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Published: October 6th 2006
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We arrived in Uyuni after 8 hours on two chilly, smelly and generally grotty buses from Sucre. We managed to catch half an hour in Potosi on the way which is if not the highest, nearly the highest town in the world (apparently somewhere in Tibet is officially). It was, as could be expected, flipping cold. The giant silver mine mountain was pretty impressive though.
Our first impression of Uyuni was that we had accidentally stumbled into some Russian backwater. Its pretty grim looking and again pretty cold. We checked into a nice hotel though and proceeded to search for a tour to the Salar de Uyuni and the surounding area. There are 72 tour agencies that offer tours in Uyuni so you can imagine the standard is quite variable. After being offered an extortionate US$85 for a 3 day package (this dropped to US$80 as soon as the woman saw our gob smacked faces) we managed to find a very reasonable agency who offered US$66 for the same deal and it was an agency someone had previously recommended. Pleased with our bargain hunting we headed off for a ncie dinner with a bottle of red wine (for the warmth
The Salt Hotel
Building, tables, chairs... everything made from salt you know) in a bar with a roaring fire.
The next day we got our Bolivian exit stamps (3 days before we left the country - go figure) and headed to the agency. As I walked out of the cafe next door I ran into Peter, our German friend from Huaraz. It turned out he was on the same trip as us, a pleasant bonus! As we headed for the land rovers the tour operator asked to speak to me in her office.... fairly ominous I thought. It turned out that we were in a car with some people from Holland who had gotten majorly ripped off on their trip by their tour agency in Holland. She asked me not to mention the price we had paid. Feeling pretty shifty about the whole thing I agreed. Anyway, Jurun and Ameeka turned out to be really really lovely and I spent most of the 3 days debating whether or not to say anything. I didn´t in the end on the basis that I thought I would prefer not to know if it was me.
There were six of us in the car, us, the Dutch couple and two Japanese
boys (shamefully we never really worked out how to pronounce or spell their names properly so I won´t try to save embarrassment). The first stop was the Salar de Uyuni where we got to admire some stands with works of art in salt on them.Then we continued to drive across the Salar stopping on the way to admire the salt hotel and the various areas of salt mining that was going on. The salt hotel is really strange - everything even the beds are made of salt. Our guide explained that the various mounds of salt were the product of several families who worked in the area digging it up for processing. I imagine its pretty back breaking.
We stopped for lunch at the Fish Island (so named because its shaped like a fish) which had one of the biggest cactuses in the world on it - an amazing 12 metres tall. It was pretty impressive but lost some of the prestige as it was amongst lots of other cactuses of around the same height. Lunch was barbequed llama steak which was delicious. We were given 20 minutes after lunch which we took full advantage of to take some
trick pictures as I am sure you can see. Tim and Bek had told us that the light on the lake was such that you could take pictures with distorted size and distance elements. At first everyone thought we were insane as we started running round posing in strange ways but they sooin caught on and everyone started doing it. Then we were off again. We stopped briefly at some caves with some amazing stalagmites which was discovered purely by accident when some locals were excavating another cave which was a traditional burial site. Accomodation that night was in San Pedro in a refugio type place. Despite being in the middle of nowhere there was still a football pitch of sorts which we found amusing. Dinner was pretty depressing (pasta and not much sauce) and we headed to bed fairly early. During the night a member of the other jeep in our party was really sick in his bed. We were very grateful that all we had to put up with in the middle of the night was one of the Japanese boys alarm clocks playing "My Shirona" at full volume for about 5 minutes.
Day 2 and we
headed out at an early hour. Lakes were the name of the game today. The first stop was to see some fossilised coral rocks. There were hundreds of them and it was a very strange sight but great fun to climb on them. Next was a very beautiful lake which was filled with flamingos. We all spent a long time watching them. It was truly amazing to be so close and watch them in their natural habitat. Lunch was again excellent and we headed off in search of more water attractions. The final stop of the day was Laguna Colorado which is a lake which is literally red. Not just a hint of red either - it looks as if someone has poured colouring into it. The reason its red is because of certain algae and minerals which when agitated by the wind change the colour of the water. Our accomodation was near this lake and boy was it cold! Its very high, around 4,300 metres in altitude. The refugio was again pretty basic. Mike and I decided after being warned by Becky and Tim to share a single bed for warmth. In the middle of the night Mike had
to start undressing because he was completely overheating. After comparing notes with other fellow travellers we think we were fortunate enough to hit a bit of a warm spell.
The final day started at 5.30 am. The purpose was to take us the geysers nearby and then on to a thermal baths before breakfast. The geysers at sunrise were spectacular. The smell however was awful! After about half an hour of wandering around we all got too cold and retreated to our jeep. Unable to feel our toes Mike and I got out at the next stop to see a steaming thermal bath.It was amazing! Neither of us wanted to get out. The water was amazingly clear and around 38 degrees. After we reluctantly dragged ourselves out Mike´s hair froze completely! Breakfast followed and then we were off to to el arbol de piedras - basically a tree of stone. As you can see it looks like something from a Salvador Dali painting! There is actually a stretch of desert nearby known as the Salvador Dali desert because of the various rock formations which seemingly spring up from nowhere. Our final stop was Laguna Verde. Sadly not agitated by
the wind so not as green as the red lake was red, however, the stillness was wonderful. The reflection in the water of the surrounding mountains was unsurpassable.Of course being tourists and european we couldn't let it stay like that so our combined groups started pelting rocks towards the water to see how close we could get (I say we, I of course mean the lads in our group!)
Sadly this was the departure point for us. The rest of our group was on a longer trip which would take them back to Uyuni. We were headed for San Pedro de Atacama in Chile to catch a bus to Argentina. It was sad to say goodbye to our little group! The journey into San Pedro took us down to around 1000 metres altitude. It meant we had a superb view of the Chilean slat flats and the surrounding desert of San Pedro de Atacama.
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Gerry
non-member comment
Wow
Glad you are back on line - Bolivia looks ace -take care