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Published: July 21st 2008
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Rin here: Landing in El Alto, La Paz, Bolivia quickly put our travels back into perspective and our travelling mojo has returned with gusto! We had an amazing flight from Santiago to La Paz during which the sun rose quickly as we flew ever closer to the altiplano - we even had a glimpse of the salt plains! Walking out of the airport with stunning views of the nearby snowcapped mountains we threw our bags on the roof of the local micro bus, piled ourselves inside the soon to be overcrowded bus and descended into La Paz city proper.
There´s nothing quite like a little bit of chaos to keep you on your toes - with that in mind we dropped our bags off at the hostel and set out in search of some lunch. We first had to navigate our way across the main road in La Paz and with both lives intact we weaved our way through the various street sellers and market stalls to gobble down a delicious local style almuerzo (set lunch menu) at Sol y Luna cafe. Oh bliss! Its so cheap!!! We had a great afternoon just meandering through the streets gathering our bearings
and gawping at the daily goings on. Meandering was about all we could manage due to the altitude (and the smog) as I found myself huffing and puffing my way up any tiny hill in my way!
Salar de Uyuni After a couple of days discovering La Paz we decided to head out to Uyuni in the south with our new friend Tracy, from Alaska, to see about getting out to the Salar de Uyuni and surrounds (the Salt flats). Our jeep tour, whilst a little car-bound and a little touristy at times, was an absolutely fabulous way of seeing a huge expanse of the salar and southern Bolivia. Megan, Matt, Fran, Tracy, Nick and I made up the jeep with Raun as our guide. The crazy expanse of blindingly white salt plains do funny things to your eyes and to your photographs!
At the Isla de Pesca, the only island to be entirely surrounded by salt, we had our first Viscacha siting. We couldn´t believe that everybody else was traipsing past without casting a second glance at these funny little fellows! We then headed out to see some caves that were caused when the area was an
ocean and volcanic lava poured into this coral cave! With some Incan burial tombs in the cave next door it was all pretty cool. Our first night near the Salar was preceeded by some warming soccer with the local kids, followed by the boys putting on a bit a show for us.
Day Two began with a sumptous brekky before driving out through the eerie petrified coral forest. It was a long day in the car with lots of vicuna spotted on our way to the Salvador Dali desert. They are such beautiful animals with their slender necks and big eyes. It was great to see a herd of them relatively close by at the coloured lakes. I couldn´t make my mind up what I wanted to look at more - the flamingos or the vicunas! So, yes, our first up close and personal look at flamingos. Such beautiful colours! Apparently during summer the whole lake is filled with flamingos - they must create quite a rackett! Still, I was pretty happy with just seeing flamingos! Dinner was a frosty affair with the temperature outside plummetting drastically at the dizzying heights of xxx m. A couple of bottles of
a lifes work.
this fella spends all day every day digging the salar for its salt... its a bugger for chain rust wine later over cards saw quite a few fits of hysterics (myself included and you know how that ends!) and thankfully warmer hands for a short period of time!
Two glasses of wine at altitude and its all over for me i´m afraid! Mind you we were still in bed by 9.30pm, so no angry headaches to wake up to. Thankfully, as we had to be up at 4am for a chilly start to Day Three at the geysers and hot springs. Unfortunately for me, we started climbing in altitude almost immediately and I had my first experience of true altitude sickness.
More unfortunate for Nick and Tracy as we had intended to climb a volcano that straddles the Bolivian Chilean Border, which was where we were going to be dropped off next but after discussions with the local guide we decided that none of us were acclimitized enough to make it up to the top at 6000m. Disappointing but a wise decision in hindsight. So we all piled back into the jeep and bounced our way back to Uyuni.
A long night of drinking copious cups of coffee (because for some strange reason the pub wasn´t
able to serve alcohol that night...) and we rugged up to catch the midnight train to Oruro to make a connecting bus to La Paz. We had originally intended on travelling to Potosi and Sucre but unfortunately the road blockades changed our minds for us.... So to Sorata we headed!
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