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Published: July 13th 2010
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The cactus looked coldThe dawn of the Salar de Uyuni tour was upon us and we were feeling excited as we walked to the Hostal Valle Hermoso to meet up with our group for 8.30am. Of course, a little waiting around followed as we drank some mate and waited for the jeep to be loaded up with all our stuff. There ended up being 5 of us on the tour which meant we got some money back as 5 makes it cheaper than 4, which was a nice surprise.
All packed up and ready to go, we left about 9am and got settled in the jeep that was to be our transport for the next 4 days. Then it was time to get to know each other - Noa and Dana, 2 chicas from Israel, who had recently finished their military training and were now having an adventure around South America, and Eoghan from Ireland, Dublin or nearby if I remember correctly, who was on a 6 week dash around South America. Then there was Alberto, our driver and guide, and Lucy, our chef, who told us they’d be our Mum and Dad for the next few days. How sweet! It seemed like
a nice group and off we set to discover the Salars de Atacama and Uyuni.
On that first day, as soon as we drove out of the town, we were bumping along through the quebradas, large river valleys with rocks and boulders strewn across it. We then proceeded to drive up, up, up to 4000metres through mountains, cactus-covered lands and high altitude desert, stopping to check out the amazing views at various passes along the way, with the stunning colours of the bluebell skies against the multi-coloured rocks and sands. Lunch was a windswept affair in the back of the jeep which consisted of salt-dried meat, boiled potatoes, cold fried eggs and salad. It was looking like it was going to be a bleak culinary experience over the next four days...oh well, might help us lose weight!! We also got a flat tyre which seemed like a bad omen seeing as it was only day 1 and we had only one spare tyre that looked like it had been patched up a few hundred times before...only time will tell.
We eventually (after an 8-hour, numb-bum inducing day) reached a town called San Antonio de Lipez, where we stayed
for the night. We arrived just in time to unload our stuff and for Alberto to fix the tyre (with the help of 2 little tykes who ended up sticking the tyre pump into their own mouths trying to blow themselves up!) and clean the jeep (he’s obviously a very proud man - it got cleaned thoroughly each night!), before a beautiful, bright pink sunset hit and we were plunged into darkness. The town is tiny, maybe 15 houses but who knows how many people in each one. In our refugio, there were at least 10 so maybe the town isn’t as under populated as it seems from the outside. Our room was much better than we had all expected - big enough for us all to sleep well and with pretty comfortable beds, covered in plenty of blankets. Luckily we all had sleeping bags as well though as the temperature plummeted to about -5 and we were all bloody freezing! Us girls didn’t even take our clothes off to sleep, and even Ian kept his T shirt on, something he never does. But we had a tasty dinner, meaning things were looking on the up food-wise, cooked by the
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Our trusty truck for the next 4 days... lovely, if we had started to realise, slightly crazy Lucy , - a starter of biscuits and crackers, followed by a delicious soup and then meat, salad and mashed potatoes. We had brought a bottle of rum with us but Alberto advised us not to drink it on the first night as we were heading up even higher the following day and it might give us issues the next day - hangovers at altitude and car sickness? No thanks. So we all had an early night, half due to the fact that it was so cold and bed was the warmest place, and half because we had no light to do anything else by. But we were getting up at 5am the following morning so it wasn’t a bad idea anyway.
5am at 4400metres is cold, cold, cold I can tell you, as is the water you have to brush your teeth in and wash in - so we all decided we’d go au natural for the next few days. Breakfast was bread, jam and dulce de leche (mmmm, yum!) and then off we went, into the darkness of the plateau to a ghost town to watch the sunrise.
The Pueblo Fantasma (at 4690metres) is supposedly haunted and an unknown force mysteriously killed all the inhabitants there, and so rather unsurprisingly, everyone left. Can’t blame them can you??
Having felt pretty rubbishy in the back of the jeep the day before, Lisa moved up front with Alberto when she could or into the middle of the back seat and everything was much better. The second day consisted of more Altiplano, stunning scenery, random herds of llamas and vicunas (a relative of the llama and alpaca), rivers and streams, small salt lakes and more desert. The air up this high, and so far from civilisation, is so pure and clean (and thin!) but luckily none of us were feeling the effects of the altitude, being plied with coca leaves, mate and another concoction made from what looked like pine needles by Lucy. which kept the evil headaches at bay. Day 2 was also the day of the lakes as we saw Lagunas Morejon, Hedionda, Blanca, Colorada and Verde, the last being the most impressive with the Volcan Licancabur looming over it. More interesting sights included the Rocas de Dali, which are an outcrop of large boulders, randomly strewn around
the ground, which Dali saw while flying over the area from Bolivia to Chile. He made the pilot fly back over the rocks to get a closer look and so the stones were named after him and they are featured in some of his paintings. There was also the turtle - a rock formation at the top of one of the mountains that looked amusingly like a massive turtle trying to clamber over the top of the mountain. Day 2 was also the day we reached 5000metres and saw the Geisers Fumaroles, a smoky, steamy place where you can only imagine how hot the ground must be just beneath our feet. After the Geisers, we headed for our next stopover, Huallajara, which again we reached just before sunset and again was freezing.
The accommodation itself though was surprisingly even better than the first night, with more comfortable beds, nicer toilets that flushed (although still cold water) and a large shared dining area meaning we got to know some of the other tour groups. We met a nice Swiss family who were on a 3-month tour of South America, with their 2 young kids in tow, one of who was
suffering terribly from the altitude, bless her, with her eye swelling up to an abnormal size and obviously causing a lot of pain. Dinner that night was super again, with roast chicken, potatoes and the little purple willy-esque root vegetables we’d had on Lake Titicaca but this time Lucy cooked them to perfection and they tasted great, along with vegetables and soup. And the rum came out that night too as Alberto had informed us that we weren’t going any higher the following day. So it was rum and shithead until it got too cold to actually sit there anymore and we crawled into the warmth of our sleeping bag and 5 blankets (fully dressed of course!).
Up early again for day 3 and a breakfast of pancakes! A very happy group got settled into the jeep for the day’s adventure and we set off into the Altiplano again, heading for the Desierto Siloli and the Arbol de Piedra, a tree shaped rock formation, created from the effects of shards of volcanic rock being swept through the air by high winds. Very cool. We were also lucky enough to spot a Bolivian vizcacha, a big bunny type animal,
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Lisa feeling a little car sick on day number one! Doesn't bode well... which Alberto got to come and say hi by hooting his horn. He was then rewarded with a leftover pancake from breakfast (the bunny, not Alberto!) The 5 Lagunas then followed - Ramaditas, Honda, Chiarkota, Hedionda and Canapa - all beautiful, varied in colour and salty. We stopped by a few of them for a wander along the water/salt edge and then it was lunch, again another veritable feast made by Lucy. How she does it with so little time or equipment I’ll never know. Next stop after driving through more stunning mountainous landscapes was the Mirador Volcan Ollague, where we stopped on a lava field to gaze up at the active volcano spewing smoke out of one of its vents. Awesome.
San Juan was our stop for the 3rd night, right on the edge of the Salar de Uyuni, and once again the accommodation was a major improvement on the night before. We were actually staying in a salt hotel! Not the famous, touristy one on the lake itself but a nice, cosy one, where we had our own room, the beds were made of salt and we could have a hot shower!! Wow, 3 days of not
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Unfortunately this was just a sign of things to come.... showering really makes you appreciate the luxury of hot water. Dinner again was a superb affair and we got chatting to another tour group who were doing the tour in the opposite direction, starting from Uyuni and ending up in Tupiza, and we spent the night playing cards and drinking until the lights went out at midnight.
The next day we were up before dawn, packed and heading across the salt lake to watch the sun rising on our way to Isla de Pescado. The island was once an underwater volcano, the top of which is what we can see today and is covered in cactus that are thousands of years old. It’s a bizarre but beautiful place with views over the salt lake, the world's largest at 4,086 square miles. The Salar was formed as a result of transformations between several prehistoric lakes, resulting in the water drying up, leaving the deposit of salt we were standing on, which is a few meters thick and extraordinarily flat. The crust serves as a source of salt that Bolivia exports and it contains 50 to 70% of the world's lithium reserves. We walked up to the top of the island
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Our first stop for the night, San Antonio de Lipez, at 4400metres while Lucy organised breakfast. Then it was off to the middle of the lake where we took photos for about 2 hours while Alberto repaired yet another flat tyre - a total of 4 in 4 days meaning Noa won the bet we had going. We tried a number of different poses, some successfully, some not so, but it was fun, we laughed a lot and have the memories of being out in the middle of nowhere, with no one and nothing to be seen as far as the eye could see apart from salt, salt and more salt. An absolutely awesome sight.
It was then a short trip to see the first salt hotel actually built on the lake and the salt producing area with small mounds of salt ready to be transported and exported, before we left the Salar. It had been an amazing trip, incredibly bumpy and not especially comfortable, but jaw-droppingly beautiful with the most magnificent landscapes and a definite must see for any traveller visiting Bolivia.
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caroline osborne
non-member comment
posing!
i LOVE the posing photos - they are absolutely brilliant and will serve as a brilliant reminder of your adventures when you guys get home. it looks like you're having an absolute ball and i wish that we were there with you! thinking of you guys and hope you are settling into your new routine in B.A - look forward to your next blog!! love you xx