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Published: November 16th 2006
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So on 10 October we packed up and said goodbye to Argentina. The bus took us over the highest pass into Chile - kind of crazy doing passport control at 4600m! We arrived in San Pedro de Atacama in Northern Chile in the afternoon. We had been warned that it was very primitive - no cashpoint, hot water or electricity. However we were pleasantly surprised...apart from the dusty road there are enough trendy bars to give Upper Street a run for its money (well maybe not quite!). We then hunted round for a good tour company to take us over the border into Bolivia and across the Salar de Uyuni. Having heard many horror stories about car crashes, avalanches and drunk drivers we slogged through every tour company we could find until eventually settling on Cordillera Tours (because they promised they'd bring us oxygen!). So we set off bright and early the next morning to cross from Chile into Bolivia. In our group were 2 French women, a German man and an Argentine man called Dermi. Our fantastic Bolivian guide was called Javier. We all crammed into a Toyota landcruiser (rucksacks on the roof) and began our ascent into Bolivia. The
Lagunas
Laguna Blanca on left, Laguna Verde on right border is at a staggering 4400m and is just a hut with a few Bolivian guards. On day 1 we drove to massive lakes of all different colours (because of the minerals/algae). We climbed to the highest point of our trip at 4900m - the Sol de Manana geysers which smell of sulphur and make a great roaring noise like a plane taking off next to you. Our final stop of the day was at the Laguna Colorada - a massive red lake covered in flamingoes. It was truly spectacular and just a little freezing!
The poor boys in our group got seriously sick with the altitude - they could hardly get out of the jeep. However us girls were all good and snap happy as usual! We stayed the night in a very primitive refuge on the shore of the Laguna Colorado. The temperature dropped to -15 degrees centigrade. We wore all our clothes to sleep and it still wasn't enough!
The only effects of the altitude that we felt were occasional sluggishness and breathlessness after eating as the blood rushes from your head to your stomach. You can also get a bit breathless when you try and sleep
Dali desert
So called because it looks like one of his paintings. because as soon as your body relaxes it realises it needs far more oxygen and wakes you up to breathe faster. We really got into chewing coca leaves to combat the effects. You make a little ball of leaves in between your cheek and your gum and just leave it there for the juices to release. Bolivians usually chew massive amounts of leaves but we were happy just to get 10 or so in our mouths!
Day 2 took us to some more lakes with more flamingoes. The most exciting part was our night stay in a hotel made entirely of salt (with a hot shower...hurrah!). It's slightly bizarre walking around on a salt floor. And we probably still have salt lurking at the bottom of our bags from it!
On day 3 we woke up at 5am to go see the sunrise over the Salar de Uyuni. It's the largest salt lake in the world. We headed to "Fish Island" to watch the sunrise. It was truly spectacular...the light was incredible but near impossible to capture in photos. After breakfasting on the island we headed out into the Salar and spent ages taking random/funny/clever photos. At about lunchtime we
headed into Uyuni itself. Had a bit of a panic as had no money and none of the cashpoints worked. Ended up having to exchange dollars at an appalling rate! Uyuni is in all honesty a bit of a dump. It's basically the nearest border town so you have to end up there but there's not very much to recommend it. Oh apart from Minuteman Pizza - a restaurant run by an American which provided us with one of the best pizzas ever!
The next day we headed to the bus station to get our bus to Sucre (via Potosi). The bus was a total wreck and broke down 3 times on our way to Potosi. The driver ended up begging the passengers for money to buy petrol from a passing car! Even worse when we got on our connecting bus, they'd sold our window seats and we ended up sitting at the back squashed between some seriously smelly (and arguably drunk) Bolivian men. They all refused to open the windows so we arrived in Sucre 10 hours later feeling very sick. We were overjoyed to find our hostel with a hot shower and see that Sucre looked by comparison
to be incredibly cosmopolitan. Sucre was to be our home for the next month so we prepared ourselves to go off and meet our homestay family. We'd been travelling for nearly 6 weeks so we were looking forward to unpacking and getting to know a little bit of Bolivia. More about that next time!
Thanks for reading! xxxx
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Cousin Alan
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Remarkable
Remarkable how the mineral salts cause people and vehicles to shrink . . . or is it grow? Or perhaps it's the coca leaves. What an amazing trip!