Colourful lagoons and bubbling geysers

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Our day started by saying goodbye to the simple villages of Villamar and a 2 hour bumpy ride through the valley. One of the things that was great about the trip was Gonzalo played all his tapes in his old school tape deck - and I thought I was the only one still listening to tapes! Up until now, it was all Andean music, featuring local instruments such as the charango and quena, some of it was great, a great soundtrack to drive through the Bolivian desert as we saw Vicuna and llama running through the wild, mostly in packs. However today he got to the end of his tape collection and got out his western music - very ironically titled ‘disco classics’ which were mostly tacky 80s ballads, but also had a bit of Men at Work on it. Very strange to be driving through the Andean altiplano listening to Down Under.

We arrived at Laguna Colorada around 10am, which is a large lake that looks red due to the mix of minerals in it. Wilbur said its minerals include Borax which is a source of detergent hence it has a very foamy edge to the lake. What is amazing about the lake though is the thousands of brilliant pink James flamingos that inhabit it. We drive along the edge of the lake and take many pictures of the magnificent landscape and wildlife. It’s nice to be at an amazing natural wonder and not be surrounded by tourists, just a few 4WD’s. I guess it’s too hard for the fat Americans to get here!

From Laguna Colorada we head up to the bubbling geysers of Sol de Manana at 4,900m above sea level. We walk around and it stinks, and of course there are no safety standards or signs, you can go right to the edge of them and get squirted with hot mud if you want to. The colours and loud bubbling is so unbelievable you can’t help but be drawn to it. From there we head to an amazing thermal pool much nicer than Aguas Calientes, where I take a dip and marvel at the surrounds and hope its stable and a bubbling geyser won’t open up in the pool and fry me alive! I am the only person in the thermal lake which gets me wondering as we see a few tourist buses drive by. When I get out the air is very cold and I quickly change and head back to the 4WD.

About an hour more driving and we arrive at our final destination, Laguna Verde, an amazing green lagoon at the front of a large red mountain. It looks fake, like a desert mirage. No life is anywhere to be seem as the lagoon is highly poisonous. This is truly a unique place on earth. We take photos but don’t stay long out of the car as the wind is very strong and quite chilly as we are at 5,000m above sea level after all! Just before the border crossing, we stop and have our final lunch with Wilbur and Gonzalo. They have both been awesome to us the whole way and laugh about how sick I was and how lucky I am that I got better and we could do the tour. We also laugh about the petrol situation as they are not allowed to cross the border and get petrol and must hope they have enough to get back to Uyuni, so they need every drop they have. Wilbur says we need to come back to Bolivia as we have not seen much of it such as his home town of Potosi and the beauty of the east side such as Santa Cruz and Sucre. While I agree with him, I am glad to be leaving Bolivia and getting back to a way of life that is remotely like what we have in Australia.

At the border we take our bags to our Chilean operator who is waiting for us and give Wilbur and Gonzalo a generous tip. Gonzalo is starting the same tour tomorrow. Driving again over those rough dunes and terrible roads - what a life. He took a lot of pride in his appearance and was very a cheerful man - god knows how he could be!

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