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Published: October 29th 2007
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And so it was time to leave San Pedro de Atacama and head for Bolivia via the Salar de Uyuni. First it was a short bus ride out of town to the Chilean border and to get our exit stamp. Then it was another half hour or so into the hills up to the desolate Bolivian border, where we arrived at 9AM and tucked into breakfast whilst freezing our kerniggets off.
As a side story back in the 70’s and 80’s, the Chilean Army, foreseeing a war, planted several thousand landmines along the border with Bolivia and its neighbouring areas, including around the outskirts of San Pedro. Many would-be mountain passes and transit areas still have these weapons buried in the ground, occasionally blowing up the odd animal or car that strays off the path. Most of these are antitank mines, requiring a heavy object to trigger them so generally a person stepping shoudln’t be a problem...however not something you really want to test out. The locations of these mines are unknown even by the military and so drivers are encouraged not to stray off the beaten path particularly when close to borders..
We were then split up into
3 groups and each assigned a 4x4 jeep, we joined up with Liz and Brian two mature travellers from Canada, 5 young kiwi’s were squashed into another truck and 4 Australian diplomats were allocated a black, rather shiny and distinctly upmarket looking vehicle, particularly when you compared it to ours which had its bonnet tied on with string and windows that didn’t work!
After loading up all the gear on the roof and squashing a bit more inside we were off, heading out into the dusty moonscape of volcanoes and salt lakes. With the skies clearing as hoped, the promised stunning views were already materialising and so long as our jalopy made it the distance things were looking pretty good.
First stop was at the Laguna Verde (Green Lake) at 5000m (16,500ft) and then it was onto the hot springs (Termas de Polques) at 4200m. At 30degC these weren’t exactly hot and only a few brave souls jumped in, most of us settling for dipping the odd toe or finger in! Further on and back up to 4950m we strolled around a geyser basin, with plenty of boiling hot mud and fumaroles to convince us that the surrounding
volcanoes weren’t just for show!
Next stop was Lago Roco (Red Lake) and our first encounter with flamingos and a chance to grab a few shots of these elegant looking birds in the distance. Little did we know that in another 48 hours we would have seen enough flamingos to last us a lifetime and we didn’t need to worry that they were so far away here.
Lago Colorada was our last sight for the day and also the location of our overnight accommodation. The ‘hotel’ was basic with the four of us in our jeep sharing a room with 5 Kiwi’s, but perfectly adequate. I guess it depends on your perspective and maybe those who had told us it was terrible were used to slightly more upmarket lodgings. Anyway, we found it reasonably comfortable, not desperately cold and the unusual feature of a wake-up call courtesy of a baby lama made our stay!
So far we had survived without any serious mechanical issues, the Kiwi’s had suffered a puncture, but that was run of the mill around here and was easily fixed with a few bits of rubber and a big bicycle pump. Sure, starting the
engine in our jeep involved untying the rope holding the bonnet down and encouraging the starter motor with a hammer, but they always got it going again and it only took 5 minutes!
Next morning we were off at 8:30 and so began a day of numerous lakes and hundreds of flamingos. We can’t remember the names of any of them and I’m sure it wouldn’t add anything to the narrative here anyway. As you can see from the photo’s the sky was deep blue often with interesting clouds, the volcanoes were an array of wacky colours and the lakes were big, salty and full of flamingos. The road was mostly sandy/grit, loose gravel elsewhere and with the occasional seriously off-road rocky section that made us wonder again how they could afford to offer the trip at the price they did, given the beating that the vehicles took.
The wind/sand weathered Salvador Dali rocks were an interesting diversion from endless lakes and flamingos, which were beginning to leave us feeling a little ‘flamingoed-out’. Of course as we stopped for lunch next to another beautiful lake, dotted with hundreds of bright pink flamingos with volcanoes and a crystal clear
sky as a backdrop, we did our best to be good tourists and took another 50 photos....
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