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Published: June 16th 2008
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Day 257 - Tuesday 3 June
I´ve met some great people in Tupiza and tomorrow the presidents visiting town as its the towns birthday. Everyones off work tomorrow to celebrate and apparently it should be a couple of days of partying. Its a pity I´ve already booked my salt flats tour and leave today.
My sleep patterns all over the place and it was a bit of a struggle getting up at 8 o ´clock to get ready. We´re doing the tour with an English couple who are only 19 years old. I do hope there not too young. Four days stuck in a jeep together could be a long time.
Just after nine I said my good byes and met my driver and cook for the next few days. It turns out the english couple Sophie and Ollie are ok so it should be a good trip. We´ve paid an extra $10 US each to take a detour to the town of San Vincente where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed in a shootout. All morning we made our way through the mountains to reach the town passing some great views on the way.
Early afternoon we finally made it to San Vincente. Its not much of a place infact its tiny and theres nothing there but a few houses . Not the kind of place you´d expect 2 famous outlaws to have met their end. Someones set up a tiny museum thats no bigger than the size of a bedroom it must be one of the smallest museums i the world. Eventually one of the locals turned up with a key and let us in. Theres a skeleton in there thats supposed to be one of the outlaws but i´d be amazed if its true. To be honest it was all a little dissapointing and not really worth all the extra detour but at least I can say I´ve been to the town where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid died.
The rest of the afternoon was spent driving until at sunset we reached a tiny village where were to spend the night. Being in the desert it had been roasting all day but once the sun goes down its bloody cold. I´ve been told thats it falls between -5 and -25 degrees . I don´t know how cold it is tonight
San Vincente Cemetary
Apparently Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are burried somewhere in here but its cold. Once we´d all had dinner we played a bit of cards before deciding its too cold so everybody went to try and stay warm in their beds.
Day 258 Wednesday 4 June
It was an early start today and we were woken up at half five. Recently I´ve only just been getting out of bed at that time so I was less than happy. First stop of the day was an old abandoned village. Disease had struck and the villagers believing it was the work of the devil had all fled. It was a little bit eerie looking round just as the first rays of the sun hit.
Thankfully it soon warmed up as we spent the whole morning driving across the desert. There were a couple of stops at some nice lakes before we reached the hot springs and the stop off for lunch. I´ve been to a few hot springs now on my trip but they´re always nice to stop at.
Once lunch and our dip were over we continued on our journey. A few more lakes later and just before sunset we hit the geysers. Although I´d seen them before
San Vincente
Its not like in the film in Rotorua, New Zealand I thought they were more impressive here. South America really does have everything New Zealand does but at a fraction of the price. I don´t know why people bother going to New Zealand at all.
If I thought It had been cold last night, I was in for a shock tonight. I´ve never felt so cold even with about 6 layers of clothes on. Once dinner was over everybody headed to bed. Thankgod I had the sleeping pills, I don´t know if I´d have been able to sleep otherwise.
Day 259 - Thursday 5 June
They let us have a bit of a lie in today but it was still about half seven when we set off. Unfortuantely our jeep broke down in the middle of nowhere and we were stranded for about an hour until the driver and chef managed to fix the problem. They really are a jack of all trades.
After a brief stop off at some rocks that look like trees, we were racing across the edges of the Atacama desert (Incedentally the worlds driest desert), when our driver went over a bump to fast. The jeep was
riding on two wheels and very nearly flipped over. Now that could have been interesting as we really are in the wilderness. It also caused us to brake down for another half an hour.
Once we were off again we carried on driving until we reached todays lunch stop. A nice lake with lots of Flamingos. It was then another afternoon of continous driving across the desert occassionally stopping at a lake until we reached tonights accommodation. The place were staying at is made totally out of salt. Even the beds. It was quite a nice surprise.
Again it was dinner and cards before the solar powered generator ran out of power and we all headed to bed.
Day 260 - Friday 6 June
Its the last day of our trip today and we finally get to visit the salt flats the whole point of our trip. We had to get up at about 5 am as we get to see the sun rise above the flats. It will only be the second sunrise i´ll have seen on my trip with the last one being back at Siem Reip, Cambodia. Obviously i´m not a morning person.
It was bloody cold stood on the salt waiting for the sun to come up. After an age it finally surfaced. I´m sure its no more different to sunset. As this used to be all under the ocean millions of years ago theres a big island made from coral. It was here that we stopped for breakfast and had a walk around. It would have been really pretty and there was cacti everywhere, but as the suns not properly up yet, it was too cold to enjoy. If only we could have visited an hour later.
After breakfast we got the chance to take our photos on the flats. Because its a totally flat white surface you can take all sorts of weird funny looking photos (See some attached).
The final stop of the trip was an old train cemetary. Its here that all the old steam trains from Bolivias railway have been abandoned. Most of them were built in England. After climbing in a few we finally arrived in the town of Uyuni. I really don´t think much of it and am glad i´m not staying the night.
With a few hours to kill until
our bus leaves at eight I sat with Russ in the main plaza and had a couple of beers.
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