Advertisement
Published: October 14th 2007
All
It has been a week since our last installment and what a week it has been. England is in the final, Steve is thrilled about it. He attempted to watch the game yesterday in Potosi, but they did not have ESP plus, so he managed to read about the first 25 minutes on the internet and then we had to get a taxi to Sucre. Next Sat being the final it seems that we will be somewhere up the amazon, so very little likely hood of him seeing it, so boyz, keep him posted via the internet and my mobile, as his does not work!
Onto more exciting things, like our travel news... After leaving Bariloche, we flew to Santiago (Chile) and arrived late on Tuesday night. We only spent half a day in Santiago as we will be returning there when we fly to Auckland. In the late afternoon, we flew to Calama (Bolivia), where we decided not to get the organised transport to San Pedro Da Attacama, but rather the local transport. It did seem like a good idea at the time, however in practice, it was not so great. It was a good thing we met a french couple who spoke a bit of Spanish (our spanish has stretched to about 10 words) and after a power cut in the local bus terminal we managed to get the local bus to SP d Attacama which only took an hour.
SP is a dessert and therefore very hot, it was great to finally see some sun. On our first day we spent changing hostels (as the HI hostel we stayed in was not nice) and finding an agency to book our 4 x4 jeep trip to the salt pàns. There were 4 comapanies offering exactly the same thing at various prices and it really seemed to be the luck of the draw which one you choose. We spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon lazing in the sun in a hammock at our hostel...this is what life is about!
In the late afternoon we went on a valley of the moon tour, where we were taken to different spots which are supposed to look like the moon and salt mountains. We also went to a magnificiant view point to watch the sun set. It was a wonderful trip.
SP is really a small desert town that people use as a stop off to organise trips, but they do have great restuarants and on our last night, we ate like kings, Stephen even managed to get fish and I a vegtable tart and not just pasta...
Wed - Fri - 4 x4 jeep trip
We knew that two other people where going to be joining us and we hoped that they would be nice and be able to speak english. Well we got one of the two, they were a lovely italian couple, who had just got engaged, but she spoke french and italian and he spoke spanish, french, italian and broken English. Actually the spanish was really helpful as our driver/tour guide spoke no English, so translations at time were challenging... but we did manage to convey to him many a time that we were vegetarian!
Our first day was spent going to different lakes and seeing loads of flamingoes, they are amazing animals, but definitly scared of humans as every time we went near them, they started flying away, which in itself was amazing to watch. We then went to a natural hot pool, but the water was not that hot and it was cold outside, so we opted not to swim- although we knew our first nights accomodation would not have showers, we decided to stay dirty, we would smell together.
We arrived at our refugio at around 2.30 pm at which time we still had not had lunch (breakfast was given to us after we crossed over to the bolivian border around 8am). Our driver decided to have a sleep and we had to ask several times for some food. Eventually at around 3pm some food arrived, basic to say the least (mash and mushrooms), it was good we ate a big meal the night before! After which we wanted to have a nap, but off we were drived to lake calorado, which was an amazing lake with different colours and more flamingoes. When we arrived back, there were other groups that had arrived and were sitting with coffee and lovely buiscuts - of course we had to ask again for ours. We were not impressed to say the least as we compared notes and they had paid the same as us, but come from a different starting point and had got gourmet food. There was one redeeming feature, when it was dinner time, out of the three groups, we got ours first and it was actually nice!
Thurs - Neither Steve nor I had slept very well and we were suffering a bit from the altitude as we were getting on 4000m. We managed to get some coco leaves from someone in the other group, but most of the day we slept in the jeep and stopped at a few sites and we were actually fed a delicious lunch at a decent time- Maybe Day 1 was a bad start! Our accomdation was a Salt Hotel, yes a hotel made from bricks of salt quiet amazing actually! We went out in the late afternoon to walk on the salt pans, which were spectacular. We were much warmer that night and with a bottle of wine that we shared between 4, we all slept pretty well.
Fri - This was probably the highlight of the jeep trip in a different way as we drove on the Salt Pans and all you could see for miles was white salt- weird. We stopped at a Cactus Island, which was also strange as it is an Island of 100 yrs old catci in the middle of the Salt - we will try and send some pics soon!
Our jeep decided it did not want to start, so for the next 2 stops (a salt hotel and small villiage) we had to push start it, thank god this was only at the end of the trip
Overall we were lucky, we had a safe driver, a nice couple, food and we went to all the places we were meant to go, we had heard some nightmare stories.
We finished off in Uyuni, which is a small traditional town, but where you would not really want to spend the night. The only bus out of there was at 7pm (we had arrived at 1pm) which would get us to Potosi after 1am, so we decided to pay quiet a bit more and the 4 of us organised a taxi to pic us up at 4.30 which was supposed to get us to Potosi at 9pm. In the interuim hours, we had some food, used internet and Steve got a much needed hair cut for the equivalant of 70p.
Our taxi ended up being over an hour late and then still had to fill up with petrol, we were not pleased to say the least. We eventually got to Potosi and the hostel at around 11pm- the roads were awful and after finding some people we knew apparently the bus was freezing, so we think we did the right thing!
Sat - Potosi
This is the worlds highest city and the poorest one in South America and is famous for its mines. Steve had never done a mine tour before, so first thing in the morning we went to do one. We were very lucky as the agency we picked we were the only people and our guide was an ex miner. We went off in a taxi to where the miners weighed the rocks (zinc, copper, silver) that they had bought down and saw the system they used for grinding (really old fashioned, they have been mining in Potosi since the 1500 and the materials they use have hardly changed- very archiac) We then went to get suited and booted for the mines with protective clothing and lamps. A short visit to the market where we had to buy the miners coco leaves and drinks and we were set. We walked alot to get into the mines and our tour guides knowledge was amazing. When we actually got inside we spent over two hours crawling about. We only saw two miners in action as it was saturday, but the dust and cold and darkness was just amazing, we had had enough, to think they work between 12 - 24 hrs a day down there is incrediable!
We took a taxi to Sucre late that afternoon and have spent today just relaxing as we are tired from all our travels. Tomorrow night we take an overnight bus to La Paz and the fly to Rurenbacca (amazon).
Look forward to hearing everyones news
Love J & S
Advertisement
Tot: 0.092s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0698s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
anna kingsley
non-member comment
salt lakes
sounds like u too found it heavy going. great to read about potosi and sucre as i wanted to go but never got there , v jealous as well u're going to see la paz and enjoy the amazon xxxxxxxxxxx