Atacama Crossing and Salt Flats

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Picking up where I just left off, the Chile/Bolivia border crossing is itself an experience! Chile was very organised, a big queue of people but a fairly important-looking building with soldiers, etc. A random Bolivian lady got on our (supposedly private) minibus which was taking us as far as the Bolivian border control carrying lots of bread. Ash asked the driver who she was and it turned out he was giving his mum a lift back to Bolivia. She was a happy enough old lady, when getting on the bus pointed at all her bags of bread and she cheerily shouted "Pan!" to everyone (´bread´ in Spanish). Fair enough, say what you see.

Leaving Chile was pretty quick and easy, we hopped back on the bus with our "Pan!" lady, and drove for 10 minutes to reach the Bolivian border control. Not entirely sure what the land between the border crossings is...neither Chile nor Bolivia...maybe it can become a place of harmony between the two countries called ´Chilivia´. Anyway, we waved off "Pan!" lady when we reached the border control, and queued up to get our entry stamps for Bolivia. A far cry from the strictness of my arrival in Chile (remember the lady who was convinced I just MUST have some nuts or dried fruits?), the Bolivian border control is a man in a wooden shack in the middle of bloody nowhere. And the toilet is a burned-out bus. Not that it has been converted, you just have to walk around and do some strategic squatting. Which me and Susie (part of the British couple) decided to do. So, we walked around the side of the bus not facing the immigration shack, only to be faced with a child sat on top of the bus looking down at us. "Ummmm, go away?" I tried. He stayed sitting and staring. We stared back defiantly, toilet roll in hand. Still, nothing. And then Ash called us and we had to run back to the bus to get to a pit-stop about 10 minutes away, where we got picked up by two big 4x4s to do our three-day trip to Salar de Uyuni. Luckily, there was decent, not al-fresco toilet there!

So for three days, there was a lot of driving! But lots and lots of beauty! We went to Lago Verde (green lake), the Red Lake where there are loads of flamingos, the Rock Tree (a tree that looks like a rock, in case you hadn´t worked that out!), the Stinky Lake (so called because of the sulphur), the Seven-Coloured Mountain, stayed at a salt hotel, where everything, including the beds, chairs, tables and lightshades are made of salt. The whole hotel is built with salt bricks! It was quite an experience, and I do regret licking the wall just to check. It most definitely was salt! We had a really lovely Bolivian lady to cook for us on the 3 day trip, who had brought her daughter, oddly called ´Lady´ along with her. But she was very very sweet, and it enabled me to practice Spanish with someone who might understand me and who spoke slowly enough for me to understand! On our third day we reached Salar de Uyuni (salt flats) and spent a good while taking lots of very cool perspective photos on the flats. It´s so weird, because the landscape just goes on and on with miles of white, and when it rains, you can´t see the horizon. Ash is very good at photography, so I have her to thank for all the awesome photos, one of which is my Facebook profile picture. The rest I am trying to send as an e-mail to you guys!

We arrived in Uyuni, the nearest town in Bolivia to the salt flats. It is fairly unremarkable, but has a creepy Train Cemetery, where all the old steam trains from the mining times have been discarded and left to rust. Makes for a good playground, but there was a fairly sad atmosphere hanging over the place. To find a happy atmosphere, go to a bar called ´The Extreme Fun Pub´. They have cocktails called ´Mojito de Coca´ - basically a Mojito made with coca leaves rather than mint, very nice, especially after a few! That was quite a funny night, and the following day we headed to Potosí, which was a sleepy bus journey...

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Comments

[Komal]

:)
Oh my, checked out pics of Lago Verde and Seven Coloured Mountain. fantastic!! the world is so beautiful non?