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Published: January 14th 2008
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Boy o boy! This is going to be the hardest entry to write so far! I have experienced something so beautiful that I am just lost for words! Hopefully my pictures will help you understand what I got to see. However, the pictures really don´t do this surreal place justice.
Sinead, Debbie, Eilene, Adam and I booked a 3 day tour of Uyuni with Oasis Tours. They are supposed to be one of the best tour agencies around. I was not entirely sure what kind of tour this would be and what we would be doing. I always heard from other travelers how they took the tour and how amazing it was. But honestly, I can not imagine some of my friends taking this tour or having some of my relatives even surviving it!!
The tour consisted of spending about 25 hours in a 4X4 Jeep. There were no paved roads to drive on and not even smooth dirt roads. Im tellin ya, they brought us out into the freakin boonies of all boonies! Nobody lives in these territories. The temperatures at times reached a smeltering 90 degrees and went almost as low to 0 degrees. Anyways, since I´m
The clouds.. the salts
driving through clouds.. short.. i got tossed in the back of the jeep. Now we all know that your 10x more likely to get motion sickness when you sit in the back of a jeep, bus, car, or whatever. I kept popping in motion sickness pills every 4 hours. But back to the roads not being paved... i felt like i was on a non-stop rollercoaster. i think my head hit the rooftop of the jeep about... well actually i lost count how many times i hit my head. but really.. there was never a moment when there was no rattling from the jeep.. or your ass bumpin and bumpin in the seat.. or your body swaying side to side. I still cant believe nobody warned us about this crazy adventure ride!
So, DAY 1! 7 of us all pile into this jeep. The driver, the cook, and the 5 of us. We leave from Uyuni, Bolivia straight to the worlds largest salt flats. We drive past the Salt Mounts that are used to dry out the salts. The entire ride through the salt flats is almost blinding. Since it rained earlier in the day.. there were puddles on the ground. You
Salt flats
standing on a crayon! could see the blue sky and clouds in the waters reflection. I felt like we were flying through clouds. We visted a hotel made of Salt... really. The hotel is made entirely of SALT! It is now illegal to sleep there because of environmental violations. It was pretty neat though. They had chairs... tables.. counters all made of salt. After visiting the salt hotel, we took tons of optical illusion pictures! Then we visited Isla Incahausi, which is an island in the middle of NOWHERE in the salt flats! The island is filled with cacti apparently over 1000 years old. You could climb to the top of the island to have a clear view of the flats. We ate lunch there right on the flats. Our cook was fantastic! We ate Llama!! So delicious.. muy rico! After, we headed to San Juan for our lodging.. also in the middle of nowhere. There were 6 beds piled into this 1 little room. barely any room for walking. We got to know the other guys in the other jeep that night. Stayed up playing card games. The electricty goes off at 10:30 so we played cards by candlelight. I think we all
isnt this fun?
about punching adam slept in everything we owed because it was bitterly cold. I slept with my socks on.. thats how cold it was. I NEVER SLEEP WITH MY SOCKS ON.
DAY 2! We wake up for breakfast at 630AM. We head South to see mountains, rock tree formations (a rock that looks like a tree.. made from strong winds), erosions, & lagunas (Coloradas & Hedionda) that had tons of beautiful pink FLAMINGOS. We drove up the steepest mountain in the jeep... i couldnt believe that we made it up to the top. We reached 19685 feet high. thats REALLY high if you wernt too sure. I went skydiving at 13,000 feet and we were hiking up even higher! NOW I know why jeeps were invented. they wernt invented for soccer moms! NO!! they were made to tackle the mountains and rough ridin! We ended up staying at this terrible lodging place. This is when i felt like a true traveler. My bed looked like a hammock since it sunk in so much. the bathrooms, well.. im not too sure if i should go into DETAIL about the bathrooms. Ill try, well there was no shower. There were two toilets.. the
san juan
Pay attention to the bed in the middle. Notice how much it caves in??? hahah doors for the toilets were those plastic blue tarps that you put over cars during the winter. barely any lighting... and the floors were soaking wet. you know, i hate thinking about WHY the floors were wet. Is it piss? is it the water leaking from the toilets?? because it sure wasnt the water from the shower since there wasnt one! so everytime i went to the bathroom.. i had to roll up my jeans.. and god i hated when my shoe laces dipped into the water on the ground. because i will forever have to tie those shoelaces that were dipped in the unknown liquid on the bathroom floor unless i wash them. like that will ever happen! then i had to try balancing when going on the toilet and trying not to touch the walls. and as i do this i start asking myself how i could have forgotten my antibacterial gel at home.
Day 3! We woke up in the ass crack of dawn.. 4AM. There was no electricity and it was pitch dark out. We had to gather all our belongings up while half asleep and in the tiny bit of light our 4inch led
jump picture
can you tell i used to be a cheerleader????? hahahah flashlights. but we did it! we threw our bags on top of the jeep and headed off to Sol de Manana where you can see the geisers. When I arrived there... i did not feel like I was standing on Earth. If someone showed me a picture of this place and said it was on planet mars.. I´d probably believe them. These geisers are bubbling with hott water and sulfur. The ground was slippery and wet.. and the air was thick with a strong unpleasant smell probably from the sulfur. It was quite a sight though! Its crazy to think about how many natural surreal sites we have here on earth and I feel so lucky to be able to see them. After, we headed to the hot springs!! I didnt go swimming but i sat down and put my legs in for awhile. It felt nice.. everyone kept complaining though about these red bugs in the water and how their skin started to itch! soo.. im pretty relieved that i didnt go swimming in hot springs. After, we headed to one of the most beautiful volcanoes and laguna... Laguna Verde & Vulcán Lincacabur. The water was a beautiful teal
Laguna Verde
see how teal it is! blue/green.
After this trip... I wasnt sure if there was anything else in south america or in the WORLD that could awe me like Salar de Uyuni did. We smiled the entire way to the Chile border. I kept thinking in the jeep... now how the hell am i supposed to explain this place. I think some things are better left unexplained because I really am not doing this place justice. but hopefully my pictures can help a bit.
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christy
non-member comment
ooohh myy gawd
holy shit....it looks fuckin amazing