Altitude sickness, llamas and salt flats...

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Firstly, I do have to clear some confusion. Mischa is concerned that everyone keeps commenting on how well Jess is writing the blogs, when actually this is the first one I have written solely by myself, so three shouts for Mischa, who is doing a fabulous job at keeping everyone updated (usually when Jess falls asleep at 8pm!)
Moving on, today, we left at 7am after breakfast for a long, long drive day into Bolivia (an estimated 10 hours - nothing for us Isans)! 9 newbies joined us and the 2 that didn’t get Brazil visas before leaving home joined us again, so we had a full truck with only 1 spare seat! The scenery changed pretty dramatically as we started the climb in altitude. The Argentine Chaco Desert (which didn’t really look like a desert!) gave way to very colourful mountains - reds , browns and yellows and unique rock formations which the pictures do no justice to. Our truck lunch in the higher altitude still on the Argentine side was the first test for our bodies… Jules told the boys (including Mischa) that it probably wasn’t a good idea to kick the footy around as our bodies wouldn’t feel the full effects of the higher altitude for a few hours. We had a great lunch as Jules had stocked up on fresh food from Argentina, we would have to ration though as it was to last for the next 3 days (Bolivia’s not so good with the fresh food). We were nicely interrupted by a herd of goats and sheep who thought our lunch definitely looked better than theirs, so we spent a few moments chasing them away whilst taking pictures.
Then it was back onto the bus and over the border into Bolivia. As always is the case, all the passengers have no trouble leaving one country and entering the next but “Rosita” always makes us wait a while… Only 2 ½ hours this time so not the longest wait. We all piled onto the truck and drove over the bridge to Bolivia only to be stopped and told Rosita was missing one stamp in her passport. So Logan, backed her up and parked on the bridge, to try and cause a traffic jam and make them let us through a bit quicker, and it didn’t take them too long to let us through! Onto Tupiza… The tar sealed road soon stopped and we were on the dirt. Amazingly enough, they are upgrading the roads in Bolivia, so we had bits and pieces of tar sealed road along with stretches of dirt and a lot of detours around where they were building the new road. We started to descend over the mountain range when we stopped for a photo moment. In the middle of all this rugged and very dry terrain is a brilliantly green valley, all the way to Tupiza, you should be able to see it in the photos. We had a few close calls with passing trucks and going through tunnels and swallowed quite a bit of dust but all in all, we made it to Tupiza - hidden gem of Bolivia. We reached an altitude of 2800m and a couple of people had the initial signs of altitude sickness appearing. As the streets in Tupiza are quite small, we had to leave Rosita at the train station and walk to our hotel, Mitru Hotel - reknown (in Lonely Planet) for its solar heated swimming pool! It is a great little town, easy to walk around and full of Italian restaurants. So guess what we had for dinner… Alfredo pasta - Jess & a Hamburger - Mischa. It was again very cheap, so afterwards we headed back to get some sleep...another big day of driving ahead.

Leaving Tupiza, Arriving Potosi
An 8:30am departure this morning for another day of driving but not before breakfast. Breakfast is simple and not really worth reporting on except Jess put yoghurt on her cereal (not so bad) and in her tea (disgusting - couldn’t drink it!), the silly thing is that it is about the 3rd time she’s done it! Today, we climbed in altitude again to Potosi at 3800m but only after another 10 hours. We said goodbye to Tupiza only to drive 10 mins and be stopped at a roadblock. We were told that we couldn’t pass on the road until 12pm as there were road works in progress, so we turned around and headed back to the train station to wait it out. Mischa and Jess walked the streets (about 3 times) trying to find an Optica store to buy sunglasses, and when we finally found one, they were closed with no opening hour displayed anywhere. We were fortunate enough though to have the chance to photograph the local car wash for you all to see! Back on the road again…
We stopped for a “pee stop” bush style, except there weren’t too many bushes around. Guys have it sooo easy, Jess jumped off the edge of the road and landed on a stick of thorns that went straight through her thongs and into her foot! Lesson learned; even though we are on the bus all day, closed in shoes are required… Lunch was again a truck lunch, but done in style, so no complaints here. The scenery after lunch changed from the rugged mountains to green rolling mountains and the famous llamas started to pop up everywhere - strange looking creatures they are.
Due to the delayed start we arrived in Potosi about 6:30pm but again, the streets are not wide enough for Rosita to take us to the hotel, so we met some transfer mini-buses and they delivered us to the Hotel Libertador. Not too much on Potosi now as we will be back in 3 days to stay for another 2 nights… As we drove in, it looked like a typical mining town. Originally silver mines, now they mine silver, tin, lead & zinc… We found a very quiet little Italian restaurant (again!) and shared a chicken parmi and salami pizza, which we probably only ate about half of as both meals were absolutely huge (another lesson learned). The best part about Potosi had to be the hotel pillows, Jess slept the whole night through! Could have been the Nurofen she had though. Many people had come down sick with vomiting or headaches or both, some very severe, others only mild, due to altitude sickness. Jess only had stomach cramps from too much soft drink (gas) and not enough exercise.

Leaving Potosi & Arriving Uyuni
Everyone’s dropping like flies… About half the people on tour have spent the night vomiting or not sleeping due to severe headaches or colds and one couple had to stay in Potosi due to severe sickness (were going home but have endured through it and joined us now). At least 3 people threw up before getting on the truck, and we were praying that no one was sick on the truck as there is not a lot of airflow when the windows are closed to keep the dust out! Both Mischa & Jess were feeling great, ready to take on their next adventure.
Only a medium drive today 6 hours or so, actually turned out not to be so long as a major part of the road had been tar sealed since the last time Logan had driven this way. We descended 1000m in altitude which made those that were sick, feel a little bit better. We passed more road works and detours along the way. We stopped for another “bush pee stop” at an amazing location, where they are currently building a new bridge for the new road, pretty cool! Winding and bumpy roads were the only option for the trip to Uyuni. The scenery had its moments but was mainly the same so Jess took a moment to get a bit more sleep. We arrived in Uyuni at about 4pm, so it was just coming out of siesta time, so we went for a walk around town. There are lots of souvenier-type shops selling all different things, but our main interest were sunglasses for the following day. Jess also managed to find some nice long pants, so we squeezed them in too!! We headed back to the hotel after about an hour to have some dinner at the amazing Minuteman Pizza restuarant attached to the hotel. It was amazingly good, apparently the owner studied pizza cooking under an international chef in America, but fell in love with a Bolivian woman and moved out here!! Crazy, but was an awesome guy. We only had one large pizza between us, as opposed to Sam and Greg who tried one each!! They were still eating it the next day for brekky!! 😊 After that, an early night again so we could be ready for a day in the sun on the Salar De Uyuni!!!!!!

Salar De Uyuni
This day marked our 26th day on holidays, not really an achievement in itself, but what a way to spend it!! 😊 We had time after a huge brekky to grab some water before jumping on some Toyota Landcruisers at 10am to head out to the Salt Flats. It took about 40mins to arrive, but whoa, no wonder you need sunnies!! It's soooo bright!! First stop was the town on the edge, where we saw how they process the salt; first dry it, then heat it up, then add 700kg of Iodine to 1kg of Salt, then bag it up to be shipped off. Amazing work conditions...you might be able to tell. Then it was the museum with the world's biggest llama and buying a few things..including Mischa loving this wallet, buying it, even though Jess thinks it's a woman's wallet!! We then hopped in the cars again to head to the beginning of the salt flats. This is where they scrape up the salt into these pyramids to take back in the trucks. It's very expanse country!! There's also these 'Salt Eyes' where the water bubbles up from the springs under the salt. Very cool. After that, it was again another 30min drive to the Salt Hotel, and then a big drive (1hr) to the Incahuasi Island. This island is in the middle of the flats, and has an AWESOME view at the top around the whole thing!! It was also our place for lunch, and then some cool photo opportunities!! 😊 Enjoy the video!! After this, it was about 4:30pm by now, so we headed back to Uyuni, with a stop at the Train Cemetery for some great photo's with the sunset in the background. By the time we got back, everyone had a bit of sun-burn and heat exhaustion, so we had a bite to eat in Minuteman again, before heading to bed.

I'm going to leave it there, we've had another day of driving from Uyuni to Potosi, but not much to report...but Mischa has finished it off...so now you can compare!! 😊 ENJOY!!!!

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Comments

[Lara]

:D
Only 30 days for us!! and where is the photo of Misch's girly wallet! I wanna see it! See you soon!!!!!!xoxoxox

[Cheryl]

Love the video. So creative - looks like lots of fun! I am just so amazed at the variety of experiences you are having. This is certainly a trip you will never forget. Thanks for letting us enjoy it with you.