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Published: August 26th 2007
La Paz
The main plaza was small but picturesque.Our first stop in Bolivia, was La Paz, the political capital of Bolivia. We only spent 1 day in La Paz, enjoying all the tourist attractions and of course taking advantage of the cheap shopping! Our reason for stopping in La Paz was to organise our transport to Uyuni. We took the tourist night bus from La Paz to Uyuni, quite a modern and comfortable form of transport, however we experienced what we thought were the worst roads in South America! We spent 3 hours of a 10 hour journey, driving on a gravel road full of rocks, so we bumped our way to the town of Uyuni, arriving early in the morning.
Uyuni is a small town located in the middle of nowhere with the only attraction being the Salar de Uyuni or Salt Plains. The Salar is the world´s largest salt flats and is located at 3643m above sea level and spans 12,000 sqkm. It is quite a unique place and just amazing to visit. We departed on our 3 day tour in an old landcruiser, 6 people plus the driver/guide/cook jammed together to experience and visit this amazing corner of the country. Our first stop was the
La Paz
The lady we bought our Alpaca weaving from. famous Salar and the landscape seemed an endless sea of white! We continued our journey to visit Isla Incahanaus, an island located in the middle of the salt plains, full of large cactus plants. We stopped here to enjoy lunch and walked it off by climbing the hill that is the island. Back in the vehicle we headed to our final destination for the night, the salt hotel. Yes, we stayed in a hotel made out of salt! and enjoyed a meal of Llama, which was similar to steak but a little more tasty.
The next morning was an early start to enjoy the many landscapes and beauty of this country. We viewed Volcan Ollague, an active Volcano, visited many lagoons with varied colours and plenty of bird life. Of particular note was Laguna Colorado, a lake the colour of salmon pink fringed with a cakey white material which looks like a glacier flowing into the lagoon. The most common birdlife in the lagoons are the lanky flamingos, not the bird we thought would be living in Bolivia, as the temperatures can be quite low ie it can drop to -20C!! Fortunately we didn´t experience these temps.
The
Salar de Uyuni
Damien in the middle of the seemingly endless plain of salt. following day we again had an early departure, 5am, to continue our adventure. Thirty minutes into the trip and we had a flat tyre. Our capable driver quickly changed the tyre and we were back on the gravel, burning up the road to arrive at the geysers, boiling sulphurous mud pools. Quite an amazing sight, particularly as the sun was rising and we could see the beautiful landscapes surrounding this strange part of the country. Back into the landcruiser and we were on our way to the hot springs, a small pool of 30C water. As the morning was quite cool, neither of us were interested in braving the cool air, however we noticed a few brave souls venturing into the water, one even went in his birthday suit! Our last stop before proceeding across the Chile, was Laguna Verde, a beautiful aquamarine lake and again inhabited by many flamingos. In the background is the mighty Volcano Lincanbur, standing at 5930m above sea level. Quite a beautiful sight and we captured some great photos.
Lastly we made our way across the border to Chile, arriving at San Pedro de Atacama looking forward to a well earned hot shower!
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Joe Gazale
non-member comment
What's with the beard
Hey guys, It's good to see that your trip is going well and that you have missed the terrible earthquack that hit Peru. Damien, what's with the beard mate!!! That's something you should have grown while you were surving the Canadian winter. Take care. See you soon. Joe, Shy and the girls