Advertisement
Published: February 12th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Our First Stop
I wonder what this action has to do with checking the tyres, although we´d find out multiple times that this is a required stop at various points on the tour. We arrived at 5am in Uyuni, hoping to find some nice 24 hour establishment to rest and hopefully get some info about a day on the salt flats. No such 24 hour establishment exists though, and the only stirring in the town was of multiple backpackers in the same boat wandering around looking for somewhere warm or open.
Finally a tour operator saw us from her bedroom window, came across the street, opened her shop, sold us a day tour of the salt flats and let us sleep in the office, while she went back to bed. She could´ve sold us anything as long as we had somwhere nice to sleep. After all, the last section of bus ride from Oruro to Uyuni was on a dirt road, on an old bus which allowed all the dust in and had people crammed into the aisles.
Two more people were sold the day tour, a Swede, who thankfully for us, spoke Spanish, and an American who we made fun of because of the way the locals treat "his kind" or at least overcharge them for everything.
The tour started ok. The guide, in a referee´s uniform, was quite friendly.
The Drunk Chariot
Of course it´s safe to ride on the roof. The first stop was the railway cemetary, which was just old rusted out locomotives. Then on the way to the salt flats, came our first warning. The guide stopped the 4wd, checked the tyres briefly then relieved himself on the side of the dirt track. OK, fair enough, he had to go. Play on.
GT then asked if he could ride on the roof, since there were racks but we weren´t carrying any luggage. He said ok, but wait till we got to the salt flats. we arrived at the first site, where salt was being collected in piles. (I omitted the stop at the craft market/salt factory where you could see salt put into bags and sealed for 5 Bvs) We took some pictures on the piles, standard stuff. GT then boarded the roof and we drove to some random point on the flats to take some more pictures. When we took off again, he said we could ride on the roof. GT was just up there we replied. He laughed as he´d had no idea. GT, Iceberg and Rich boarded the roof and rode out the 15 mins to the salt hotel. Pretty boring stop. Next stop
Good luck this year
Pretty sure this much salt over the shoulder means good luck. Safe as houses on the roof! fish island. Chris (US) and I boarded the roof, while some other tour guide spoke to ours. The Swede later told us, the guide was telling ours that we could die on the roof. Little did he know.
Chris and I would later find out, after 45 minutes on the roof and numb feet that our driver was falling in and out of sleep the whole time we were on the roof at 80km/h. This isn´t all that unsafe, as there´s nothing really to crash into on the salt flats, but there were sufficient crosses along the way to remind us that it was possible. The rest of the car was in hysterics, when we finally banged on the roof to be let back into the cabin. When they told us of the guide´s sleeping habits, Chris was less than impressed. I should´ve been worried too I guess, but the day before I´d been on the Death Road drunk, so could´nt really hold it against him.
The rest of the trip to various parts of the salt flats was fairly uneventful except trying to get a picture of our driver actually asleep. He went between, leaning right over
Standard
Thought I´d put in one normal picture. the wheel to leaning right back in the seat stretching. It really was a display of drowsy driving out of the text book. We offered to drive, ourselves pretty sleepy and at the last stop he actually said we could if we wanted. (He´d slept during our stop off of 15 minutes while we took photos).
Finally, we set off for home and in the tracks which lead away from the flats, we found out our guide´s one true love. Trying to run over animals with his 4WD. Initially it was a pack of ostriches, which he ditched the track to chase. We laughed at first at the sheer absurdity, then went quiet as his evil cackle took over and we were not quite sure if he was actually intending to run over one of these animals! Until the vegetarian Swede told him not to. We couldn´t stop laughing at the absurdity of it all and the guide couldn´t stop laughing about how much fun he was having and thought we were having. I think I liked him better while he was asleep. He also chased a pack of dogs, emitting his evil laugh. When we finally pulled up
40 Winks
This position seemed to be his faviourite sleep position, and the one most likely to cause erratic steering. outside the tour office, we didn´t know whether to laugh or cry. Truly the most amazing tour of the salt flats!
Again, I don´t think this is the most dangerous thing we did....
Advertisement
Tot: 0.104s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0624s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb