Salt Flats of Uyuni to Argentina

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Monday 23rd April - Sucre to Uyuni

Thank god this would be our last bus trip on one of Bolivia's excuses for transportation as we made the 9 hour journey to the Salt flats of Uyuni. Amazingly a British couple sat in front of us had brought along their 3 or 4 year old son who clearly wasn't ready to cope with the arduous travel as he proceeded to be sick continuously for the whole journey, the poor little lad. Uyuni is the original and archetypal dustbowl of a town as it sits on the edge of the salt flats and a large desert and is probably only in existence to service the hoards of gringos who come to marvel at the largest salt flats in the world, a dried up salt lake from prehistoric times that has the appearance of the Artic.

Tuesday 24th April - Uyuni to Villazon

We set off on our jeep tour of the Salt Flats at 11am with 2 Argentines, 2 Uruguayans and a Japanese man whose name I didn't catch and so have called Yoshi and what would turn out to be a great trip. It started with a visit to the train cemetery for what would be a good photo opportunity and continue onto a small village before finally arriving on the salt flats themselves for some bewilderment at the spectacle and a chance for some photographic trickery. It is an incredible sight as you look at a sea of white as far as the eye can see to the horizon in the distance. Most definitely an other worldly experience and we were blessed with fantastic weather and a beautiful clear blue sky. We were also fortunate to bond really well with everyone on the tour with Elizabeth and her surgeon husband Carlos inviting us to come and stay with them at their beach house in Uruguay in a few weeks and the Argentines Flori and Juano promising to take us to a Bocas Juniors game in Buenos Aires next week. We'd booked onto the sleeper train for the 9 hour journey to Villazon next to the Argentine border and left at 10.40pm that night. Unfortunately sleeping wasn't much of an option as the train threw you around in all directions as it hurtled along at about 40mph but we arrived in one piece.

Wednesday 25th April - Villazon, Bolivia to La Quiaca, Argentina to Jujuy to Salta

The Argentine couple and particularly Flori had originally given us a lot of stick for being English and referred more than once to the 'islands' and also said we'd have to sing along about stamping on the English at the Bocas game so it was alomost surprising to cross the border with them and be helped onto a bus to get to Salta. Anyway another 7 hours of bus rides later and having been conned by a travel agent into getting onto a direct bus which wasn't and after going into about 5 different hostels/hotels in Salta and getting quoted ridiculous prices we finally plumped for somewhere nice and also found Salta to be very nice as well.

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Comments

[Karen Hargreaves]

Wow!!
What an amazing adventure & great experience for you to remember for ever. You describe everything so well Peter, makes me feel I am there with you. Glad you made some lovely friends. That will be good staying at there beach house. Also the photo's you have added are great. Another superb blog well done.xx