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Published: February 28th 2011
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Imagine being thrown into a Salvador painting that had been mushed with a Luna landscape on acid and you’ll have some idea of our tour around Uyuni. At every turn there would be surreal coloured lagoons, sparkling salt flats that defied belief, smoking volcanos, deserts and fantastic rock formations that looked like they belonged in either a set from ‘Lost in Space’ or the Flintstones neighbourhood.
We had a three day tour that began in Uyuni, a one horse town with dusty streets and barren fields littered with rubbish. We jumped in an old beat up Toyoto 4x4 with four Brazilians and our guide – ‘Placido Domingo’ (no kidding). In three jam packed days we saw a lot, some of our highlights:
Salar de Uyuni The famous salt plains of Bolivia. An incredible expanse of salt flats covered in around an inch of water (in the dry season there is no water) that creates the most amazing reflection phenomenon where the horizon reflects the sky and you feel almost like you’re in the cloud. Perspective gets warped and it makes for great photos! The salt creates small crystals that then form larger hexagon shapes, it truly is
magnificent. David tasted the water and is happy to report that it is “very salty”... I’m not sure what else he was expecting 😉
Lake Colorado and flamingos Lake Colorado is a huge lake at approx 4,200m above sea level that is a deep rusty red colour. The lake is home to thousands of beautiful flamingos. We drove to the lake on the second and third day to soak up the views and admire the beautiful flamingos.
We also saw flamingos at Lake Hedionda, they feed constantly on tiny xxx, and just spend their hours scooping water and filtering out these tiny snacks. They were lovely to watch, they are huge birds with beautiful colours.
Geysers and hot springs On the last day we woke early and visited a huge geyser that we blowing steam at enormous pressure high into the crisp cold morning air at apprx 180 deg celius. A short walk away were boiling mud pits filling the air with a sickening sulphuric smell. Our guide precariously walked us through the mud pits telling us to follow his footsteps at all times. Apparently tourists and guides themselves have suffered quite a
few serious burns when taking this walk, with the mud below giving way and people falling into a giant buddle of boiling mud. Bolivian HSE standards are somewhat questionable... if they exist at all!
The hot springs were a short drive away and most welcome after 3 days on the road. Overlooking a lake with the sun rising slowly on the horizon, framed by mountains; the pool was a delight to sit in and contemplate life.
Lagoons and deserts Bright aqua, deep black, dusty red... the colours of Bolivia’s lagoons were amazing. Rich in minerals the lagoons would each in term amaze us and make us appreciate nature’s palette! It’s amazing that anything could survive in such conditions, yet flamingos seem to thrive. Filled with sulphur, salt, copper, iron, you name it – basically take a ladle full from the periodic table, and you have a flamingos favourite hangout.
At one stage we drove for hours through desolate Bolivian desert, just us, the flat road, wind and sleet... we saw no other 4x4’s and at some stages tried not to think the worst if we broke down. Our guide seemed to have his own little
routes that no other tour took... great for seclusion, not so great if we broke down!
Rock on! I guess I’ve always loved nature’s colours and forms but being on this tour of the Bolivian landscape gave me a whole new appreciation of the wonders of nature. I have never seen so many amazingly formed rocks that at times seem to defy gravity and nature itself!
We stopped at the ‘Salvador Dali Desert’ and admired seemingly purposely placed giant rocks on a smooth sandy desert landscape, as if a chess game between giants had been interrupted years ago and covered in sand.
We also stodd under the much photographed ‘Rock Tree’ – a giant boulder precariously held aloft by its tiny foundation.
Lunch on the third day was literally at Bedrock, home to the Flintstones. Houses and fields built amongst giant boulders that seemed to be bulging out of the earth.
At many stops the rocks were straight from ancient volcanic eruptions, porous or filled with little air bubbles, of all colours. Who would have though rocks would be so cool!
All in all... Our tour around Uyuni was incredible
and amazed and delighted me at every turn... even if those turns were sometimes 500kms and 7 hours in between. Apart from a small bogging incident that left David and all the other boys covered in mud, the tour went smoothly and we loved it!
Sucre
Sucre is a lovely little town with white washed buildings galore. We only had a short time in the town, which was enough, so visited a few lovely museums and a dinosaur park. We also met up with Randal – David’s brother’s friend from way back.
The dino park (Parque Cretacico Cal Orck'O) is home to an enormous limestone wall/cliff face that has over 5000 dinosaur footprints from 8 different species of dinosaur – the largest collection in the world. Unfortunately we couldn’t get close to the prints and just had to view them from the look out, it was a pity, I had visions of walking in dino footsteps!
We visited some great museums, one had these amazing elongated skulls. Years and years ago Bolivians would mould their children’s forming skulls to create bizarre long heads. It was viewed at a status symbol to have a huge
long head! Another highlight was a display on some of the traditional costumes and festival costumes. Such a world away from Australian festival gear – singlet, shorts and a beer. Most costumes are still worn today during carnival or other festivities.
We were fortunate to meet Randal. A bigger than life character that runs ‘Condor Trekkers’ a non-profit tour agency that puts money back into the communities that they trek to/through. Together with backpacker volunteers, he also trains up local people to act as tour guides. He also has plans to open a NFP vege restaurant (I encouraged him to have gluten free options!). We would have LOVED to have taken a tour but we only had one full day in Sucre and were pretty shagged from traipsing around the desert of Uyuni!
In Sucre we also discovered a delicious local dish called ‘picante’ – a deep red spicy sauce that you can put on anything really. We tucked into it two days in a row at the local bustling markets and we very happy campers. David also enjoyed the traditional Saltenas, like a pasty but with deliciously juicy, slightly sweet meat filling in a crisp yellowish pastry.
I was jealous!
Leaving Bolivia I’m currently writing all of Bolivia’s blog updates in the La Paz airport in Bolivia. Our plane has been delayed by so far three hours after a terrifying incident. A local plane could not get the landing gear (wheels) down and was circling the La Paz airport for ages whilst the fire crews covered the tarmac for miles in thick deep foam. The plane landed safely without its wheels (thank god), with no injuries, just very frightened passengers. We could not see any of this but were told by very informative, lovely LAN Airlines staff that would keep us updated whenever we asked. God knows how much longer we’ll be here for....
...it’s now 9pm, we were supposed to fly out at 2.35pm. We actually boarded the plane five and a half hours late after they cleaned the foam from the runway and cleared backlog of planes from the earlier emergency.
But alas! After two failed attempts at taking off we’re back in the departure lounge due to ‘mechanical faults’. Oh the joys of travel, but we both agree that we’d rather be on the ground stuck at an airport than in
the sky on a plane with mechanical faults! We’re not really worried, we weren’t looking forward to a night in Lima so if we can get straight to Quito tomorrow it will be all good! Plus it’s given me time to catch up on these blogs. Stay tuned Amigos!
...it's now 1130am the next stay and we are still in La Paz! They checked us into a hotel at 2am. I do not have very many nice things to say about LAN Airlines customer service... it has been APPALLING!! I hope this message pops up on their marketing teams google alerts!
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