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Published: March 31st 2010
Our bus from BA arrived at 6am, 2hrs earlier than expected (shocking for South American standards) at the Argentinian border town of La Quiaca, 12 March. Now this is not such a bad thing except the
border crossing does not open until 7am (Bolivia time is also 1 hour behind Argentina.. so 2 hours wait on that side) and it was freakin cold. So all rugged up, packs on, we queued up single file with many other tourists over a bridge and enjoyed a beautiful sunrise waiting for the immigration office to open. We used this time to befriend some other travellers, a young english lad and a couple, Alexandra from Portugal and Dietmar from Germany.
Once the office opened we were given an insight into what was to possibly lay ahead in Bolivia. One guard, two immigration officers who just looked like locals in casual dress were in control. The one office was doing both Bolivia to Argentina migration and Argentina to Boliva. It was a bit chaotic having all these people going into and out of the same office but we got through easy, jeez they didn´t even look at us when stamping passports.
There is nothing
at all to do or see in Villazon (the Bolivian border town), so we along with Alexandra and Dietmar decided to get straight on a bus to our first destination,
Tupiza. Firstly a visit to the toliet as the bus didn´t have one.... what a first impression of what was too come - one of the worst we had encountered. What a bus ride! Apparently only towns have paved or bitumen roads in Bolivia and our 3hr bus ride to Tupiza, while the scenery was amazing the road was the bumpiest ever. Recent rains had washed away sections of the dirt roads so it felt more like 4wding than a bus ride. To rub salt into the wounds all the way we saw a new bitumen road being built! The hostel in Tupiza (Mitru) was great, good clean rooms it even had a pool.
Tupiza is a pretty remote place in the Southern Altiplano region of Bolivia. It is a town of about 20,000 people and an elevation of 2950m (time to start taking our altitude sickness prevention pills and chew coca leaves). The town is surrounded by harsh, rugged scenery - strange differently coloured rock formations, hills, mountains
and cactus forrests. Like something out of the American Wild West but, better. Its people depend on agriculture and mining. The weather was great hot and sunny during the day, cool but not too cold by night.
We had decided on Tupiza as the starting point for our tour of the ´Southwest Circuit´(Salar de Uyuni -Worlds largest Salt flats) and because of the areas surrounding landscape. To make the most of it, we decided to do a
horse riding tour of the surrounding area. Great, Nicole hadn´t ridden for years and Jay never at all. Our tour guide collected us from the hostel at 9am and walked us to our horses. On the way with our very limited Spanish we discovered our guide, Jimmy, was all of 14 years old, but thankfully had been riding for 5 years so was thoroughly experienced 😉 Our ride was a 3hr journey through the very dry and red country side whose slopes are covered with cactus. Sore knees and butts aside it was brilliant, Jimmy even had us galloping, he just said something and the horses went nuts!! I think Jimmy thought the sight of 2 tourists holding on for dear life
Salar Tour - Coolest Lake ever
check out the colour of the water!and making a sound in between crying and laughing was the funniest thing of the day.
The next day we joined up with Alexandra and Dietmar and set out on our trip of the
´Southwest Circuit´. The tour is a 3 night 4 day 4wd tour of Bolivia´s Southwest corner taking in some of the most weird, beautiful, surreal landscapes you could ever imagine. Volcanos, deserts, salt flats (deserts)...
Our tour group consisted of 2 4wds. 2 drivers, a cook and 9 tourists. The whole trip was amazing and a highly recommended experience for everyone (Tupiza Tours are highly reccomended!). The scenery each day was different, each turn we took or each hill we climbed the scenery was ever changing. It is hard to do it justice in words, or even the photos (they hardly look real), but that is just like it was. Surreal landscapes, amazingly beautiful scenery, some wildlife - Llamas and Perquenas (skinny goodlooking Llamas), a good tour group and guides made for an unforgettable 4 days.
Highlights of the trip.
Laguna Verde (Blue-green lake) alt 4400m. gets its colour from high mineral content of sulfur and lead. Volcano Licancabur rising behind it.
Salar Tour - Sunrise over the Salar
We watched the sunrise over an cactus island (made of coral) in the middle of the salt flats, amazing Hot Thermal Springs, where we all took a bath- our first in 2 days
Sol de manana Geysers, alt 4850m. Smelly, bubbling, steaming volcanic activity from the surrounding Volcanoes. You aren´t meant to walk through them but our guide Mario, said it was ok!!
Laguna Colorado (Red Lake) alt 4278m. Rich red coloured lake that gets its colour from plankton feeding on Borax and magnesium deposits. Locals extract minerals for production of fertiliser, paints and plastics. Pink Flamingos also live here.
Salvador Dali desert - just as surreal as his paintings
Fossilised Volcanic Lava - shadowed by a huge Volcano. We had lunch here one day.
Funniest part of the trip When we all got back in the jeep, Nic and I noticed a rather fresh smell of poo in the jeep. Giggling in the back seat, we didn´t say anything. One minute later Dietmar had realised he had trodden in his own doo doo. So funny, we were in tears of laughter watching Dietmar try and explain in broken spanish to Mario our driver what happened. Needless to say we didn´t let Dietmar forget this one for the rest of the trip.
Salar de Uyuni (Worlds largest salt flat) alt 3653m. Covers an area of 12,100 sq km. We drove onto the Salar from a salt hotel (yes made of salt) in darkness before sunrise so we could have breakfast and watch the sunrise from the flats. With the little rain that fell the evening before the surface reflects the night sky and clouds, quite an errie sight cruising along with no lights on not being able to tell land from night sky. We watch sunset from Isla Inahuasi an old coral island covered with cactus. Weird hey! Sun up, it is a blinding white so sunnies and sunscreen were a must. We drove to a point in the Salar which is best for photos and an hour and a half was spent trying to take some crazy pics.
Chewing Cocoa leaves - Chewing on a soggy wad of leaves is said to reduce fatigue, hunger and cold as well as to reduce the effects of altitude sickness. There is no high from chewing the leaves.
Over the 4 days we saw some amazing things, nothing like we will ever see again. We also slept in small local villages as
Potosi - Mine Tour - Coca Purchase
So cute! Jay buying coca leaves to help us with the altitude high as 4300m. The highest visit of our trip was about 5000m. Our trip ended in the small town of Uyuni alt 3670m. Most of the others decided to leave for other places that afternoon but we stayed a night. We visited a train cemetery, had a great pizza (Minuteman Pizza), hot shower and comfy bed was required.
From Uyuni we travelled to the city of
Potosi. Apparently the highest city in the world at 4070m, it has an amazing story. The Spanish conquistadors got there hands on Potosi in 1545, and its Cerro Rico ´Rich Hill´which was full of silver. They exploited locals, bought in slaves from Africa to extract the silver and send back to Spain to fund their economy for more than 200 years. At one point Potosi was one of the largest cities in the world, definitely the richest. A mint was built here to produce money for Spain and Bolivia in 1672. The Good times didn´t last for the Spanish as the Silver dried up. Over the centuries millions of people have died in the appalling conditions of the mines. Thousands of locals still work the mines today in conditions not much more
advanced than centuries ago. (Ref - If you get a chance watch the 2005 documentary ´The Devil´s Miner´for more of an incite to the mines).
These days hardly any silver is found but the mines still operate and zinc and lead are extracted. We did a tour of the mines. Good thing or bad thing we are not sure. Not something we will ever forget or want to do again. On the bottom of the tour flyer it says ´Not for pussies or wimps´, they were right. The tour started with us getting fitted with protective clothing and helmets. We then were taken to the miners market, where we were able to buy goods for the miners, such as alcohol (96% alcohol - jay tried it. Metho!!), Cocoa leaves (AUS76c) and Dynamite ($AUS3).
With a quick tour of a processing plant (OH&S not) we were taken to the mine entrance, we filed in single file (6 in our group), just enough room to stand at first. It then got a whole lot more uncomfortable and the size of the tunnel decreased and oxygen harder to come by. We were all suffering from the effects of altitude and air
quality so convinced our guide to have regular rest stops one of which was at the shrine of the miners´god Tata Kaj´chu. The guide along with the males of the group took swigs of the 96% alcohol and whiskey and offered it to the shine along with coca leaves, some would think this was the only way the miners get through the gruelling day ahead.
Crawling on hands and knees through tunnels (60cm diameter), scaling sheer rock faces, climbing on broken ladders, getting out of the way of passing trolleys full of rocks it was unbelievably hard and taxing experience for the 2 hrs we were in the mine. Both our headlamps broke throughout the time so the guides walked in darkness, amazing. Heading down to the 3rd level was the worst with a VERY small tunnel, Nicole had a small freakout on the way down but this was nothing compared to the way up. We all thought there must be an easier way to resurface but soon found out their wasn´t. After spending hours in the mines our bodies and lungs were suffering and Nicole only JUST held it together with the help of the guides encouragement.
Not everyone made it a few people turned back for the surface. These are primitive mines and miners still use primitive tools to do their mining, breathing in toxic gases each and every day. A truly eye opening experience. Once you have seen this it gives you a new appreciation of how well we have it at home. maybe even an understanding of why Unions exist?! After we surfaced, short of breath, blackened teeth from all the dust and chewing of coca leaves (we were wearing masks, the miners don´t) a stick of dynamite was blasted in the mountain for us.
We only spent a couple of days in Potosi, exploring the streets, markets, cafes, bars and even a discotek/karoke bar. Probably could have spent a couple more days but next stop La Paz. We booked an overnight bus which was due to leave at 8.30pm. Whilst travelling so far we had not heard any horror stories of robberies or the like but only what we had read. But here in Potosi we heard 2 stories of people having bags, passports stolen. 1 case a young British kid got scammed by a fake police and cabbie who took of
with his whole pack including passport. With this fresh in our minds we were weary of cabbies. But we needed to get a cab to the bus station. Remember in the second blog when we shat a bit when we arrived in Rio? Well we shat a bit again when our cabbie took us on a back streets tour of Potosi on the way to the terminal. All was ok, we arrived, bags still securely fastened to us and Nicoles passport down her bra.
Blog soon...
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Marc
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Survived fake police in Potosi
Arrived by bus in Potosi from Sucre. Didn't arrive at the bus stop near the train station but somewhere near a big gas station. Almost everybody got off the bus at that point and our knowledge of Spanish was not enough to make clear that this was the terminus for this route. Taxi was waiting; we got in and after a few meters a second person got in at the back seat. Within a minute a man got in at the front seat and began explaining this being a bus station a routine drug check would be performed by him. He validated this by showing a vague badge. Our passenger at the backseat complied most eagerly and encouraged us to do the same. Having read about these scams we only showed copies of the passports and refused to show wallet and personal bags. After driving a few blocks they probably got fed up with us and wanted to drop us off (still in the urban area of Potosi). Hatch was supposedly stuck so it took some effort to get the bags out of the trunk. My wife stayed in the car - with the door opened - the whole time to prevent them taking off with our backpacks. After fetching the bags the Taxi driver apologized for the inconvenience and said goodbye without demanding a pay :) Next taxi we took was a valid one and took us to our hotel without a problem.