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Published: February 11th 2011
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After Cycling The Death Road, we headed back on ourselves, south to a place called Uyuni to begin our tour of the Salt Flats. It´s one of the must see sites in Bolivia and is a massive arid flat desert where there was once a land locked sea which has since disappeared leaving the flat salt beds.
We made our way by overnight bus, had been told to expect a bumpy ride and were not disappointed. After about 30 minutes the bus hit rough terrain and the remainder of the journey felt like driving through an earthquake. On arrival, the first few hours were spent scoping out different tour operators and we ended up settling on Tito Tours from the advice of a Slovenian girl, who along with another English couple, and our now two week Australian travelling buddy Drew, joined us on the tour. All aboard the Toyota Land Cruiser for 3 days of desert touring.
First stop: Train Graveyard. Pretty much does what is says on the tin, many, many, rusted old trains with hoards of backpackers climbing all over for photo ops and a track that disappears out into the horizon and distant mountains.
Next
we headed out into the desert-like salt flats for an hour or two passing through the original Salt Hotel, literally, the bricks and chairs were carved from salt. After which we moved onto to a small village/market for lunch, picking up a few bottles of Bolivian wine for our stay over. Continuing, we stopped at an area used for salt mining, where piles were left in to bake and dry in under the desert sun.
As we drove through the flats, in the distance we could begin to make out Fish Island, named from it´s apprearance reflecting mirage-like off the salt bed. A small island sitting in the middle of the vast salt flats, covered in cacti, with a walkable trail leading to views for miles across the salt beds. Here, it was time for some perspective shots, posing with props that have you look relatively tiny if you stand in the distance as there is nout to compare and judge size against, oh, except for the fact that the camera ran out of battery after 5 minutes. It goes without saying, though I will, Jane was not happy. After taking a walk around Fish Island, we headed back
down behind where the jeeps were parked and got involved in group photos, involving a Pringles packet (they seem to be mad for them in Bolivia), which will hopefully salvage some half decent pics.
For the night, we stayed in a newer salt hotel, drank the wine and played cards. Lights out at 10.00pm. Tomorrow was to be an early start, up at 4.30am and out the door by 5.00am, so we should arrive in time to see the supposedly Green Lagoon, in all its greeny glory.
Once ready the next morning, we headed outside in the pitch black of night to board the jeep, only to find our driver still asleep at the wheel and difficult to rouse. The answer was to be found in the empty beer cans littering inside and outside the vehicle, not including last nights antics when the other English guys had popped outside to speak with the driver, only to find him acting suspicious with his friend, the Bolivian Space Cowboy was smoking a doobey! So we had found our first driver living up to the reputation of Bolivian´s driving under the influence. Setting off an hour late, we stopped for him
to watch another driver fix his car and then half hour later were off again.
After a couple of hours we reached the Lagoon, which was not green, lunched and saw some flamingos, there would be a lot of these to come on the remaining tour. We moved onto a rocky area, with large boulders, which some of us scaled, and then onto another such place to see the famous stoney tree, a rock shaped (sort of) like a tree. We also saw many more lagoons (which come in red, blue, pink and green) and many more flamingos. Due to last nights antics though the rear view mirror we watched our driver practice his Jedi driving skills, and test just how see through his eye lids were, forcing us to make loud noises to keep him alert and question his ability to operate heavy machinery. Our second nights stay, was in more basic accomodation, we had to shower at other end of the "resort", the hot water trinkled through a moss burning stove, and then had to run back through dust and wind to our side, making the shower somewhat redundant though still a treat. More cards, more wine,
leading to some inebriated Patrick Moore style star gazing ("no, that one is Orions Belt") and we were off to bed for another early start.
The next day began with greater promise. We set off at the early hour of 5am, stopping off at some natural geysers for sunrise and then continued on to have breakfast and bath in nearby the hot springs, all would have been content to spend the remainder of the day here, though instead there were more lagoons, more flamingos, which in the end saw us neglect to even leave the car. Several hours of desert driving later, we were back at the town and tour operator, said goodbyes, and treated ourselves to a massive, and I would say well deserved, pizza, for about 6 quid. It was then off on the bumpy journey to La Paz with the aid of some mild sleeping pills.
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