Back at high altitude in La Paz and therefore prone to another attack of the runs, I decided I would take a gamble and sign myself up for a trip down to Uyuni to do the 4WD tour. Many fellow travellers have described it as a South American highlight so I was eager to see what all the fuss was about. After the events on the trip from Cusco to La Paz, it was with some trepidation that I boarded the bus for the 10 hour trip south to Uyuni. I was pleasantly surprised with the standard of the bus, [View Full Entry]

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We have just spent the most awesome 3 days or so, traversing the Bolivian side of the Andes . The scenery was spectactular. Heaps of volcanoes, vast flats, multicoloured lakes, and cold looking birds (including me). Six travellers were sqeezed into a rather temperamental landcruiser, which refused to go into 3rd gear. We mostly chugged along the altiplano in 2nd gear, which allowed time for photographs. Occasionally, our chauffer, master chef and mechanic, would get the beast into 4th and we would nail it along the dusty tracks, skidding all over the place. Each time we stopped, our driver would be [View Full Entry]

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My next stop on the Bolivian rollercoaster was the city of Potosi, and continuing the elevated theme, is the world's highest city (4,000m). It is South America's mineral heartland, with the city's Cerro Rico mountain being rich in silver ore, lead, tin, zinc, all of which have been at high demand at one time or another. Booms and crashes have fluctuated Potosi's fortunes, and now tourism is seemingly the new gold rush. The standout attraction is a co-operative tour of the working mines. The tour firstly takes you to the miner's market where you buy gifts for the miners. On offer [View Full Entry]

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La Paz-Uyuni-SanPedro (Chile)well we are in chile now and on our way back to peru tonight... we got in to san pedro de atacama chile at about noon today aftere finishing our tour of the salar de uyuni... so back to la Paz... we took the always relaxing night bus to uyuni which got us in there early enough that all the tour operator were closed so hid from the cold in a sketchy place for a mate de coca... after killing as much time as possible we went out into the gaunlet of ´tour´ operators on the street and [View Full Entry]

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Om 8 uur waren we paraat en maakten we kennis met onze reisgezellen, Franse Muriel en Michel uit Bora Bora, Jorge uit Santiago en Matthew uit Engeland. Ben wat zenuwachtig na de horrorstories dei we hebben gehoord... We springen in de bus die ons brengt naar de grens, waar onze paspoorten ( en wijzelf ) worden geïnspecteerd door eenzame soldaten. Daar ontmoeten we onze chauffeur/gids/kok voor de volgende dagen, Felix, en springen we in de 4x4! Start onze walk on the wild side! Het Zuidwesten van Bolivie is een hooggelegen, grote en eenzame woestijn, en ontegensprekelijk een moeilijke plaats om [View Full Entry]

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Wow, Bolivia is so much different than Argentina, its strange how they can be right next to eachother but so, so different. Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, therefore very cheap, which I like, but it is also very dirty, which Andrew does not like. I met 3 Germans at the Argentina-Bolivia border, we were all headed for Uyuni, and after a bumpy 8 hour bus ride, which was nothing like the buses in Argentina, we had arrived. We were all planning on doing the 3 day tour of the area surrounding Uyuni so we decided to do [View Full Entry]

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So I left Villa Tunari and Parque Machia about a week ago... mas o menos. My last bit of time there was, of course, beautiful. Saying goodbye wasn't too hard, but I definitely miss it and want to return at some point. There's something about simply living (specifically spending my days out in the jungle with a puma) that makes everything quite wonderful. But ah, there's was, and are, many more things to look forward to... traveling more and Macama and home, family, seeing friends, summer, SCAD. Everything. The first thing my dad said when I saw him at Macama [View Full Entry]

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Uyuni is a town not very close to anywhere else. In fact its a long and windy dirt road from most places, which in a bus with a driver who may or may not have had any previous driving experience can be a terrifying or an exhilerating experience. depending on how you look at things. Uyuni was our next destination due to the intrigue of the amazing salt plains and the vast countryside that we would experience out there in the surrounding Salar de Uyuni. We dusted ourselves off after our bus experience out of Potosi and we were warmly welcomed [View Full Entry]

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Arrived safe and sound in Bolivia, and now all set up for a 3 day tour of the Salar de Uyuni starting 10am tomorrow. My opinion of Bolivia so far... well it´s very different from Argentina. Straight away from the border at La Quaica-Villazon the difference was evident. An explosion of gnarly old women wearing ill-fitting bowler hats and bright ´ethnic´ garb and carrying cute smiley kids on their backs. Of course that wasn´t quite the first impression. The first impression was being kicked out of the bus on the argentinian side at 6am into a bus terminal full of locals, [View Full Entry]

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Our Jeep trip in Bolivia, which we know as 4 x 4, was one of the highlights so far. We were spoilt with 2 vehicles complete with a driver come guide for 4 people, that meant we had a vehicle all to ourselves. Laura and Kengo (Ken) would be our jeep mates for the next 3 days. Laura is from Holland, although her English and Spanish are very good. Laura thanks for all the Spanish lessons. Kengo, from Japan, on the other hand spoke very little English. His English was as good as our Spanish, need we say more. We [View Full Entry]

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