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Published: November 13th 2009
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Our transport to Bolivia lived up to the Bolivian reputation, breaking down for 5 hours in the middle of the night and then stopping for a further 2 hours to have a good number of tyres changed. The tyres did not look in a good state at all - bald and with chunks missing. It's a wonder the bus, which also had a severe crack across the front window on the upstairs level, was ever allowed to leave Peru!
Still we eventually arrived in the Bolivian Copacabana, a cute little down set on Lake Titicaca, one of the highest navigable lakes in the world at 3850m! Copacabana is also home to Isla del Sol, the birth place of the sun according to Inca mythology. It is the most amazing colour of blue.
Unfortunately, Ben got the flu here so after a few days of nursing him, I ended up walking the Isla del Sol island on my tod (and with a couple of our friends from rafting in Peru). Of course, Ben has not let me live it down ever since. “You abandoned me in my hour of need!! ;-)”
Isla del Sol is just stunning. There are
a few Inca ruins scattered around, but having been to Machu Picchu they really were nothing to write home about. The island is definitely worth a visit though, for its beauty in its own right and the feeling of calm and being totally away from it all.
Our next stop was La Paz. This journey involved crossing a river and we were all asked to get off and pay a small fee to get a separate boat across from the one that the bus would go on. It felt a bit of a nuisance having to hop off the bus until we saw the tiny boat carrying the bus swaying heavily from left to right and looking like it was going to topple off. We couldn't help but wonder how many buses might be at the bottom of that river!
La Paz is, well, a bit of a hole! There are some nice bits to it and its definitely a city to spend a few days in so you can actually find the good bits. It's really not very pretty at all but it has a cracking nightlife and some great food. It also has it's unfair share
of fried chicken take away restaurants - there is one on every corner, if not more, and the chicken looks far from edible!
Needless to stay, we didn't stop in La Paz (highest capital city in the world) for too long. Ben was still ill and by now I was unwell too so we had to give both the Death Road downhill bike ride and the 6000m, volcano climb a miss. Time was against us as we'd spent longer in Peru than we had first intended and our forthcoming jobs in the Alps meant we needed to get a wriggle on, so we missed most of Bolivia and headed straight to Uyuni, the base to start tours of the Salar de Uyuni/Salt Plains. We shall have to come back sometime to do it properly!
Uyuni itself is an incredibly desolate town in the middle of the desert. Considering how many people come here to do the tour of the Salt Plains, we barely saw another soul!
On the morning of our tour, our 4 by 4 arrived on Bolivian time, over an hour late. By now we were literally the last people in Uyuni town, listening to
the wind whistle eerily as we sat in the scorching sunshine hoping that our driver was going to show. We had two great french girls on our trip, one bumbling, wet English guy with his incredibly grumpy and bossy Argentinian girlfriend. We nicknamed them wet and whingie. It was such a shame that ole grumpy boots got altitude sickness and had to retire whilst the rest of us had fun.
On the way to the salt plains, we visited Cementario de Trenes, a graveyard for old trains, so like the grown up kids that we are, we climbed up into the carriages played 'trains'!
Next was the highlight, Salar de Uyuni. It is literally a sea of blinding white salt spreading out in all directions. We arrived just before the rainy season so it was still dry but within a month it would literally be covered in water and reflecting the perfectly blue, almost cloudless sky.
In the middle of the Salt Plains is desert island full of very tall cactuses. Some are over 12m high and more than 800 years old. It's quite a breathtaking view from the top of the island looking out for miles
and miles around at the pure white salt plain. After taking a few silly pictures on the salt plains trying to create various illusions, we headed for the Salt Hotel, our home for the night.
Salt Hotel: Until we literally wet our finger and touched the bricks, it was nigh impossible to tell that the hotel was made from salt. The bricks look so realistic and had eroded a little to give a uneven finish. Not only were the bricks salt, so were the tables, chairs, beds, gravel floor, and the lamp shades! It was very funky and actually quite warm at night despite the freezing and windy dessert - such contrast to the roasting hot days.
The 3 day tour involved an awful lot of driving and day 2 was spent mainly in the jeep. We stopped several times to check out the sights nearer to the Chilean border, including including Laguna Colorado and Laguna Verde which take on red and green colours respectively. The colouring is formed by the natural surroundings and apparently changes throughout the year and depending on the sky colour and wind conditions. The red lake right at the end reflects the volcano
that makes up the border between Chile & Bolivia and is by far the most dramatic and well worth the long drive to get this far.
The journey from Uyuni starts at about 3500 metres and rises to over 5000m as you near the Chilean border. The scenery is continually changing from dusty city roads, to salt plains, to sandy desert and rock dunes. There is next to no vegetation yet there hundreds of flamingos living in the lakes, as well as the cactus island, volcanic geysers and hot springs.
We took some advise from other travellers and ended our tour at the border of Chile and took a bus for 30 minutes to arrive in San Pedro to Atacama, Chile. This was a much better option than the alternative of driving for 8 hours back to Uyuni with the misery couple ....
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