Made it to Bolivia

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Well I've just spent the last three days between 4-5000m above sea-level in the back of a dodgy old 4x4 toyota with 3 germans and a couple of Bolivian locals. It was great. Bolivia is really beautiful and would strongly reccomend this trip to everyone. You can start it from San Pedro in Chile or from Uyuni in Bolivia and there are heaps of differant companies that do it. check out these pici's (Pink flamingos are so cool!)

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Photos

Welcome to Bolivia
Well this is the big hardout border crossing between Chile and Bolivia. That snowy bit is the highway and you can sort of see the pathetic little barrier arm across it further up beside the shed. not the most effective set up I've ever seen but it "keeps the bad guys out" apparantly

Our guides - Estevan and Fausta
Fausta spent a lot of time holding the gearstick so it wouldn't jump out of gear. also check out the fake CD player glued to the dash underneath the real tape player - that didn't work

A closer look at some flamingos
I loved these things, they make the funniest noises and they walk really slow and dramatically, I could just watch them for hours.

The San Juan bread factory
On the second night we stopped in this little town of 500people called San Juan, and as I was walking around I smelt some bread cooking. So after following my nose through a maze of little allyways I found this ladie, who makes all the bread for this town in this oven of clay. she let me try some too and it was soooo gooood!!!! And that is one of her babies tied to her back as she works.

Oh soooo goooood!!!
they burn a fire inside this oven out of any old dessert plant they can find for about 3hrs untill it's warm on the outside - then it's ready. Then they push all the ash and embers off to one side and throw in the trays of bread three at a time, and it takes about 30seconds per side before the bread is perfectly cooked.

Day3 - La Salar de Uyuni
This is a humungous saltlake that just goes for miles. in the summer here, between December and february, it rains all the time and there is up to 40cms of water over the entire thing.

The summit of "La Isla del Pescado" - fish island
That's Tim and Isabel from Germany, they're cool. This island is called fish Island because it looks like a fish from far away. Pretty wierd place really because it's the only sign of life you see in 4hrs of driving through the salar.

The Salt hotel
It's right on the edge of the salar and is totally made out of salt, and this photo is of one of the dining rooms. You can stay the night there for about $20US a night if you want

Comments

[anonymous]

Not a vicuna...
Your picture with the vicuna and flamingoes is actually an alpaca. Don't mean to be a smart ass, just thought you might want to correct it. Nice pictures though... - Mike

[anonymous]

That is so cool
HEllo, my name is giovanna and i was just on the internet looking under some stuff when i saw that picture of you standing in front of that cave with the person. "not to be weird" but i was really shocked and i had to look. i thouhgt what you did is really exciting it seems like you had a lot of fun...hopefully i will get to go sometimes. Oh yeah my favorite part of the pictures was when you were at that really big lake and it was really amazing i thougt. i really like how you can make those things out of salt i never ever knew that in my life before. thanks for sharing your adventure! - Giovanna

[Vesper]

mmm... dead stuff
That was my image search term: "dead stuff". It brought me to the photo of a mummy in a cave, and thus, this lovely site. Wow, what a trip y'all took. Cool!

[dali]

great trip
well i was looking in the net for creepy stuff and i found your trip. how cool Bolivia is!!!!!!!!

[filomena]

nothing interesting
It`s nice to know that stranger people come to my country and they are interesting to know and enjoy their time travelling.thanks for coming to bolivia ,special to uyuni.Ahhhhhhh i forget .in the first comment (the picture vicuña and flamingos.) well in that region there aren`t alpacas ,just a lot of llamas and vicuñas ,In Bolivia just you can see alpacas around La Paz or Titicaca Lake .if someone has questions about my country ,it will be a pleasure to answer ,ask me [e-mail].

[klh]

great photos
Thanks for sharing your journey. A friend told me about the salt hotel, so as I was searching for a photo of it, I came across your site. Great Photos! I've never seen a vizcacha before. Still so much of the world to see. After seeing these, I really want to go to Bolivia. Out of curiosity, where are you from? All the best with your future travels, and hope to see more photos from them.

[anything for the quiet life]

self clicker?
Bloody hell, Russ!!!! How on earth did this blog get to be the most viewed blog of all time??? I think I too will self click on one of my own blogs 33000 times... At least I still have the satisfaction of having the Shiney Piece weighing down my bookshelf..

[meshel]

cool
i was looking for creepy pictures and find your site.....very interesting...i think i might go to bolivia now!!!!!!

[danielle]

thats so freaky when ure standing in front of the cave i wonder how they died any way i would never do that!

[Troels]

This is really funny!
Hehe, I was just doing a google search on Fish Island... and one of the first hits was these pictures. Crazy, because I was on exactly the same trip, only I was driving in another jeep! Really funny!

[anonymous]

"They've also got a few preserved dead people in tombs up in the hills behind San Juan. pretty freaky stuff" and they look better then that guy on the photo haha