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Published: June 20th 2006
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Sad to leave the family in San Pedro but managed to get up for the 8am start from town. Met my tour group, a British bloke and a German couple. Got a small minibus to the border to stamp out of Chile and then continued to the Bolivian border. Casually driving down the main (tarmaced!!) road and napping when a sudden swerve to the left takes us off the road and into the dirt. Everyone is shocked but we are calmed by being told the main road goes to Argentina, we need to drive through the dirt for Bolivia, what country are we going to!!
We get to the border (a shack in the middle of nowhere) and have to pay the dodgy guard for entry. Then our driver prepares breakfast outside (great for me as Christian had already given me breakfast, you can never have too many breakfasts). Switched into the 4x4 car, me and Adam in the back and the German couple in the real seats with legroom! All our bags were strapped to the top along with everything needed for 3 days in the wilderness. We have a driver/guide (Juan) and his wife (Magda) as cook and their
1 and a half year old son Marcelo. Then off we went to the first checkpoint, the white lake. Quite nice but the trip got much more impresive. About an hour later we reach the green lake surrounded by mountains and volcanos. About another 2 hours and we reach the hot springs, I am tempted as it´s freezing but then you have to get changed in the freezing cold. As i´d done this in San Pedro decided to nap in the car instead.
Another couple of hours over some very rough terrain and we finally arrive at the stop over point and have lunch. Absolutely starving but they prefered to prepare the food inside. We had pasta, mystery meat and salad, very filling. Then off to explore the red lake. It has some odd algae in it making it red and is home to hundreds of flamingos (3 types). We realise Juan has driven off so walked back to the shack where we are staying for tea and snacks. Then dinner at 6.30 so we have eaten 3 meals in the space of 3 hours! The boys go on a search for booze so we have rum in our tea
to hopefully send us to sleep through the freezing cold. We all have 2 sleeping bags, 3 blankets and are fully clothed. Turns out we overestimated the amoun needed so all woke up sweating in the middle of the night. Not a great night´s sleep and up at 6.30 to continue.
Quick breakie and pack the car back up then off on day 2, we have to leave so early as the "road" is so bad it takes forever. We have to drive over huge rocks and boulders! We stop at the rock tree for photos and have a slight panic when leaving the site up a steep dune to stop on the top as out of petrol... We also notice later that at every stop our driver is paying other groups for some of their petrol, very nerve racking when in the middle of nowhere. Then we got a flat tyre so changing that took up an hour, with Marcelo trying to help. Another flamingo lake and volcano took up the afternoon. We soon realised our guide was more of a driver than actual guide and actually Marcelo was the better guide. He couldn´t speak as growing up in
the front of a truck is not that stimulating but he could start shouting everytime an animal appeared even if they were so far away no-one else could see them yet.
The second night is spent in a salt hotel where everything is made of salt exept the bathrooms. Tables, chairs, floor, walls, beds!! We all rush to the showers as feeling disgusting after 2 days in the same clothes then have tea and dinner of llama steak. Some children come in and sing and dance for us then the electricity goes off at 9, so after an hour of cards in the dark it´s off to bed.
We get up at 5.45 to pack the car and leave for the sunrise, my whole group hate me for requesting this but soon apologise when the sun rises over the salt flats. We had stopped the car in the water logged part so the sun reflected making everything double. We then continued to the fish island for breakfast. Absolutely freezing so a very quick look around the island for me, mainly cactus´s. We then had a 4 hour drive over the salt to Uyuni. We stopped a few times to try
and attempt the photos where all sizes are mucked up but just ended up with odd photos. We watched the salt farmers earning a living then onto the Uyuni road where we stopped for lunch. Still amazed who Magda cooks us great food on one gas stove in the middle of nowhere.
A short detour to the train grave yard then dropped in town to rush to get train tickets before the rush of other groups arriving. Managed to get on the 7pm bus to Potosi but had a panic as no money facilities until 3pm so had only a provisional booking. Dragged the group to the famous pizza restaurant, they finally decided after my sunrise decision that I probably knew what I was doing at the travelling malarky. It was the best pizza we had ever had and some bolivian wine.
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