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Published: June 25th 2008
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The Flats
they went as far as you could see Should have sent this months ago. This was one of the most interesting places we went, so read this!! We were actually waiting to receive pictures from the Brits, that took a lot longer than expected. Never trust a redcoat. Enjoy:
We left La Paz and grabbed another bus bound for the city known as Oruro. On the way, Liz offered some gummy bears to a campesina (country woman) who was sitting next to us on the bus. She gladly accepted and I am sure it was her first Haribo experience and she may spend the rest of her days seeking this strange delicious foreign treat. She was very friendly and she and Liz hit it off and spent the ride discussing the woman's recent trip to Cuba to study the education system there. It sounded like there may have been some inconsistencies in what we have been told about the comfort of life in Cuba and what she had been shown, but she believed that the Cuban model of government and education implemented at home could bring Bolivia to the world power status that Cuba seems to enjoy.
We hopped a train from Oruro to get to the
small town of Uyuni, where we could catch our guide to the largest salt flats in the world (Salar de Uyuni). This was the same train that was robbed many times by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as the train carried Gold from the south towards La Paz. We were shocked by what we saw of Bolivia from the train window on the way south. We spent most of the ride staring out the window as the fields of trash extending from the town we left disappeared and eventually turned into pristine, white marsh and then glimmering water full of bright pink flamingos with a mountain backdrop that reflected over the water. Bolivia is easily the poorest country we have visited, but the richest in terms of natural beauty and culture.
We spent an evening getting to know the tiny town of Uyuni and met the local Bostonian who opened Minuteman Pizza and advertised promises of true Budweiser beer. The next morning we ran around trying to find a tour guide and ended up settling on one with big promises. Our salt tour group included three Brits - recently engaged Adam and Nikki from London and Fran from
Brighton. And a German named Tobias from Hamberg. We traded travel stories and shared our ideas for the crazy pics we would take in the salt flats (we had plenty of time to get acquainted because of course, we didn´t leave on time). As we were about to pile into our 4x4 Landcruiser, our guide showed up. This spitfire, known only as Roberto is a native Bolivian with a wild head of curls and hardly any teeth, but he was always smiling. He was an ex miner from Potosi who claims to speak 14 languages (I think he counts being able to say hello as ability to speak the language). Everytime we turned around Roberto was removing his clothes and running around in the desert. We could not have asked for a more interesting guide. He was full of knowledge (20% of it true) but had great stories and could not have been more excited to hear about each person's distant homes and learning more words in any language.
The landscape was incredible. We saw salt flats that never ended, volcanoes, red lakes, white lakes, green lakes, salt hotels, rock outcropings, strange desert animals, vicunas, and mummies. I will
Friendly Vicuna
The most expensive wool in the world let the pics speak for themselves. It was an incredible 3 day trip.
We had quite the cultural exchange with our UK friends over the 3 days of the tour with 8 people piled into a Toyota Landcruiser ... We taught them about favorite US pastimes, like Cornhole and Slap the Bag. They explained how rugby works and why they were ready to see Tony Blair step down. We had an impromptu dance party on our second night thanks to Trev´s iPod (and too many hours squished together in the car) so we also exchanged our sweet dance moves - we taught them to do the ¨shopping cart¨ and the ever-popular ¨sprinkler¨. They taught us to do ¨Little fish, big fish, cardboard box¨ and the ¨jump rope¨. Both are sure to be huge hits in Denver bars. Stay tuned!
We spent the next day trying to get to Tupiza, the site of the final gun battle between the Bolivian federales and Butch Cassidy....
PS There are two pages of pictures!
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