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Ouwch!
Seth, GaliUnfortunately, it has come that time when the blog isn't going to rave about a place or an excursion. The 3 night, 4 day trip from Tupiza to the Uyuni Salt Flats was disappointing with only a few highlights.
We signed up for the excursion with La Torre Tours. The woman who sold us the trip, Delmira lied about some of the sights we would see and the places we would sleep. The food paralleled terrible and the jeep's tires needed to be changed 6 times. A Thank You goes to the jeeps from the other companies who took the chance of being stranded by giving us their spare tires. The only good thing from La Torre was our English speaking guide, Raoul. Raph, our driver did his best and tried to fix the jeep as quickly as possible. Point is,
STAY AWAY FROM LA TORRE TOURS! Since you sleep in the same places as the other tours, we were able to get a grasp of the other companies. Go with Tupiza Tours and ask for Archie as your guide.
The tour started in Tupiza and ended in Uyuni 5 days later. If you are reading carefully, you should
be asking yourself why did they end up in Uyuni 5 days later if it was a 4 day tour. For that answer you will have to stay tuned for the non-abridged version coming after we return home.
Departing Tupiza in our jeep was myself, Gali, Dani, David, Lisa (The British couple we met), Raoul our guide, Raphael our driver, his wife Pensionna, our cook and their baby daughter Hadde. The car was tight but not too too bad.
The first day consisted of a lot of driving (everyday did), some nice panoramics and that's about it. On the first night, we slept in a village with only 25 families. VERY SMALL!!!! The village has a basketball/football court which we enjoyed until the sun set. Gali beat Dave in the finals of horse. That night we FROZE!!!!!!
On the second day, we woke up early and started driving. Seeing the sunrise from the car was cool but nothing special. There were 2 highlights today. The first was the pretty scenery of the green lagoon and its surroundings. The lake is only green once a day when the sun is in the right spot. Make sure your tour
guarantees you will see it when it´s green. The second highlight were the hot springs. Dave and I changed behind our jeep and then ran for it. Gali and Lisa were a little more civilized but who cares, it was FREEZING OUTSIDE!!!! After we swam, we had lunch and from then on, it was all downhill for me. My stomach started to hurt and didn't stop. That night I felt like death and the time in-between bathroom trips was used for debating whether it was food poisoning or the altitude causing my pain.
The third day was hazy since I was feeling terrible but thankfully by the night I started to feel better. The highlight of today was getting a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. I'm not using that expression lightly here, we were literally in the middle of nowhere. Well, the middle of Bolivia. Our last stop of the day was at an Inca museum. This museum was supposed to have Inca mummies on display.
A LIE!!!! There were bones and skulls present at the burial sights but the skulls had perfect teeth.
Seriously? Incas from 500 years ago did not have perfect teeth. There were
two other things that gave it away. First, another skull was sitting perfectly on top of a torso but there was no spinal cord....????? and finally, the display of Inca tools had detailed spoons which looked like they were out of 19th century England. After seeing this questionable display of Inca ruins, we ventured to our accommodation which was very cool, a hostel built out of salt. Unfortunately, it was dark by the time we arrived and we left before sunrise so we didn't get to see it in daylight. It also didn't help that they only provided electricity from 7pm to 9pm. (Another thing Delmira forgot to point out when she said there was electricity). The table, stools, beds, walls and pillars were all made out of salt.
Everything until now would have been worthwhile if the fourth day lived up to its expectations. All of us were really excited for the salt flats but most left disappointed since we were rushed out of there.
As for the rest of the fourth day and night and the fifth day, stay tuned!!!
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Sam
non-member comment
All part of the adventure
Seth, Sounds like you are having an amazing time. keep in mind that your worst day on the trip will still be better than a good day at the office. Keep on having fun. I love getting these blogs