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Published: November 22nd 2006
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After a very long, very bumpy bus journey through Bolivia, spent a day in Uyuni.. sitting in the plaza playing cards and enjoying the heat, lower altitude and lack of hills.. such a quiet, sleepy town (with the worst waiters in the world!) so not much to do, but was nice to chill out there for a day.
The 4 of us then set off in a jeep with Philipo (our driver, guide, mechanic, cook etc etc) and some terrible Bolivian pop music (thankfully we realised after a few hours that we could plug our ipods into the stereo, so we were saved.. though some of the Dutch tunes were quite dodgy too!) for the 3 day drive South through Bolivia to the Chilean border. We were really lucky as Philipo was great, and we'd heard terrible reports about some of the other guides.
Day 1….
Started our long drive South by driving through the SALAR DE UYUNI, a prehistoric lake which dried up and left a blindingly white 12,000km square of salt plains.. glad I had sunglasses, couldn’t open my eyes without them. It was stunning and I’ve never seen anything like it before..
never ending white, flat land with views of Volcan Tunupa in the distance.
Visited a hotel made completely out of salt blocks (the walls, tables, chairs, beds etc etc), took lots of silly photos and played a bit of footie on the salt. Saw a man and his son digging up salt rock "bricks" in the middle of the plains.. looked like hard work!
Walked up to the mirador at ISLA DE LOS PESCADORES.. an oasis island in the middle of the salt planes, which was rock covered in cactus, some of which were more than 1000 years old. Amazing views of the salt plains stretching out into the distance. And when we got down from our walk Philipo had prepared lunch for us out of the back of the jeep (chicken, salad, cheese.. great.. tablecloth and all!).
Our accomodation for night one was much better (and warmer!) than we’d expected.. the 4 of us shared a room with salt beds and salt grit floor, and Filipo had cooked us a fantastic vegetable soup for dinner. Though there was no hot water and the electricity only came on from 7pm to 10.30pm meaning an
early night!
Day 2…
Drove through a bumpy, desert like landscape across sand and volcanic rock formations.. for great views of Volcan Ollague (almost 6000m) which is half in Bolivia and half in Chile. Also visited some lakes in this high plateau, all different colours (green, red) because of the minerals in the water, and sulphury smelling! Lots of flamingos on the lakes, a few llamas and alpacas, but not much else around!
Night 2’s accomodation was much more basic.. old looking buildings in the RESERVE NACIONAL DE FAUNA, saggy bunk beds, no shower at all, one cold bathroom shared by everyone (see photo!), electricity only between 7pm and 9pm. Though Filipo excelled (again!) by providing a bottle of wine to go with our dinner.
Day 3…
An early start... up at 4.30am to watch the geysers spout at sunrise.. the geyser field was at almost 5000m so it was freezing at that time in the morning (hence the socks with flip flops.. not a great look!). We did warm up by standing in the hot steam, but it made you gag due to the sulphur smell, so it was
a toss up between being icy or feeling sick! .. The geysers were amazing.. bubbling mud in holes in the ground, and boiling steam shooting out of cracks.. worth the painful awakening at 4.30am (made all the more painful as it was dark and there was no electricity, so packed and cleaned teeth by candlelight, piled on as many clothes as I could find and headed off).
Then to AGUAS THERMALS where we stripped down to swim wear (painful in the cold for about 2 minutes) and got into the thermal water at 30 degrees.. it was fantastic to be warm, and beautiful sitting in the water at the end of the lake with the early morning sun. .. and followed by hot coffee and cake for breakfast out of the back of the jeep.
The landscape became more and more desert like as we headed South. We passed more beautiful coloured lakes but there was no vegetation and very few animals around (apart from the odd alpaca.. I have no idea what they eat out there!). The desert looked just like some of Salvador Dali's paintings.. and apparently was his inspiration (one of the valleys
is even named after him).
Arrived at the border with Chile at 9.30am and had to wait for ages as there were too many people for the amount of bus seats heading South.. eventually crammed into a minibus and headed to San Pedro de Atacama. As soon as we crossed the border we hit a paved road, hopefully indicating that travel in Chile is more comfortable than travel in Bolivia!
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