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Published: February 14th 2011
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Me on the salt flats
About 3 inches of warm, super salty water. First of all, Happy Valentine´s Day to Mr. Kerry Parsons. Sappy, yes. Get over it!
So after getting back to La Paz from the Amazon, we jumped on a night bus down to Uyuni, which was the worst bus in the history of buses. It was a dirt road, which made it extremely bumpy and almost impossible to sleep. It was also freezing cold. I thought I had prepared with enough warm clothes, but alas my female circulation failed me and my feet froze. We also had to get out in the morning and ford a river by foot so that there was less weight on the bus so it wouldn´t bottom out (apparently bridges don´t really exist here). Despite the delay we did manage to meet up with our Salar de Uyuni (salt flats) tour and went straight out onto the flats. It was pretty awesome, very salty and very beautiful.
Unfortunately part of the tour was supposed to include a drive across the salt flats but because it was the rainy season the water was too deep for the car, so we went around. Of course we didn´t miss the effects of the rainy season entirely, there
Holding Amy
The water and huge distances totally throw off your depth perception. was a flash flood from rain in the mountains that caused the road to be completely flooded and took out part of the train tracks. We were delayed waiting for about two hours but did make it across eventually. We then drove out to the first place where we spent the night. Also of interest is the fact that it is really cold in this area called the Altiplano. It is sunny and beautiful most of the time, but super cold. So in the photos, despite it looking really warm, it was definitely not. Also a bit of a shock after coming from the super warm Amazon.
Anyways, the next day we saw a ton of stuff. We climbed some great rock formations, saw lagoons with flamingos, mineral lagoons that have borax, mineral lagoons with arsenic, volcanos, we swam in hot springs, walked around some geysers with boiling hot mud (120 C!) and then managed to experience some snow and woke up the next day to some snow capped mountains. I also have to note that we went from about 200m above sea level in the jungle to about 4,500m on average for these 3 days. We also were
so far South in Bolivia that we were at the trifecta of nations where Bolivia, Chile and Argentina all meet. Our guide took us to the border with Chile and we goofed off and took some photos. So TECHNICALLY we were in Chile because we walked across the border, but not OFFICIALLY.
The next day we got to climb some more amazing rocks, saw a 7 coloured mountain, several more mineral lagoons and a beautiful lake where we had lunch. We then headed back to Uyuni where Amy and I were supposed to get on the nice smooth problem free train back up North but because of the flash flood we experienced on the first day the train was not runing becasue of flooding problems (apparently typical). So we got on yet another horrible night bus that was below freezing, with no leg room (Kerry you would have died). We got to Oruro only 3 hours late and then we were so fed up with it we just got on a bus to Cochabamba right away.
We arrived in Cochabamba on Sunday to nice warm weather and found a nice hostel. On our way to grab some lunch
Amy and I
We look extremely excited despite the horrible night bus. we saw a group of people parading through the streets with a glass box and a Jesus statue inside. Apparently they do this every Sunday (a Catholic ritual), and was really neat. We then went up the hill where there is a huge statue of Jesus just like in Rio de Janeiro, but apparently this one is 44cm taller than the one in Rio, which makes it the tallest in the world. After finally getting a shower with warm-ish water and real towels we went and got some dinner and delicious ice cream, then pretty much went to bed.
We are going to be in Cochabamba for a day or two then I think I am going to go South to Sucre for a few days while Amy goes back to La Paz to do an ice climbing trek up to 6,000m.
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jann
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Happy Valentines!
Sweet blog for us - thanks. Grey on white here so real nice to see color and beautiful, happy young women. Loved those photos. Keep warm and avoid icky bus rides. love jann