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Published: December 26th 2011
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So after a couple of days in Sucre where I managed to meet up with Izzy and Siobhan and visit a local orphange I was off to Potosi. Potosi is the worlds highest city at 4070m and is famous for its silver mining history. The city was founded in 1545 following the discovery of silver in the Cerro Rico mountain. Today however the mountain has been drained of its most valuable minerals but is still heavily mined for lesser value minerals. Tourists can be taken into the working mines and watch the miners work as well as helping out with the dynamite explosions. Unfortuanltey I was really unwell with a bad cold where I arrived here and due to the conditions inside the mines was advised not to enter. Disappointing, but means there is something I can always come back and do another time!
Next up was Uyuni which Lonely planet describes as ’climatically challenged’. Basically it is a small town situated on the edge of the Bolivian salt flats and is very desert like and sparse. It also has a really bad rubbish problem….all around the outside of the town rubbish is spralled on the ground caught up in small
The World´s biggest Llama
Made from salt at the salt museum plants….not a great first impression. However most tourist only use this town as an entry point onto the salt flats and to see the nearby train graveyard (cementerio de trenes).
Our excursion onto the salt flats was to take 2nights and 3 days in which we would travel by 4x4 across the salt flats and desert finishing in Chile. I really didn’t have any preconception of what to expect so it was definitely an open adventure to me.
The first day started off by visiting the salt museum in Colchani and the working salt flats and mounds. We also played around with the obligatory ’perspective’ pictures that are typical of when tourists visit the salt flats……(no….I am not ACTUALLY standing on the bottle!) This was great fun but I was soon to realise that the best thing was still to come. That morning we had been told that parts of the salt flats were flooded so we could no longer visit Isla de Pescadores. At first we were a little disappointed but actually this opened up a very unquie view point of the salt flats. Hopefully my pictures can reflect this. The layer of water over the salt flats
with no wind created fantastic relfections of the sky giving the impression of no horizon. It was so peaceful out there and very beautiful, we were very lucky.
Unfortuantely we had to move on at some point though so we drove onto our accomodation for the night, a hotel made entirely from salt!! It actually felt quite homely, more so than some of the other accomodation I have been in! Being in the middle of nowhere though meant there was no mains electricity so the genereator only ran for 3hrs in the evening, after that all movements were made via torchlight.
The next day (after a surprisingly good sleep) we were off to see more of the diverse landscapes that Bolivia has to offer, all day we seemed to be surrounded by volcanoes. We stopped by various different lagoons which were different colours due to the minerl base in them…..and also saw flamingoes in some of them!
The final day was a 4am wakeup call so that we could see the geysers at sun rise and make it to the termal spa before breakfast. Although it was painful getting up at that time, it was worth it. I have never
seen geysers before and to be able to walk around them like we did was crazy in my eyes! They were spitting out and making crazy noises, it was almost like we were on a different planet. We were then kindly dropped of to enjoy the nearby natural spa that luckily was not a toxic mix like in the geysers! After drying off we then stopped by one more coloured lagoon before crossing over into Chile and being welcomed by a smooth tarmaced road. San Pedro was our finishing destination and where we would be spending Christmas.
To try and help us all get into the Christmas spirit which was slightly lacking due to the brilliant sunshine and desert we had found ourselves in, as a group we did a secret santa. On Christmas morning me and my room mate also made pancake breakfast for everyone with chocolate sauce and fresh fruit…..yummmmmm.
One thing I forgot to say is that whilst out in the desert at night the stars were phenomenal. I struggle to think of another time that I have seen the sky at night like that (yes mum…..even better than at Mundesley!). It was almost impossible
to spot any constellation. Cjhile has got the worlds biggest telescopes and from San Pedro andLa Sereana tour operators run guided tours of the telescopes and allow you to look through them. My inner geek was over the moon at this! Unfortuantely when we tried to go from San Pedro, there were too many clouds about so fingers crossed for La Serena!
Now there is not much left to go of my South American journey as I fly to South Africa in the New Year, but hopefully I will have a few more stories to share. And hopefully I will make it to the observatory…fingers crossed!!
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