Blogs from Salar de Uyuni, Potosí Department, Bolivia, South America - page 19

As a group we persuaded each other it was the right thing to do to get up for sunrise on the salt flats, although Sophie took some persuading that a 5am wake up call was a good idea! We were right though, as the moon on one side and sunrise on the other were sights to behold! From our sunrise vantage point, surrounded by the white salt flats, we could see Isla del Pescado, our first stop and first indication of perspective... what looked about 2km away was in fact 20km. A true indication of just how big the 12,000 square km salt flats are at their altitude of 3660m. Isla del Pescado rises out of the 26m deep salt flats and is effectively coral, apparently the perfect breeding ground for giant cactus, the tallest of ... read more

We arrived at the Bolivian border at a fresh and chilly 7am on the 31st March... as soon as we stepped off the bus we ripped open our bags to throw on several more layers, socks and shoes... and the cold still shocked us into quivering morning zombies. With the look of startled rabbits we got our Argentinian exit stamps and had the joy of a brand new Bolivian stamp! Bolivia.... we had made it! But quickly got caught up in the Bolivian Border chaos of how to get to the next destination- Villazon was no place to hang around. Tessa changed up her last Peso's which magically came to the exact amount of money needed for the four of us to get onto a bus to Uyuni! 'Perfect' we thought and so hurried around getting ... read more

Bolivia is really high up. Like, really high up. High enough up that some people (us) felt like our heads were going to explode if our lungs didn’t go first. Now we can add altitude sickness to our ever increasing list of forms of travel sickness! Our first stop in Bolivia was Copacabana on the banks of Lake Titicaca. The biggest difference between here and Peru is that most of the population are indigenous. All the local women wear traditional clothing which is a bit weird the first time you see it. Lisa suggested they looked a bit like toilet roll dolls with bowler hats. Whilst not being the most culturally sensitive comment it is a pretty good description. We took a boat trip to to Isla del Sol in the middle of the Lake where ... read more

These four days were among the best spent on this hoiday so far. We saw diverse landscapes and wildlife, sufferred from the extremes of temperature and altitude and generally had a really good time in spite of the "hardships". We started off from Tupiza taking in the wild west like scenery around Tupiza, continued on through a massive national park and finally hit the Salt Flats. We were on the Antiplano, the high plateau between the eastern and western ridges of the Andes mountains. We drove in an only slightly battered Toyota landcruiser and had a driver/guide and a cook, travelling with a buddy land cruiser whcih was a real pain because it kept breaking down. Day 1 was mostly travelling through high mountain ranges with more deep red rock formations carved by wind and water ... read more

Hey everyone! From San Pedro, we travelled into Bolivia via a 3 day trip to the Uyuni Salt flats, the largest salt flat in the world! We took a 4x4 jeep with our irish and english friends and our driver, Frans. We were a bit apprehensive about the altitude, as we would be going from an altitude of 2400m in San Pedro to an altitude of 4100m at the Bolivian border...in about 40 minutes. There is no doubt, we felt the altitude, but thankfully not the extent that some people do! We were lethargic, had headaches (generally just felt hung over!) and were short of breath with the smallest amount of activity (a weird and scary feeling when you can't even walk up a flight of stairs without huffing and puffing - you feel like you're ... read more