Green Lakes, Flat Tyres and a Layer of Dust

---

Day 38-13th October

Christ Alive that was an absolutely freezing night! The temperature dropped to about -7°C and with no heating you can imagine how cold it was. Once again the beds had lots of blankets and we had our sleeping bags, so I was quite pleasantly warm, however I ended up having to sleep with my head under the covers because if I didn’t, my head froze! So when we had to get up at 5:30am to hit the road again, I don’t think any of us wanted to leave our warm beds. However this was our last day and it was a very long way back to Uyuni (8 hours) and we needed to get going. We’d all slept in our clothes and just got straight out of bed, packed our sleeping bags away, quick face wash and teeth brush and then back in the jeep. Nice. It was seriously too cold for anything else!

Although the main purpose of the day was to head back to Uyuni, there were a couple of things that we were to see on the way back. The first being the Aguas Calientes (The Hot Springs) where we were to have breakfast and a dip if we liked! Aguas Calientes is huge and not all of it is safe to bathe in, for example, the first bit we went to, the water was at boiling temperature and had a high sulphur content! Maybe not then, however this is the most dramatic bit of Aguas Calientes as there is lots of steam rising out of the ground, especially contrasting with the bloody cold morning. So after a walk around there, trying not to breathe in the very stinky eggy fumes we got back in the jeep and headed over to where we were to eat breakfast. Having been awake nearly 2 hours by this point we were absolutely starving!! We stopped at this building on the edge of the springs that had a small hot water pool attached to it. Now it looked really nice and the water was indeed very warm but the fact that it was still below freezing outside meant that only 1 out of the 6 of us could face getting changed to get in, and no it wasn’t either myself or Ellory! Gladys, one of the Peruvian girls braved it, and not having her swimming stuff to hand, got in the water in her underwear! Crazy girl. The rest of us just wandered around taking pictures and then dived into the building as soon as we saw Philippe with flask of hot water for tea and a pile of pancakes! Yum. Ellory and I don’t always eat 3 meals a day back in the U.K, but we were certainly settling in quite well to that routine, especially breakfast, (not a meal either one of us particularly eats) but since we’ve been in S. America I think we’ve missed breakfast only 3 or 4 times. A nutritionist would be proud.

Breakfast done we piled back in the jeep to head to the next and last attraction of the trip, the Laguna Verde, the Green Lake, and yes it is green, in a tropical beach sort of way, which is very odd contrasting with the salt and surrounding volcanoes! Apparently the water has a high copper content, hence the green. We couldn’t stay too long, 1, because we had to head back to Uyuni and 2, it was still very early, therefore very cold still, but it was absolutely beautiful and I’m pretty sure the photos do not do it justice, it was amazing.

The rest of the day was taken up with bumping all the way back to Uyuni, although we stopped at the Laguna Colorada again, which gave us a good opportunity to take some pictures with the sun shining as opposed to the grey clouds we’d had the day before.

We were maybe 50km from Uyuni when the jeep started to make a horrendous noise. It sounded like there was a stone caught between the brakes and the tyres. We pulled over and Philippe ended up having to change the tyre at the side of the road in very windy and sandy conditions, we all got absolutely covered! Although to be honest, it was just layering dust upon dust at that point! It took us about an hour to get ready to move again but we still had time to spare. We arrived back in Uyuni, and Philippe proceeded to show us that another tyre was as flat as a pancake! We’re not sure when it went exactly, but as he’d already used the spare tyre he’d obviously just decided to keep driving and pray! To be honest though, if that was the worst thing that happened to us on our tour, we were very lucky. I spoke to Anna, the girl we were meant to be in a jeep with before we got separated because there weren’t enough of us, back in Uyuni, and she’d seen her driver drink 50 bottles of beer on the 3rd day. Think she’d had a bit of a terrifying journey! Apparently that’s not that uncommon either. Philippe was an excellent cook and driver and very knowledgeable about the area and he’d definitely earned the tip we gave him, bless him, he seemed surprised as well!

We grabbed our bags and said goodbye to Philippe and the Peruvian girls, they live in Lima and have offered to take us out on a night out Peruvian style when we get there next month, excellent. They were really nice and it definitely helped having Spanish/English speakers with us. Although we are getting better all the time, we are definitely still novices and having them there made certain things that bit easier. Cheers girls!

Before we went on this tour we were not sure as to head straight back to La Paz the night we finished the tour or spend the night in Uyuni before heading back the next day. We were dirty and tired but decided to suck it up and go straight back to La Paz, we’d seen what the hostels in Uyuni are like and I wouldn’t say they were comfortable! We walked back over a couple of blocks to the Todo Tourismo bus company and fortunately they had some seats for the bus leaving at 8pm. We booked ourselves on it, and settled in the waiting area for a couple of hours. They had a nice bathroom and we both managed to wash our faces and brush our teeth. Think I went from a deep brown colour to a normal tan after that, I was covered in so much dust! We also charged up our iPods and had a cup of tea, lovely.

So the journey back to La Paz, just as bumpy, but we were both so tired we slept most of the way! Ralph and Fiona, thank you for that epic journey, it was spectacular as you can see from the photos, we had an amazing time!

Love Liz & Ellory xxx

---