Advertisement
Published: February 1st 2010
Salar de Uyuni 1
a thousand acres of skyThe Great Bolivian Road Trip didn´t disappoint, in fact we loved it so much it´s definitely gone down as one of the highlights of our trip so far! We crossed the Argentine/Bolivian border at La Quiaca and once in Villazon, Bolivia wasted no time in catching a bus to the pleasant town of Tupiza, once a successful mining community but now an agricultural centre. Tupiza was only going to be stopping point on our way to Uyuni where we planned to book the salt flat excursion. However, once in Tupiza we realised that we could start the 4 day trip from there and still end up in Uyuni. After a bit of research we signed up with Valle Hermosa tours and off we went.
Starting from Tupiza was convenient for us and meant we got an extra day of scenery but also meant that we had to climb the mountains surrounding Tupiza and experience some of the hairpin bends involved. No one else on the trip seemed to mind but me, but I must admit I was a bit scared at times (Louise).
We travelled with a Bolivian couple who acted as our guide and cook in their friends
Tupiza 1
Just 5 minutes in on day 1 borrowed Toyota Land Cruiser. There were also two other passengers, Nigel from New Zealand, and Max from Italy who was there on a work assignment for an Italian travel magazine. We asked Max to ensure that the photos that he took of us as a group make it to print. (He said he would try his best, ha ha)
Throughout the excursion we saw spectacular scenery, passing through small villages, and brilliantly multicoloured mountain ranges. We stopped to take photos at the various blue, green and white lagoons whilst checking out the flamingos and llamas looking for food on the shore. We also saw various volcanoes, some active some not, and bubbling geysers which contain water 200 degree celsius hot! We kept a safe distance from these as they can spit hot mud out. The final day was spent firstly watching the sunrise from fish island over the salt flats (4.00am start for this one) and then exploring the salt flats in greater detail.
The three nights were spent at various basic hostels, the last hostel was made completely of salt! There were no showers and very little electricity that either came from solar panels or was produced
by a generator, both were switched off at 10pm. The early nights didn't bother us though as we had 4.00am starts on both the first and third morning. There were other travellers in the hostels staying with their tour guides and cooks too so we were able to enjoy a few beers with them.
On the first night we were sat around talking when a little lamb walked in the hostel, trotted around the table and approaching a few of us to say hello, check what we were eating, and then off it went back into the dark night outside. The second night the children of the hostel entertained us with a little song about a llama and its black paws. They didn't get very far through it before their shyness took over and their little baby brother wearing a tiger bonnet tried his best to take over the drum playing. On the third night Jonty got a game of football on the Salar with some local lads, and got a hat trick apparently...
The food was great and our cook was the best judging by what the other groups were served. Each of our evening meals consisted
of homemade soup for starters, followed by a delicious main course, meat, veggies, potatoes and salads etc. Even the lunches were good, battered chicken, local specialities, lots of healthy cucumber, grated carrot etc. On the last morning as we ate breakfast by fish island on the salt flats to watch the sunrise our cook produced a giant heart shaped cake that she had made for us to eat with jam and yogurt. She said it was the "cooks heart". Very tasty indeed!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.081s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0533s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Rob
non-member comment
Let Some Air Get To Them...
All sounds very exciting and the photos are stunning. But what is it that you're not telling us about Jonty's balls? - There's clearly something amiss - either that or, for a bet, he has resolved to spend his entire time in Bolivia with his legs reeeeally far apart... until the last day - when, thankfully, it looks like he was able to bring them a little closer together again.