After Potosi we took another 6 hour Andean bus journey to Uyuni which is a dull, cold, boring town. From there we took a 3 day tour of the Salar de Uyuni - the biggest salt flats in the world, the altiplano laguna, and the high desert. All at around 4000m above sea level !!! The salt flats were first on the list. They´re vast and absolutely amazing. It´s hard to describe what it´s like to drive across what looks like a white sea dotted with islands and with volcanoes on each "shore". At this time of year the skies are [View Full Entry]

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...it is cold, it is not very pretty and they only put the heating on at 8pm at night!! This is a very short blog as not many photos and not much happened! OK, so the Salt flat tour ended and we were dropped off in Uyuni. We did not a hostel booked so we asked at 2 places (no space or no TV) and found ourselves at Hotel Julia! The place was fairly clean but it was FREEZING. There was no heating until 8pm at night, nothing to do in Uyuni town itself so Brim and I fully clothed got [View Full Entry]

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On the morning of our fourth day, there were rumors floating around that the transportation sector and most other businesses in the city of Uyuni were on strike. This meant all access in and out of the city was blocked and most businesses were closed. As you can gather this was a large concern to us, considering our excursion was supposed to end in Uyuni . From what we were able to understand, the main demand was for a paved road stretching from Uyuni to Potosi. When the rumors were no longer rumors and seemed to become the truth, the drivers [View Full Entry]

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It was a long day to get from La Paz to Uyuni. I did most of my organizing and re-packing last night so I could go out for an early breakfast at my favourite café before our driver picked us up. Even with our earlier-than-usual start, it was still nearly 10am before we were out of the canyon and through El Alto, onto the open road. It was strange to go through the toll booth at Konani instead of skirting around it to get the road to Palluma. The drive to Oruro was relatively short from there. We were going to [View Full Entry]

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Po opusteni Chile jsme se vydali na 3 denni cestu Jeepem po Bolivii. Cela cesta byla v celkem vysoke nadmorske vysce (3000 - 5000m.n.m.), ale vsichni to zvladali celkem dobre. Bylo nas 6 v jeepu a ridic. Takze ceska skupinka vedla vypravu :) Jeli jsme ze San Pedra smer Salar a koncili jsme v Uyuni. Prvni den jsme videli krasnou prirodu, laguny ruznych barev, skaly a kameny ruznych tvaru. Koupali jsme se v horkych prirodnich laznich a videli gejsiry. Druhy den hlavne kanon a dalsi skalnate utvary. Treti den jsme konecne vyrazili na Salar. Prohlidli si poust, vyfotili solne muzeum a [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Chile Three Large vehicles waited outside for us and our bags. It was a short ride from San Pedro to the border and we were soon getting our Chilean Exit papers stamped and proceeding into no-mans land. Not long after that we were approaching a run-down stone building bearing the flag of Bolivia. I must mention that the road here was not paved. The facilities consisted of an old bus that would not be going anywhere other than on the back of a truck. Not surprisingly people passed up the opportunity of a toilet stop. We spent about 15 minutes [View Full Entry]

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We trudged to the bus station and jumped on our midnight bus to the border, arriving there after a fitful 7 hours sleep, ready to cross into Bolivia. We had to walk the mile or so to the border crossing, where there were no problems at all, and entered Bolivia. During our walk down the one road of the border town to the bus station we knew we were in Bolivia, the huge bags of coca leaves being peddled the major give away! Our first Bolivian bus was quite a shock to the system after the fantastic transport in Argentina, an [View Full Entry]

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We rose early, climbing into thick layers and pulling our bobble hats low over our ears. For the first 2km we had an additional passagener. We drove the driver who had been involved in yesterday´s accident to a place from which he might easily hitchhike to his home town. He was silent and shellshocked as he sat beside us in the back seat, his clothes ripped and stained. We noticed the fingers on his broken hand, swollen and bent at unnatural angles - no bandage or sling to support them. Tom and I felt terrible for the poor guy, and hopeless [View Full Entry]

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Hola, So we left salta today and got on a bus to the border of bolivia. The bus does not go across, so we have to grab our packs and walk across the border into bolivia. Well we decided to take the 5.30am bus, so we would arrive at the border earlier then the 7am bus. Because after crossing the border we then have to go the train station and buy train tickets to uyuni. Well we forgot to ask one very important question when buying our tickets,,,,, what time does it arrive? Apparently this 5.30 bus makes quite a few [View Full Entry]

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After the horrendous night last night we made it to the hut where the bus to Bolivia was collecting us. It was litterally a garage with a battered old coach in it. What are we letting ourselves in for with Atacama 2000! We left Calama on road but after a few miles we hit the dessert dirt track and sat on it for 3 hours or so. The bus also broke down at one point but the driver pulled out his trusty spanners and fixed it! Surprisingly, we made it through the boarder without any problems. The first thing we saw [View Full Entry]

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