Advertisement
Published: February 4th 2006
Edit Blog Post
Getting to Uyuni
Its Saturday the day before the
Bolivian National Election and a massive exodus takes place from my hostel in La Paz. Mid morning and chatting with the in-house tourist guy I find the last buses south to Uyuni are at midday not the evening as I thought. shit. Luckily the guy manages to book me onto one of the last buses leaving. I throw everything into my bag and dash to the bus station. For the election the entire country is being shutdown, nobody is allowed to travel or sell alcohol during the 24 hours of the election day.
On the bus I get chatting to a couple of
wacky Canadians who are upping sticks planning to buy land in Argentina build a shack and grow vegetables. They´ve arranged a tour of the Salt Flats with a Bolivian lady also travelling on the bus. She doesn´t seem worried by the Election ban so I´m keen to join them and its only 60 US Dollars.
To get to
Uyuni we change buses in a backwater called
Oruro, my onward ticket is with a company called "Julio 9" (july 9th) I find there office closed. no buses today.
Salar de Uyuni - Getting There
The drivers cabin, the light brown sheet (bottom right) covers the engine Luckily my new Canadian amigos get me on their bus "Mai 26" (may 26th). Looking for our bus we try all the nice looking ones going to Uyuni but find ours is the
old banger in the corner. See the pictures, the engine is in pieces in the drivers cabin, spanners everywhere and a baby asleep in the corner. It stinks and all the seats recline because there
fu*cked. The windows are slightly open but stuck, its a proper
locals bus! We head off in the roasting mid afternoon heat with only a draft from the window. Pritty soon we run out of conventional road and the rest of the journey (8 hours) is on dirt tracks.
Along the way we stop in what appears to be the middle of nowhere, picking up and dropping off people. Its mostly women, who all carry babies not matter how old there are and smell quite a bit.
As the sun goes down so does the temperature and the draft now feels like a gail. By the end of the journey I´m wearing an extra t-shirts and socks, hat on with coat zipped up so only my face is exposed and
I´m still cold!
The road for the last 3 hours is
something else, it feels like we are off roading! The whole bus is rattling, shaking and vibrating, I feel like I´m in a washing machine. when we finally arrive in Uyuni (around 1am) I find the road has been so bad its untied my shoe laces!!
Day 1
After all the promises yesterday Sarah informs us we
can´t leave town due to the military road blocks, we´ll have to start tomorrow. This is a real pain in the ass for me as I need to be in Chile in 3 days to catch my flight to Buenos Aires, tomorrow is too late. We´re having breakfast and another tour operator tells us she can get us on a tour leaving today, and its cheaper. Perfect! she tells us we have to sneak out of the hotel and not let anyone know we´re switching as she is related to the other tour operator! As you´d expected on the way out we bump into the original tour operator, Sarah. Its all gets a bit awkward. The upshot is Sarah the original tour operator is going to try sneak us out
of town.
So we walk to Sarah´s house, no cars allowed on the streets today. The plan is the 3 of us get in the Toyota Jeep with her family and pretend we´re going to the next town so they can vote. They all look a little worried. We set off stopping on each corner to check for police patrols. We head out of the
back of town and onto a track through the desert. More bumpy journeys! Circumventing the town we don´t see any police, drop the family off then get onto the tour!!
The
Bolivian Slat Flats are the largest in the world, but Bolivia chooses not to export any of it. As you approach it looks like a
shimmering white lake on the horizon. We stop to have a walk and taste, its solid and pritty sickly! There are mounds of Salt dotted all over the place, its dug up and left to dry out for a few weeks before processing. Below the surface there is still alot of water held. We stop at the
Salt Hotel to pick up the other three people on the tour, we are 3 Canadians, 1 Japanese guy, 1
Indian girl and 1 Bolivian tour guide/driver/cook. The Hotel is made completely of Salt (except the loos) and more comfortable than it looks. We next head to the
Fish Island, its in the Salt Plains a few hundred meters wide and covered in
Cactus. Very surreal! The rest of the day is spent driving through the Salt Plains, taking in the views and onto our accommodation for night. Its in a small village just off the Flats, an incredibly desolate place to live. Exploring we stumble across the election count, voting population 140.
Day 2
Early start, we leave the Salt Flats behind and head to an extinct volcano,
Ollague. Spectacular landscapes yet very tranquil. The rest of the day is spent visiting 5
Lagunas, Hedionda, Canapa, Chiarkota, Honda Arbol de Piedra and Colorada. Each Laguna has something interesting about it. Laguna Hedionda was probably the largest and full of Flamingos!
Getting from one Laguna to the next is no easy thing, no actual roads round here. We drive over lots of rocky terrain, the 4x4 is upto the job even though its well over 20yrs old. We go from rocky hills to sandy desert and all around
5000m! Its hard to describe but it was just one breath taking landscape after another.
Mid afternoon we stop at the Siloli Desert Rock Trees to test out our climbing skills. I was the only person to climb all the rock formations - Coz I´m hard me.
We spent the night on the edge of
Laguna Colorada. The geological activity in the area makes the Laguna water red! Its spectacular and incredibly windy, the ground round the edge of the Laguna is very colorful and soft to walk almost boggy. We all have fun seeing how far out we can get before stinking into the ground.
Tonight is my last in Bolivia, I savour my last few cups of Coca Leaf. Its banned everywhere else except Peru and Bolivia.
Day 3
In the jeep and on the road for 5am, its cold but spectacular watching the sun rise over the mountains and Lagunas. We stop just as day is breaking at the
Sol de Manana Geysers. Its an area of natural geysers all shapes, sizes and colours, bubbling away blowing out sulphur gases very smelly! The jets of steam are hot and very unpredictable, but we
get to warm ourselves up! Our final stop is a
natural hot spring near Laguna Verde, not far from the geysers. Its about 6:30am I had no intention of going in but its way too inviting! No option but going in my boxers, its just the right temperature and very relaxing with a pritty decent view!
Around 9am´ish we´re driven over the border into northern Chile. You pay an exit fee at the Bolivian customs post of 10 Bolivianos, as expected it goes straight into the guys wallet!
Thats the end to an amazing trip through some of the most spectacular landscapes I´ve ever seen. And all made better spent with a bunch a real bohemian travellers.
I´m super fecking disappointed to be leaving Bolivia so soon. It has exceeded all my expectations and had a fantastic time. Things to do next time in Bolivia,
-The Potosi Mines
-Coca Leaf museum in La Paz
-San Vicente, where Butch Cassdy and the Sundance Kid supposedly made there last stand
-Visit the Bolivian Amazon
-Try some of the local produce
-The Che Guevara trail
Advertisement
Tot: 0.099s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 14; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0249s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Rob Meades (rob@meades.org)
non-member comment
Very cool images
*Very* cool images. You could almost be on Mars.