Beautiful Bolivia part 3: Uyuni & Tupiza

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Megan here again. The last leg of our tour of Bolivia included the beautiful Salar de Uyuni, Tupiza and then off to Argentina. Uyuni is an amazing area in SW Bolivia that includes immense Salt Flats, hot springs, active volcanoes and amazing landscapes. We were very excited to get there, so early in the morning we boarded a bus from Potosi to Uyuni. Having heard lots of bad stories about night buses in Bolivia, especially in the south, we decided it was safest to take the approx. 7-hour bus ride during daylight. On the ride, we could definitely see why it was so dangerous. About 1.5 hours outside of Potosi you run out of paved roads. There are no street lights, the roads are narrow and there are some pretty good cliffs at times. Also, because the roads aren’t paved, the quality of the buses deteriorate significantly, so that could also lead to the numerous accidents that you hear about. Anyways, we boarded the bus in Uyuni and headed south. About midway through the day, we stopped in a small, dusty town for a break, to stretch our legs and use the bano. We were travelling with our friends we met in Potosi, Joch & Judith (Germany) and Susannah (New Zealand), so had a chat with them and got back on the bus to leave. It was at this point, shortly after having left the town, that Kara realized that she couldn’t find her ipod. We looked all over the bus and all through her bag, but it appeared to be missing and couldn’t be found. We think what may have happened is that when we got up to get off the bus, it was on her lap and it fell and someone else may have found it. Either way, it was gone and she was disappointed.
We arrived in Uyuni around 4pm and found it to be a small, dusty town that seems to be based mostly on tourism, but somewhat grudgingly. The people weren’t exactly the friendliest and the hostel we found wasn’t the nicest, but we comforted ourselves with the fact that we would be leaving on our tour the next day. As we hadn’t booked anything when we got into town, we started to wander from office to office, asking about prices, routes etc. We had heard a couple of companies were good (Oasis and Cordillera) so went to go ask them about availability. At that time, we were also searching for a tour that would end up in Tupiza, a town south of Uyuni that was on our route south to Argentina. Having heard prices to Tupiza (an extra 400 Bolivianos each to Tupiza and the roads there weren’t good) we quickly changed our minds. Upon entering the Oasis office, as well, we met a girl named Jane from Equador who has scoped out the company and was looking for a tour. Jane was almost too good to be true: spoke Spanish, of course, as well as English and German, had done the research on the company and was looking for 5 other people to round out the maximum 6 capacity of the jeep. Perfect! We booked then and there for a tour from and back to Uyuni (decided that rather than pay the extra 400 Bs, we would come back to Uyuni and take another bus to Tupiza for 60 Bs) and were set for the next day.
The following day we all met up at 10am to get going on the tour. The first stop was the train graveyard. Trains from all over S America came here to die and it was pretty cool checking out the old mechanics of these huge machines. Our next stop was a small town that has a bit of a salt museum (because we were next to the salt flats, artisans crafted figures out of salt crystals). Next we actually went into the flats and to Isla de Pescada (Fish Island - named as such because the rock is shaped like a fish). Basically, this is a giant rock in the middle of nowhere that is growing cacti all over it. If you get closer, you can see that the rock is actually made of coral, a remnant of millions of years ago when the entire area was engulfed in the sea. We stayed there to have lunch and then to take the requisite “salt flat pictures” and then were off again. As we quickly moved off of the salt flats, the roads became very bumpy. This was a short day, however, and we were soon at our hostel for the night. Right near the hostel, we were told, was a graveyard of sorts, that housed the bodies of civilizations past. Duly named: “the Necropolis” (sounds like something out of wrestling), it was cool to see how people had dug out the coral to lay the bodies of important figures in there. As we walked out of the area, we were stopped by someone who started to tell us that we needed to pay for the area and because we had gone in, we owed her 10 Bs. Now, we had seen a sign on our way in, but the place to pay looked closed and our guide hadn’t said anything to us about bringing money. Also, the people that she was with, a group from another salt flat tour, was about to get a guided tour from her, which were missing out on. We didn’t have money with us and also didn’t think we should pay for it afterwards when we weren’t even getting a tour. So we told her where we were staying and then said that if she wanted to get money from us, she would have to come there. Long story short, we resisted, but in the end had to pay 5 Bs each. Not a lot comes for free in Salar, I guess.
The next day we woke up bright and early and got going around 7am. We drove off to see some gorgeous mountains and beautiful lakes with lots of flamingoes. Then, around lunch time, it started to kick in for me: food poisoning. The rest of the day was awful, sitting in the backseat of a jeep on awful dirt roads having to try to keep my food down and seeking out a bathroom each time we stopped. There were still some lovely sights that we saw: the stone tree, Lake Colorado, etc, but it was hard for me to enjoy it feeling so awful. One nice thing was that the Bolivian government had recently decided that it was going to change the price for entering the National Park in the SW of the trip from 30 Bs to 150 Bs starting Jan 1. Apparently, however, there was such an uproar that they quickly put it back down to 30. They are apparently going back up to 150 Bs, but will increase the price in increments so that the 150 isn’t in effect until March or April. Having gotten a flat tire on our stop at Lake Colorado (our driver said that was a regular occurrence on these trips), we got into the hostel and I went straight to bed. I felt awful, but after a nap and some good meds, I started to feel a little better. The next day was an early one: up at 4am, we were off by 4:30 to go see some active volcanoes. Now, this is where, of course, the batteries in my camera ran out, but the people that we were travelling with told us that they would send their pics to us. We then arrived at the wonderful hot springs just as the sun was rising. While the air was cold, the springs were nice and hot (about 35 C). We had breakfast and were off again. This day was mostly driving, as we had to get back to Uyuni, but we stopped a couple of places to see the beautiful desert landscapes. After a long day in the jeep, we arrived back in Uyuni around 6pm. I still wasn’t feeling great, but better than day 2, so that was nice. We went out and booked our tickets to Tupiza that night - Uyuni isn’t much to see and we wanted to be on our way.
The next morning we got to the bus station just before 6am. As nothing is straight forward in Bolivia, there were a couple of problems: 1) the bus driver hadn’t arrived for his shift and 2) the battery on the bus was dead. While they were able to get the battery working and take it out for a test drive, the driver hadn’t yet shown up. As I still wasn’t doing so well, I wasn’t paying much attention to anything else, but as we went for our test drive, the passengers got nervous about the brakes and whether they worked. Jane, our Equadorian interpreter, went to go check it out and met the bus driver, who had just arrived. She and multiple other Spanish speakers hopped off the bus and before we knew it, there was a revolution and about 8 people decided that they weren’t getting back on the bus. Demanding their money back and their bags unloaded from the bus, they were screaming at the reps from the bus company, who in turn were screaming back. At this point we had a decision to make: stick with the bus with potentially bad breaks and a driver that looked like he had just hopped out of bed or lose our 60 Bs, pay an extra 100 Bs and try to get a private 4 x 4 to take us to Tupiza instead. Mom and Dad, you probably won’t like this, but we stayed with the bad bus. Upon driving away again, I paid more attention to the bus and realized that it wasn’t the brakes, but the gears that were grinding as he shifted. Anyways, we made it to Tupiza safely and everything worked out. Yay!
After 3 days in a bumpy 4 x 4 and a day on a sketchy bus, Kara and I decided that we needed a bit more civilization again and immediately booked our trip to Argentina the next morning. Tupiza is a much nicer town from Uyuni, but we felt the need for paved roads and hot water again, so bid our multi-national friends good-bye and headed south to Argentina.

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Comments

[Dad]

You are right!
Your mother commented that it is good to hear about the bus AFTER the trip! Great blogs. We are looking forward to having you home