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Published: November 29th 2006
Note that the pics for this blog entry go on for 3 pages! Uyuni and the tour of the Salar Deciding on our next Bolivian detsination wasn´t an easy task. We had originally booked bus tickets to Potosi to visit the silver mines but given Donna´s continuing toilet issues we decided that the confined conditions of mining tunnels would not be the best place to be if you suddenly needed the toilet, especially considering there may be so much methane down there already. So for these reasons we changed our bus ticket to go straight to Uyuni instead and had to travel semi-cama (heaven forbid) for twelve hours. The bus journey wasn´t too bad considering this was Bolivia although the seats didn´t recline too far back and as the bus apporached Uyuni the ride got increasingly bumpy or shall we say very similar to a 3 hours in length magnitude 6 on the richter scale earthquake! This is because the roads in this part of Bolivia are decidedly dodgy (i.e: there are none). As most bloggers have already decscribed on here, Uyuni is a strange soul-less town in the middle of nowhere which depends heavily on tourism as we
thermal pool
this was 6am and a pretty spectacular site!soon realised when half of its inhabitants gathered around us to sell us a tour of the southwest circuit of the Salar de Uyuni at 6am. We would like to say that we went for the tour which had the most reliable jeeps, best food menus and seemed the friendliest but in actual fact we went for the cheapest option and based our choice on the nationalities already signed up.
Three hours after arriving into Uyuni we set off in our jeep with two British guys, an Aussie girl and a Swiss girl who were all very nice people. As you can see from the pcitures during the three day, two night tour we passed through an amazing variety of landscapes, including salt plains, volcanoes, high altitude coloured lakes, geysers and thermal pools. Nowhere else on earth would you get such variety and it genuinely was amazing to see. However, again our luck with tours in South America was continually bad as on the first night our driver/cook/mechanic/guide buggered off without telling us, taking our food, drink and blankets with him, leaving us at a hotel made of salt in the middle of, the middle of, the middle of
nowhere. We realised this during the one hour of allotted electricity when two other tour groups staying at the salt hotel were given a banquet of food and drink. The six of us in our group could only sit and watch like characters from Oliver and so we pooled what biscuits and drinks we had to get us through the night. Note that next door to where we ate, the staff of the hotel seemed to be partying and living it up...no doubt on food and drink which was supposed to be left for our tour group.
Considering we were all very dehydrated from an unexpectedly warm first day (notice Neil and Andy´s very red faces in the pic), the next morning Raul (our driver) was NOT greeted with a warm reception by us. It turns out that he had decided to go to the next village and get pissed up on our red wine, but used the old chestnut that he was visiting his ill father as an excuse. Sonja, the Swiss girl conveyed our disgust at him in almost perfect Spanish and for the rest of the jeep tour, Raul tried to pull things back by even
offering a pineapple as dessert on the second day and actually providing us with stale bread for our evening meal. We decided as a group that the best way to get through the second night would therefore be to buy three bottles of red wine and play drinking games until we passed out (How else would you deal with dehydration and hunger?). During this drunken stupour we nicknamed ourselves the ´poor tour´, and decided to name all the others too. There were a group of young Danish lads with perfect blonde hair and cut off vests who had a guitar which we called the ´Boy band Tour´, a tour group which had an ipod, red wine every night and cake cooked for them which we called the ´posh tour´, a tour group of people over the age of 60 which we called the ´OAP tour´ and a group of israelis which we called ´Jews on tour´.
Things took a turn for the worse again however on the return journey to Uyuni when Raul decided that it would be best to drive with his eyes closed (he was asleep) than to concentrate on the road. This was noticed by Andy
(riding Shotgun) who brought to the attention of Raul the approaching truck with flashing headlights and blaring horn. We therefore stopped for Raul to get a Malt drink (?) at a gold mininmg village and for the remainder of the journey Raul must have thought that Andy was of the gay orientation (too many vegetables) as he wouldn´t take his eyes off Raul to make sure he didn´t fall asleep. We got our revenge on Raul by writing things like ´I make love to Llamas´ in big letters on the side of the dusty jeep. Luckily he couldn´t understand english writing but passing tour jeeps had fun reading our childish scribbles.
Arriving back at Uyuni we had a few hours to kill whilst waiting for our Expressa del sur train to Tupiza, so we left our rucksacks in the rest of the groups rooms at the Hotel Avenida. Only the old hag that runs the hotel decided she didnt like this for reasons best known to herself. Note to other travellers: beware of this lady...she is a witch who probably eats gringos for breakfast! On the train journey, we compared our tour stories with other travellers. We then realised
Neil stood on Donna´s hand
Playing around with strange perspective of the Salar de Uyuni. just how poor our poor tour had been, as they revealed how they had red wine each night, yummy three course meals and cakes baked for them.
Tupiza We rode salon class (too stingy to pay out for first class) on the 6 hour overnight journey to Tupiza and were surrounded by Bolivians engrossed in the film Hostage (Starring Bruce Willis). Surprisingly not Jean Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal, these classy films were most likely reserved for the first class (ejecutivo) passengers. Arriving into Tupiza at 4am we stepped over the youngling Bolivians sleeping on the floor of the train and tried to find some digs. This was not an easy task as the best place recommended in the gospel (Lonely Planet) was the Hotel Mitru, where we were planning to stay had the most obnoxious rude staff who decided to make up gringo prices as they went along. Donna didn´t take kindly to this and following ramming the gospel down the staff´s throat we abruptly left taking six Danes with us.
Tupiza is a nice sleepy village with restaurants that apparantly open once a week for an hoiur at a time. Dont worry though tourists
Andy holding Neil and Sonja
Another strange perspective thing going on! there are at least 5 internet cafes per person here so survival is not a problem. Again because of Donna´s continuing toilet issues we booked ourselves onto a one day (rather than two day) horse trekking tour through Wild West and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid countryside. Now considering we both have little to no experience of horse riding it was a bit of a surprise on the morning of the trek when we were presented with our horses and were told to saddle up and gallop off into the sunrise. Unlike horseriders in the modern world we had no safety gear provided, but dont worry we were given bits of cloth to wrap around our calves. Note that Neil wasn´t given these but was instead given a smaller horse than the three girls on the tour. This was slightly disappointing for Neil, but he was even more disappointed as he wasn´t allowed a sherriffs badge, pistol and spurs but he insisted that the other group members call him the ´lone ranger´ whilst making indian noises with their hand over their mouths!
We would advise anyone to do this horse trek as it was really amazing and excellent
value for money and had a real wild west (mines, trainlines, canyons, cacti, rivers etc) feel to it. Splashing through rivers on horses in canyons that were once travelled by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid (the infamous robbers of the early 20th century) was unforgettable. This was only spoilt by Donna´s horse deciding it didn´t like Neil´s horse and back-kicked hard into Neil´s right shin. Neil, not wearing bits of cloth around his calves, therefore suffered severe pain and rapidly turned green and felt sick. Not to worry though as a 65 year old Belgian woman on the trek decided that her Raiki would save the day. In reality, a couple of neurofen did the trick. From then on everyone stayed well clear of the back of Donna´s horse. Note that Neil managed to get his horse to gallop and jump and Donna managed to get hers to just about walk in a straight line (Donna is definitely not a horse person).
Whilst writing this up in a Tupiza internet cafe we had the bizarrest experience of a Bolivian mother asking us if she could take a photo of her daughter sat between us. Maybe that will give
Neil holding Andy
considering Andy is a very tall guy this seems ridiculous! you an idea of just how random South America can be! Neil of course insisted that she pay us 10 bolivianos for the opportunity (the Bolivians would do the same if the situation was reversed).
We had a bit of a to-do with the hostel we were staying at (Valle Hermoso) in Tupiza. Although we paid for our stay, this didn´t seem to be enough for the staff of the hostel when we had a knock at our door at 11pm at night (5 hours before our bus to the border was going to depart). Opening the door revealed a member of staff demanding that we pay them more money and threatening to call the police if we didn´t pay them! Having paid them already, we called their bluff and demanded that they call the police to which they refused. They were obviously trying to line their own pockets as the manager said to Neil, ´you are a doctor, so you can pay´, which we didn´t take too kindly to!. We packed our bags and left, shouting to warn other people in the hostel and making several internationally recognised hand gestures. Note to other travellers beware of the Valle
Neil jumping high
not really, but it looks high!! Hermoso hostel as the staff may try to charge you more after check out for their own profit!
So after a cold few hours waiting in the cold streets, with the many drunkards of Tupiza with our rucksacks held tightly, we are sad to be leaving Bolivia because the prices are so cheap and we had a great time here (probably more so than Peru) but we have the Argentinian wineries, civilisation and therefore hopefully less toilet issues and racist attitudes to look forward to.
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