our night out with locals we ended up outside the police station because friends got into a fight. Not something you expect or should do when in Bolivia. The weekend trip that stuck with me for it's political aspect was our trip to the national park which was called Torro Torro. It was a park known for it's caves and dinosaur prints. Bolivia has this cool thing where they love their dinosaur prints. Who knows if they are real or not, they look real and everyone here sure believes it. But how did they not get washed away? They say the dino's were just passing through to go somewhere else, that's why there are no bones. We explored caves while we were there also. This was very awesome but very scary due to the small places we had to crawl or slither through. We spent 2 1/2 hours down in the cave but it's possible to spend days down there. It goes for about 7 km.
The Sunday we were there was the judicial elections. Something we don't have in Canada but it's taken very seriously in Bolivia, like any election here. We were unable to head back to Cochabamba on this day because no one is allowed to drive a car or travel. Our driver thought that because we were tourists and because we were in a smaller place that maybe they wouldn't be as strict. But he was wrong and was told if he did that again he would end up in jail. It is mandatory to vote in Bolivia, if a citizen doesn't vote then their bank account will be blocked off and will have no access to their money, I never found out for how long for though.
If you did not agree with the political party or did not want to vote, and you decided to spoil your ballot then the vote would go to the party in power. This is not a well known fact so people still spoil ballots thinking they are protesting but really it's still going to the same party. Whole communities are paid to vote for a certain party to secure the parties position. The corruption in Bolivia is huge. Rich against poor, government against citizens and police along with then.
In Cochabamba the north side of town is where most of the richer people live and there are a lot of pools in this section. When people are done using their water they can sell the water to trucks and this water is then sold to the south end of town to people for drinking. It is very cheap water and it's the only option because it's not very common to have running water.