As low as hell and high as heaven in Bolivia

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Salta was our home for several days, an excursion arranged to Cafayate travelling through the renound Shell Gorge, competition for Colorado or central Turkey (and I guess many other places) scenically. The early starts continued for 2 days, first being 7.15am and the departure day at 6.20am with early breakfasts both days. On the way we passed an amphitheatre (natural) with some spontaneous gigs happening amongst brilliant acoustics, the Devils throat so called for it’s shape carved out by erosion of 90 million years or so, and of course Cafayate winery visit for sampling the local cabernet sauvignon and Muscat varieties. Average in my untrained palate. The town was alight with market and song in the main square so I elected to browse there and the artesian markets, buying lovely earrings in the ‘Chaman’ ( a type of hawk) style. The church with 5 naves, only on in Argentina, is also here.

A late evening and chance to have a dip in the minute pool at the accommodation (when it’s 30C on land who cares about it’s size!) was met with the early start the next day, a 10 hour bus to cross the Paso Jama point over the Andes, chance number two for this, and chance number 3 to be scrutinized with Chilean border formalities. Scenery began as lush valley of green and long white clouds (is that not like Aotearoa though?), then leading to switchbacks as high as 4500m through cactus laden hillsides and dusty desert at the crest. We fell down to a height of about 2400m approaching San Pedro de Atacama, greeted by vast white salt flats and distant dry rolling hills.

But not without passing Argentinean customs (‘aduana’) and prolonged formalities at Chilean entry in standing intense desert heat whilst they X rayed our baggage, checked we were good citizens of the world and finally allowed us through at 5pm. Check in to the dusty town was quick, and we spent two nights and days there, one day being for free activities.

First impressions suggested ‘why on earth have we come here’ thoughts in our group, but scratching beneath the dusty surface and there is loads such as Valle de la Luna, various lagunas to float on (one very densely salted, Cajur I think it was named, as the 2nd only place in the world to the dead sea, or fresh water sinkholes), stars to gaze at, thermal pools to relax in, bikes to hire…………..the main species attracted to this area is the ‘gringosa touristica’ (common name “tourist”) amongst pink flamingos, small fish, llamas and birdlife. Water is scarce and this region is the only part of the Atacama that is habitable due to subterranean water table which they drill down to.

On my day off I elected to sleep in (although sun is fierce at this height so an 8.30am start was self imposed) and hire a bike for a half day. I got to Valle de la Luna, Pukara de Quitara and Dealth Valley. That took up until midday, when markets were discovered, town photos taken, and bike returned for an affordable 3000 chilean pesos. He was smart man but not smart enough for me, when he raised the price by 1000 pesos between him giving me the prices 16 hours earlier on piece of paper and me turning up on hire day. I questioned it and so original price still stood. There is much competition in this tourist town, right down to laundry prices per kilogram, or group tours which our group did later that same day. For 12000 pesos in total 4 of us visited 3 lagunas (one dense salt with strict warnings not to immerse our heads, that could not be stressed enough by our excellent guide Juan from Buenos Aires) whilst the other 2 got sand in every orifice boarding down a steep slope in death valley under instruction. Night fell and a great sunset and hell-of-a-bumpy road later ended up back in San Pedro for a late night to bed, even later for those off star gazing until 2am.

That night and the next 3 days were the worst in my life sickness wise. I had become increasingly bloated that afternoon after taking on small amount of food, pasta at lunch and washing the apple and tomato in tap water then wiping it with clean paper towel. Or ity may have been the meal we ate out as a group the previous night as granules of that came back up to meet me too. I woke after 3 hrs sleep and basically since then turned my insides out at both ends, very frequently and most unpleasantly. Thank god the shower cubicle was within heads reach of sitting on the loo and that I did not turn the light on. And a dose of loperamide, diamox for altitude sickness (imminent rise in with trip to Bolivia) and antinausea medication made absolutely no difference.

Severely dehydrated, unable to take on water comfortably let alone food, a somersaulting tummy and lightheaded, I only just mustered the energy to pack the bags for an 8am departure on the 4 day 4WD excursion which I had no way of getting out of. Similarly our leader had been rocked from one end during the night, and as we ascended to the Bolivian border post (scooting through the long Chilean customs exit queue, you wonder when everyone is leaving town rather than coming to it??) everyone in our group responded differently with elevated heart rates, breathlessness or headaches.

That day as we passed Dali valley, Green Laguna and sighted the bubbling mud and geyserland at 5600m high, the mood turned from one of seriousness to forced humour and delirium in order to uphold morale. And I am certain after passing through such a fantastic landscape to reach our humble simple multishare beds for the night (that is separate beds to clarify “multishare”), we enjoyed it even if our faces did not have the energy to show it. We need that forgiveness day at tours end I think, where we can repent our behaviour in the high altiplano of Bolivia!

Day 2 of the excursion dawned at 6am in time for some cold scrambled egg and ubiquitous dulce leche (caramel) so essential to a south American diet as white bread, ham and cheese. Bags packed and boarded the vehicles by 7am we headed in direction of Lagunas Onde and Los Tres. Unscheduled stops were unfortunately not fir scenic value but a second accident in our first vehicle, not the one I was in. Yesterday they srtacked it with minimal damage to the car (but some bodies harmed) but today they broke the entire front left hand part of the car, tyre and spent an hour at least duck taping it with remaining bolts together. Resourceful yes, safe, unsure. Later that day, as if things occuyfr in 3s, they had a loosened roof rack with luggage about to tipple forwards and possibly the vehicle over if catastrophe struck. Safety is not a paramount concern here but they fudged that together with some rope and we eventually landed at our final night of share quarters in the Puerto Chuvica Salt Hotel at 7pm having travelled via small town of San Juan for some water and small supplies.

Lights out at ten, a pay shower (one for whole ‘hotel’, but that word is a strong one) and lack of running water overnight put a damper on any late night activity, and so we slept through until our 4.45am wake up call, well Maru and I did anyway as we were sharing a room together and after her alarm waking us up cloudy skies stopped our imminent departure. I was all booted up and packed too, so caught an extra 2 hours or so sleep until a late breakfast at 7am and final departure at 8am for the famous salt flats of Uyuni! Lazy tourists we were, nobody was left in the crusty walled salt hotel.

First stop after one hour of flat white was Incahuasi, an ancient coral mountain of about 100m elevation with lots of

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