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Published: December 6th 2007
I think we´re lost..
At the Train cemeteryWe left La Paz for Uyuni on another over night bus for the start of our Salar de Uyuni adventure. Uyuni is the kick off point for the tour of the Salt Plains, 12,000 km2 of prehistoric salt lake (well it was a prehistoric salt lake until all of the water evaporated and now it’s a salt plain) and barren altiplano (high altitude plains) desert.
We were at (mas or menos) 4700m for the bulk of the four day tour and covered hundreds of kilometres of “road” in a 4x4 with four other tourists. The other four travellers were good value; three English lads and a German girl, and we all got on well. Lucky considering the amount of time we spent together in a cramped, hot, extremely dusty and slightly unreliable four wheel drive…
Day one; with gear strapped to the roof, we shot off tour first stop; the staggering distance of 1km from town… the Train Graveyard. This is where all of Bolivia’s trains have come to retire since the dawn of time, so some of them (in fact, all of them) are pretty cool old antique locomotives. These are the trains that were used to haul
all of Bolivia’s mineral extractions from the mines in and around the mountains, now replaced mostly by road and better trains. A cool place for some photos though, lots of rusting old relics buried to their axles in sand on tracks that have disintegrated below them.
Then onto the Salt Plain proper. Of course there’s the obligatory stop at touristville on the borders of the plain where you get a “tour” of how they make iodised table salt… enthralling. Them there’s the “stuff made from salt” to buy… like candle holders and little containers with touristy pictures and dates on it etc (Salar de Uyuni, 2007…etc). O.K, cynical as we are about this kind of stuff, we have to admit to buying some things (hey, they were less then a dollar, they are kind of cool, will make great pressies for Nana, and will help the old lady selling them to make it to her 139th birthday…).
Anyway, onto the Plains… this place is another one of those completely unique places unlike anything we have seen before. A bizarre landscape indeed. Once onto the plains, and looking in some directions i.e. straight ahead, there is nothing to see
but white… and more white… and then blue where the sky meets the horizon.
The salt goes on for ever (or at least seems to, coz you know, nothing goes on for ever…). We cruised for a bit over the salt and then came to the Hotel de Sal, the Playa Blanco (the Salt Hotel, White Beach). The building is made from salt, the furniture is made from salt, even the salt is made from salt… The building was illegally constructed so now only exists as a museum, and a shop were tourists can buy overpriced waster and Pringles.
Around the hotel though is the real attraction; miles and miles of nothing. Virtually zero reference points and not much to give perspective to your depth perception. This makes for some interesting photo opportunities… see photos.
Next stop is the Isla de Pescado (Fish Island). After about an hour of driving across the salt with nothing around you but flat white (no, unfortunately not coffee...), a dark spot appears ahead, and it appears to be floating in the air... the spot gradually gets bigger and starts to look like a fish floating low in the sky. A very weird effect
of the salt and the heat. Even stranger is the sensation that you are actually sitting still in the car and the “fish” is moving towards you... Eventually the island looses it’s fish shape, makes contact with the ground and soon after starts to take on details, like rocks and cacti.
Isla de Pescado is a pretty cool little island. Completely barren rock and thousands of huge cacti that look like giant fingers pointed skywards. We had some time to climb the hill to the top of the island and get some photos. An incredible view. The extent of the Salt Plains become much more evident from higher up. Apart from some mountains in the distance, the white just goes on and on and on... in some parts there are no mountains/hills or any other feature in the back/middle or foreground to give perspective and the white just goes forever. The only thing giving perspective would be the occasional approaching vehicle or tourist running out into the salt for a photo, and then the size of the great white expanse becomes apparent... absolutely massive... and bizarre. Again, one of those completely unique places we seem to keep running into.
On top of the water
Hours of fun with depth perception piccies Lunch and back onto the “road” for another hour or two of dead straight, dead flat, dead white driving before coming to the edge of the plain and into the start of the dusty, bumpy, slow tracks that would take us into the small village of San Juan for our first night in very basic accommodation. No water = no shower/wash. Marika and I had caught a night bus to Uyuni the night before and therefore hadn’t had a shower that morning, then had been in the sun and crowded into the 4x4 for most of the rest of the day... we needed a wash... smelly backpackers. We made do with antibacterial wipes and deodorant... nice one.
San Juan had an Inca Necropolis on the outskirts of town which some of us (everybody but Marika... I have a feeling she may be over the whole ancient Inca culture/ruins thing...) decided to go and check out. Kinda funny... there is no doubting the authenticity of the burial mounds themselves but the cynic in all of us decided the bones had been planted back in the tombs for the tourists, and that the bones probably weren’t that old at all... still,
interesting for the effect.
Day two; back into the car and off to see the series of lagunas (lagoons). The mountains around the Plains and the south of Bolivia are full of mineral deposits and geothermal activity which colour the water and leave deposits on the shores of the lagoons. This makes for some pretty impressive colours in amongst the barren red-brown rock and tussock grass of the mountains. Add the flamingos to this and the effect is pretty cool. Yep, flamingos... weird eh? I always thought they were tropical birds that hung out in Africa or the southern U.S states. But it appears not as there were thousands spread over every lagoon we stopped at.
We were cruising up another one of the endless bumpy hills in the middle of nowhere when the vehicle started making some interesting jerking movements (at first I thought it was just that our driver was in the wrong gear, most S.A drivers have this aversion to changing gear... especially when going up hills; they leave it until the vehicle is about to stall before bothering...), then stopped completely and smoke billowed from under the hood... terminal? It certainly smelt pretty bad.
By the scruff of his neck
Bad husband and giant wife Inspection showed a huge lump of semi-melted plastic adhered to part of the engine block and smoking away. Was it an integral part of the motor? It looked like it may have been a makeshift air filter. In fact, most of the engine looked pretty makeshift... bits of duct and electrical tape, wire, and empty bolt holes where non-essential things had been removed or broken and not replaced. Confidence in the car was generally on the wane at this point. But it turns out the big lump of melted plastic had nothing to do with the cessation of forward movement... it was removed from the engine completely, some more tape and wire was added, a bit more petrol put into the tank (the real reason for the engine dying), and off we went... sweet as.
More dusty, bumpy roads, a stop to look at Bolivia’s only active volcano (which they share with Chile, the volcano being on the border), some more lagoons (the red one was pretty intense) and flamingos, and a stop at the Piedra de Arbol, the Rock Tree (or, as I like to call it, the Tree of Rock!!) and into the next village for the night.
Jason Christ
Just floatin around the Salt Plains Water but no shower, so at least we got a wash if not a proper scrub.
Day three; 5.00am wake up call to get on the road for the last couple of sights. We were dropping the crew off at the border crossing into Chile after the morning activities, before we headed all the way back (way, way back) to Uyuni. Need to say something at this point. After the pain and suffering from the Inca Trail, you would just about have to pay me to get back into my shoes (the only pair I have for the entire trip) so we’d been wearing our jandels/flip-flops for the entire duration. At close to 5,000m and at 5.00am it was bloody cold!! We persisted with the jandels... and suffered. Our feet went through the painful stage and into the numb, slightly odd colour stage that comes just before frostbite... luckily the trip to the Geothermal area was a short one so we could then hold my feet over a boiling mud pool to warm then up! This part of the sight seeing was pretty funny, the Bolivians call them Geysers but really they are just geothermal mud pools (very impressive
ones I must add) with one man-made vent that has the appearance of a small geyser. Bless the English and their accents! The boys insisted on calling them “Geezers” as opposed to our “Guysers”! Of course we mocked them; we had to! I mean, if they want to see Geezers, they could have just gone to East London!! Anyway, after numerous sniggers they gave up the Geezer. The mud pools, as I mentioned before were pretty impressive. Deep, a lot of mud, and very active! The stuff was really boiling! After fifteen minutes of inhaling sulphur fumes and getting a few cool photos we left for the hot pools. The lagoon nearby has a mineral spring and the national park have built a pool for the water to flow into. It is a perfect temperature (even more so when compared to the slightly above freezing air temp) and after two (three?) days of no proper wash/shower, it was pure bliss to get into. Then you can look around and be even further blown away by the setting of the pool; early morning sunshine, coloured lagoon, bright pink flamingos and mountains. Incredible. Off to the Laguna Verde (green lagoon) with a
quick stop in the “Dali desert” which really does look like the background to so many Salvador Dali paintings. Weird, I was just waiting for a freaky elephant, horse or melting clock to appear...
We dropped the crew off at the border, made ourselves comfortable and began the trip back. Loooooooonnnggg and boring.
The two days spent previously had been working due South of Uyuni and now we had to cover the distance back in one day. The only interesting points were a break down in San Cristobel, and a stop in the Valle de la Rocas (valley of the rocks) with some pretty interesting rock formations and weird green moss/grass growing it.
Back into Uyuni in the evening for showers, a feed and a good nights sleep before more bus time to Potosi.
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