Back to the Beach

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So we've finally managed to drag ourselves away from the beach to write a blog. We'll use the usual Internet-wasn't-working excuse but we wouldn't have written even if it was.

We left you in Potosi, on the verge of a bus journey to Tupiza. We chose the back seats to avoid the annoying, loud and smelly people who come on trying to sell you things, but endured a suspensionless and sleepless 7-hour trip. The following morning we woke quite late and intended to have a relaxing day but somehow not only signed ourselves up for a four-day trip to see the Uyuni salt flats to leave the next day, but also a horse ride for that afternoon. It was stunning walking amongst bizarre rock formations and red-rock mountains and canyons, Wild West-style with cowboy hats and cacti to boot, made all the more amusing by the Korean guy who had never ridden before and sounded like he was being shot when his horse so much as twitched.

We ventured off in our 4WD Jeep that was actually a Toyota with two Australian girls to the salt flats via most of Southwest Bolivia. Yet more red-rock geology (El Sillar) gave way to mountains that became increasingly snow-capped the further and higher we went, with our guide/driver Daniel pointing out mountains and other stuff that punctuated view after view after view. We arrived at San Antonio de Lipez for the night and were promptly told we'd be leaving the following morning at 4:30.

Somewhat bleary-eyed, we reached a viewpoint over Laguna Morrejon for a stunning sunrise, before continuing past lakes teeming with flamingoes. The 4WD took us to Laguna Verde (normally green but not that day because of the cloud) and the natural little thermal pool, nice and relaxing at 5000 metres above sea level despite the fact that we had to dry ourselves by standing in the biting wind since we'd left towels on the roof of the car. The geysers (think that's how you spell it) were spewing out smelly gases and we took plenty of pictures pretending to fall in and nearly doing it on a couple of occasions.

We overnighted at Laguna Colorada, another colourful lake, this time reddy-orange, and enjoyed a decent flamingo supper (tastes quite like chicken) and embarked at a more leisurely time to set off for the Arbol de Piedra, a stone formation that looks a bit like a tree if you ignore the fact that it doesn't have any branches or leaves or trunk. We climbed the surrounding rocks doing silly things like headstands on them before continuing past more high-altitude salty lakes to Uyuni, ready for the salt flats in the morning.

After a scare that petrol supplies might have run out, we hit the salt at 5:30 to see an extraordinary sunrise. The salt extends for 12,000 square kilometres so we managed to find a spot to take the customary pictures making us look all shapes and sizes doing stuff you wouldn't normally do on the salt flats. It happened to be a good, hard wicket for some beach bat and ball cricket, too. The whole tour swept through a vast array of spectacular altiplanic landscapes.

An afternoon market shopping (and buying) accompanied an aborted walk around the town of Uyuni. It's a hole. Whatever you do, don't go to Chile from Bolivia at the Avaroa-Ollague border - it takes seven hours. We finally arrived at San Pedro de Atacama after a full day of travelling. San Pedro sits around some crazy landscapes, one of which, the Valle de la Luna (everywhere seems to have a 'moon valley'😉, we visited the day after to see a salt-sprinkled landscape (very) vaguely reminiscent of the moon. We took some more piccies with our newly acquired hats and alpaca sweaters. There were a few raindrops, too, slightly bemusing considering we were in the driest desert in the world.

San Pedro has a chilled atmosphere and this made us skip going to see some more geysers (departing from San Pedro at 4am) and instead visited the salty lake, Laguna Cejar, in the afternoon. It's slightly bizarre trying to swim when you're buoyed by so much water and the winds were cold enough that we were trying to tread water the wrong way to sink into the water a bit. Another psychadelic sunset (we've caught quite a few) cast the sun on the altiplano and volcanoes behind.

Undeterred by our previous bike rental, we foolishly thought cycling in the desert (on sand), at altitude, in unrelenting sun might be easier, and set off to investigate an old atacameño hilltop fort, Pukara de Quitor, and Quebrada del Diablo, a cyclable canyon worthy of its devilish name. That night we left San Pedro for and took an overnight bus via Calama to get there.

We arrived in the dark and sat at the bus station until it got light and were slightly bemused by the clouds when they appeared, but they burned off at about midday and, in six days, we haven't seen them since. We had grand plans to see a few geoglyphs in the surrounding area and Humberstone, a ghost town, but scrapped them when we got comfortable on the beach. We've also been out a few nights, reacquainting ourselves with alcohol after an abstemious few weeks, and spent a few in the hostel, a great place with great people. Paragliding took our fancy and our tandem flights were amazing, floating through the thermals that make Iquique one of the best places to do it in South America. There's not too much more that we can or want to say about Iquique and describing six days of lying on a beach might provoke yawns. We're off to La Paz tonight, and then the jungle soon after. Toodleoo.

Afraid pictures are going to have to wait as otherwise we will miss our bus.

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