Salar de Uyuni

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Buenos Noches mi amigos,

I can´t believe it´s over 2 weeks since my last blog...pretty slack, or in truth, pretty busy! It has been a full on 2 weeks, we have been on the go most of the time and have travelled to the south and then to the north of Bolivia in that short time. It has been amazing and I´ll write it in two separate entries since the experiences were so different...

My second week in Sucre was great. The Spanish lessons were moi dificil (very difficult!). I struggled so much more than the first week with all the verb variations and congregations. Stace found her first week a little tough too but we studied together and also fitted in some of the sights of Sucre. I took her to La Mirador (the lookout) which is a bugger of hill to climb but worth it to sip hot chocolate and fresh juice and study with the impressive view of the beautiful city laid out before you. We also went to the Cretaceous Park to check out the ancient dinosaur footprints...we had a ball mucking around taking silly photos with the dino statues. The footprints themselves were far away but pretty cool and the ride in the Dino Bus was hillarious (and kinda laughlingly scary due to the driving skills of the driver).

I struggled to say goodbye to some of my new friends in Sucre and of course to my host family and Caroline (the English border staying with hte family). They gave me presents and it was a bit of a teary goodbye on my behalf even after such a short time. Sometimes it´s not the length of time you know people but the intensity and impact of the time spent. I think a small part of mi corazon (my heart) will remain in Sucre for some time...

On Good Friday Stace and I hit the brilliant Bolivian bus system once again and of course were not disappointed with it when they shafted us and told us there was no bus that day! So we jumped in a 3 hr taxi ride jammed in with 2 other locals to Potosi and then had about 3 minutes to catch a 6 hr bus to Uyuni.

We booked a tour of the salt lakes with 2 Dutch sisters we met in the hostel and the following day set off on our 3 day 4wd Salar de Uyuni Tour joined by a Dutch couple so our paty totalled 6 plus our guide Wilson. Once again we somehow managed to have a wonderful group and a great guide and we were constantly impressed by the scenery, food and wildlife.

The Salt Lake is the largest salt lake (and largest dry lake) in the world. It is so amazing. I think our guide said it is 12,000sqkm but we never got confirmation of that and since he was talking in Spanish we may have got it a little wrong but it´s big...really big. There are little pyramids of salt in one section of the lake where they collect the salt to be used as table salt for Bolivia (no export). The rest of Lake is left alone and is white, huge, incredible and stretches as far as the eye can see in some parts. The sun and water create reflections of colours, patterns and mountains in the distance. It´s difficult to describe the beauty and tranquility. We took funny "mirage" type photos with objects etc so it looks like you´re standing on a book or tube of sunscreen or in the palm of someone´s hand (will try and get some pics up). That night we stayed in the lovely little Salt Hotel where everything (beds, tables, chairs, floor, ceiling) was made of salt. So cool.

We awoke early to catch the sunrise and again the views were breathtaking. The following days were spent looking at volcanoes (active and inactive), hardened lava, bright green giant land coral, unusual free standing rock formations, snow capped mountains, coloured lakes (red, green, white), geysers and my favourite of all...real pink flamingos! We saw wild rabbit type animals, vicunas (cross btwn deer and llamas), zorro (foxes), llamas (we ate llama steak - delicious) and glorious green fields covered with brightly gold, green and red quinoa (one of my favourite Bolivian foods - a type of grain that is extremely nutritious and used in soups, muesli bars, or served as a side accompaniment). On Easter Sunday night snow fell outside and so the following morning we stood with soft, gentle, fluffy snowflakes caressing our cheeks as we watched the sunrise beside the boiling geysers (and frose our butts off!). Then we soaked in the most gorgeous thermal springs on the edge of a lake with a lone flamingo in the background. I wish I could describe the beauty, amazement and feeling of it all...all I can say is that I turned to Stacey on the way back to Uyuni and said "I know it´s early days but it´s going to be hard to beat Bolivia". We jumped on the night bus (with our fellow salt tour friends) and had the bumpiest, loudest ride yet but this time it wasn´t so bad cos I had my travel buddy and other friends by my side.

So we arrived in La Paz. Busy, high, crowded, bustling, nosiy La Paz. Many people think La Paz is the capital of Bolivia but in fact it is Sucre (and the Sucre people will let you know (and rightly so) that although many Bolivians (especially La Pazians?) would like to think and even try and change the capital to La Paz...you can´t change history. The Declaration of Independence was signed in Sucre and so Sucre is the capital and is also the highest capital city in the world. But La Paz is interesting and we still need to explore it more...

So the next blog will tell tales of La Paz and of our Amazon experience....x

p.s. photos not working on this pc so may take a few days...x

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