Salar de Uyuni - Any usual ride pt. 2...


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Published: June 26th 2010
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lunes, 10 de mayo
In the vain hope you enjoyed the last little quiz, this blog we´ve hidden 14 Smiths´ songs. Little bit more difficult but give it a shot.

Day 3 began at a merciful 6.30am, although yesterday´s 5am start still hadn´t completely set in. Jasper and I were still ill with the altitude so much more coca tea was in order. Jasper shared his yerba mate too - finally I got to try it! Managed to singularly break all of the customs related to it as well, namely touching the straw thing, handing the mate back without finishing it and putting sugar in (that´s a gay thing though not a custom).

Close to our hostel was the Lago Colorado, a bright red lake overlooked by Mountains Pabellon and Guallajara at over 5000m each. Nearby was a small thermal puddle which I decided I had to put my hand in and then panicked when Archie screamed "doooon´t!!!" as a joke. For reference the lake is red because of some secretion made by the algae. It´s inhabited by flamingos looking like vicars in a tutu before flying off. There was a broken wing lying by the side of the lake which Archie picked up to talk about the foxes that eat the flamingos (he called them Foxy Cleopatras) and then held on to it for way longer than he needed to whilst we all snapped the vista.

Second stop was a collection of sandstone rocks, geologically interesting because of the effect the weather has had on them. One particular one looked like a tree and was the main draw. All the others were climbed upon which had a similar effect to ice cream giving everyone a headache.

Everybody was still p*ssing every 10 minutes.

Onto the ´Britney Spears´ lake, self-named by Archie because they are toxic. He loved telling that one. There are 4 in all, each with Sulphur, Arsenic and Magnesium and each smelling like an elephant had survived an entire month on egg mayonnaise sandwiches, scrambled eggs and Easter eggs (made with real eggs) and then dropped a single fart which lasted a thousand years. Signs begged tourists "please please please don´t smoke" not because it´s disgusting but for fear of creating the World´s largest parilla. Might have been okay, our chicken was pinker than a strawberry yoghurt made with flamingoes.

Via a stop off in San Juan and a panorama of the Chilean border we stopped off at 5.8km high Volcan Oliague, smoking like most Europeans. We didn´t stay too long, just enough to make a pile of stones and make a wish. In between the perpetual fixing of our jeep and the pumping up of our tyres (and that of our accompanying car with ALEX, LAURA, KELSEY, KATE and JULIE inside) we reached the Chiquan flats, not the real flats we came to see but salt nonetheless. Archie announced the end of the flats after an hour which had us doubting he knew how soon is now. At least the flats were flat, the rest of the day had pretty much shaken 20% of our brains out of our ears. Glad we don´t have to clean the jeep after. Our "new" jeep without speedo, milometer or electrics. Expectation gap.

The novelty of the night tonight was that we stayed in a salt hostel. Not the illegal one in the middle of the flats which Archie seems to have issue with but a salt walled, salt bedded, salt floored hostel. Fingers crossed for chips for dinner. For the first time in 3 days we had opportunity of a shower which Hayley jumped at. She might have been a girlfriend in a coma otherwise.

I licked the walls, just to verify. The hostel had no electricity but there is a light that never goes out there, Amardeep´s torch. Sh*thead until late.

martes, 11 de mayo
We came away to get away from the endless days of early starts and yet consistent with our weekend up at 5am we were. Still no electricity and it´s friggin´ dark. It is forgiveable however when such an encroachment on sleep is to be able to watch the sun rise in the desert. As it rose our first opportunity for unique photos (unique to us anyways), holding the sunshine was both heavy and hot.

Once the enormity of the sun had bored us we headed to our first destination proper - Cactus Island. It´s a bit Ronseal, an island of cactii protruding from the flats like a thousand p*n*ses. It´s no surprise that the entry rules to the National Park request no obscene gestures. Some of them get as high as 12m, you´ve NOT seen bigger. From the top of the island you can see across the majority of the flats which used to be a lake back in the day before it dried out like a Bolivian woman´s face. We were told a local legend, and stop me if you think that you´ve heard this one before, of how the lake was formed by a woman made pregnant by a mountain that didn´t want to look after the child who subsequently made the lake with tears and boobie milk. Just imagine the size. For breakfast we had homemade bread but it was sour and so we started something we couldn´t finish.

Cactii were just the bearded lady sideshow in this circus of ours, the anticipation of the main act almost too much to bear. At the centre of the flats themselves perspective deserts you like the Italian army deserted Mussolini. It´s nothing but white, a Daz commercial up close. Cue...crazy photos. Cue...props. Step back 10m and you´re eaten by Godzilla or trapped in a Pringles tube. Quickest way to antagonise the driver by spending way longer than we should with such merriment.

Once Santos had dragged us away we headed for the original salt hotel, the illegal one - something about not being environmental - but didn´t stop. Archie was like a boy with a thorn in his side about this place, talking about it always with inverted commas. After the fifth repetition we thought that joke isn´t funny anymore. We headed to the salt extraction area. Disgracefully Bolivia doesn´t export salt, only 20,000 tonnes are used nationally per annum. As a yardstick the Uyuni salt flats are 65 billion tonnes. So many chips going to waste.

And that was it. I know it´s over. We ferried into Uyuni and said our goodbyes to our great hosts, Santos coming out of his shell for the first time in a heartfelt embrace. Amardeep headed back to Tupiza too. What a gent. Hopefully our paths cross again.

In Uyuni we ate pizza at the Minuteman (really good) and had a drink at the Extreme Fun Pub whose signature drink is Llama Sperm. Before you ask it´s just a cocktail, not that we were sure what to believe. We bedded at the Hotel Avenida which was just as cold as the rest of the desert, we tucked into our sleeping bags like hands in gloves and slept like babies.

Don´t come to Bolivia and miss this out.




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