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The Uyuni crew
From left to right - Holly, Sandy, Fannie, Martín, and Jane (Holly writing)
After San Pedro de Atacama, Jane, Sandy and I booked a tour with Estrella Del Sur to take a 3 day excursion across the border into Bolivia, crossing Salar de Uyuni on the way - the biggest Salt Flats in the world.
We took a bus to the border between the two countries, where luckily they let me cross without needing to see my Yellow Fever certificate (it's slowly making a pilgramage across the world to San Pedro..unfortunately we couldnt wait for it).
6 of us then enjoyed a breakfast of bananas, bread rolls and hot drinks in the middle of the desert, before setting off in earnest. There were 7 in the car in total - Jose, the driver, Sandy sat next to him in the front, and then French friends Martín, Yves and Fannie crammed themselves into the middle seats and Jane and I wrapped up small to fit into the very back of the car.
We drove on very rocky roads for hours. there were mountains either side of us but huge plains to make up the valley floor. You could see tracks ahead of us, but there was no road as
Lunch by a volcano
that's not a cloud in the background, that's real smoke! such; you were free to make your own way across the barren flatland as you pleased.
On this first day we made stops at Lagunas Blanca and Verde. these two lakes are joined by a stream, and aptly named: the first was white with salt, the second an emerald green. You often find small piles of rocks in South America.They are traditionally created by nomadic peoples who use the piles to express their thanks for an area of natural beauty. So, Jane and Martín made a small pile by Laguna Verde because it was so beautiful!
the next stop was by some hot springs for a 15 minute swim. It was SOOOoooo cold changing into our swimmers at such a high altitude! the springs were said to have medicinal properties, and it was certainly very nice once we got in... and the landscape was beautiful. there was a low wall keeping the water in the pool but it overflowed into the neighbouring laguna which was right next to us.
Our final laguna of the day was Laguna Colorada, which was speckled with 3 species of flamigos - one of which was the rare Andean flamingo. I could've
Martin and Yves are strong!
..or the car's pretty light spent hours taking photos of them!
There are up to 120 land rovers a day making our journey, and they all stop at the same *basic* hotel on their first night. By basic, I mean no electricity, heating, or comfortable beds. Despite hiring extra bedding, and sleeping in all my clothes, I woke up with the worse headache ever, which i partially put down to the altitude...we were over 4000m above sea level.
On Thursday (Day 2) we visited 'Del arbol de Piedra' - or stone tree in english - which was one of several huge structures made by a combination of spewing volcanoes and erosion. they were interesting to see, but our car were still feeling the effects of a rough night's sleep so didnt really make the most of the potential photographs to be taken.
We drove past several lagunas that had formed in conical tops of volcanoes, and then ate lunch while a volcano quitely and consistently smoked on the horizon. At lunch we saw a 'rabbit' that was green and looked like a rabbit except for it's cats tail! so bizarre!
In the afternoon we crossed a small Salar before spending the night in a 'Salt hotel' - that's a hotel made completely our of salt excavated from the flats. The ground indoors consisted of a thick layer of salt - martín and I made salt angels in it. Just before dinner about 8 children came in and danced for us... which was lovely but a bit surreal because we were the only people staying the the hotel, so there were more of them than us. they were cute though and seemed to be enjoying themselves!
After another cold night (though nothing can be as bad as the first night), we woke at 5.30am in order to see the dawn on the Salar de Uyuni, the climax of the tour. It was freeeeeeeezing, but beautiful. Jane and I danced to 'Deeply Dippy' by Right Said Fred to keep warm. Why that song, i dont know, but it worked!
After the sun rose and began to warm us slightly we were taken to Fish Island, a random mount in the middle of the flat desert which is home to hundreds of cacti. A cactus might grow 6 cm in one year... and these cacti were meters tall. they must have been hundreds of years old.
After playing some more on the Salt flats, we arrived in Uyuni at 1pm and visited a 'train graveyard' - loads of rusty steam trains have been left on the outskirts of the town to decay over the years. It struck us as a slightly odd choice of venue to take tourists to.
After eating a lunch of chicken, potatoes and salad at Jose's house we spent the afternoon investigating Uyuni, establishing there wasnt much there, eating dinner with Sandy and two Slovinians, and then catching a bumpy overnight bus to Potosí. The three of us caught a cab at 1am to our pre-booked hostal, which is nice, but cold (of course!)
Next, we plan to visit the silver mines that Potosí's famous for, and then we head to Sucre! it's all go, go go!
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