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Day 44 - Saturday 18th March
The Facts: Salta -La Quaica
The longer version We were met early by our guide, for the trip north to the Bolivian border. The choice of transport was a new model Hilux so Roger felt right at home. This one had a few more spotlights on though.
We headed north through the denser forest areas, passing through many towns, whose names we still cannot pronounce. At the service station we were amazed by the wine list and alcohol available for purchase. Somebody had described South Americans as always driving like they were drunk and we can now see why, they were drunk. We had some rain earlier on, but more in the north there was evidence of where the had been small landslips on the road overnight. The colours in the World Heritage listed Quebrada de Huamuanaca were amazing. Many different shades of red, green, and yellow made excellent contrasts. We stopped in the town with hills of seven colours, and saw the painters palette amongst other sights. For lunch we dined on llama and a Risotto made with one of the natural grains, with goats cheese as an entrée. Driving
on we got higher and at 3000m - 4500m we were in the Altiplano. There was, as you would be expected many llamas, mud brick houses, and herdsman/women in traditional dress tending for the llamas. The llamas have wool on their ears to signify who belonged to whom. At times they also had more over other parts of their bodies. It was described that the owners do this extra decoration for carnival which was the month prior. Towards dusk we rolled into La Quaica, which was over 5000km from where we started in Argentina at Ushuaia.
Day 45 - Sunday 19th March
The Facts: La Quaica - Uyuni
The longer version: We awoke to light rain for our walk across the border. It was almost depressingly miserable walking across the dried river into Bolivia, as the cloud was low (well as low as it gets at 3200m!). We met our new driver across the border, and somehow our English speaking guide was missing, so it was going to be a day for the phrase book! We didn’t realise it at the time, but the roads in NW Argentina were to be the last
sealed ones we would see until Chile!
We drove in a Landcruiser this time north from Villazon (Bolivian Border town) to drop lower into the lovely Tupiza valley (2400m), one of Rogers favourite spots. The colours through the valleys were again amazing, as we passed through cactus dotted hills, and lush valleys, with stark red rock hillsides. Lunch was in Tupiza, and then we headed on and north again to Uyuni. There had been extremely heavy rain, so the roads were expected to be in terrible condition, however, we found that by the time we went through that they were almost as good as you would get anywhere, well, except when the road actually was through the river. We continued to stay at high altitude with our end point being at 3400m. We passed through mining towns, and even saw evidence of a mining town at 4600m altitude! In one of the towns, you could see everyone in traditional clothing, selling traditional things, and then over in one section, a television, with WWF on it- amazing. South Americans love cable TV.You didn’t need to eat, have clean streets, but you must have cable. We arrived into Uyuni at dusk, seeing
shimmering of the salt flats in the distance. We had only just stepped out to see the markets in Uyuni when the rain started to really pour down. Restaurants were flooded, and people were sheltering everywhere. So it wasn’t a good day for the markets in the end. We eventually found somewhere to eat, and although not very hungry due to the effects of altitude managed to splurge 50 Bolivianos on dinner for 2 ($10 AUD).
Day 46 - Monday 20th March
The Facts: Salar de Uyuni
Train Cementery
Villa Alotta
The longer version: It was an amazing transformation when we awoke and saw not a cloud in the sky. It was perfect weather to see the Uyuni salt flat in. It is the largest salt flat in the world at about 12,000 km 2. It is blindingly white in places where there is no water. Where water exists there is an amazing mirror image of the sky. They mine the salt for refining in Colchani, a town 5-kn from the salt flat. There is also a salt hotel, which it, and everything else in it, is made of salt, even the tables
and chairs. It is very versatile stuff. There were places that had broken through the salt layer and you could see the water below the salt layer, and the dirt under this. If you put your hand in the water it would dry amazingly salty. We had lunch of llama chops in this spot and were able to take some quite funky photographs utilising strange perceptions of depth.
Due to the heavy rains we were unable to go to Isla de Pescado (Fish Island), which is full of cactus in this Salar, so instead we headed south to the Train Cemetery. This is a rubbish infested selection of rusty trains that were no longer required when sulphur production was no longer sent to Chilean ports this way.
We the drove, and drove and drove to the small town of Villa Allotta for the evening. Only one flat tyre to date which was quite amazing. On the way we saw evidence of a new mine being built at San Cristobal, and also some of the old churches. One of which had been relocated piece by piece when the mine went in. You can see the difference in living that the mines
make.
Day 47 - Tuesday 21st March
The Facts: To San Pedro de Atacama
Laguna Verde and Colorada
The longer version: We were up even earlier for a 7am start today. We continued to have rain, which was envisaged to be the last for the summer. Our first top was to seek out Vizcachas in the stone valley. These animals are a cross between a hare and a possum. The hop around, but have curly long tails. Very cool animals indeed. We were able to go passed many lagunas on the way south, which were filled with Andean and James Flamingos. At Laguna Colorada, we also saw the amazing red colour that was caused by Algae, and was quite a sight with flamingos, white salt piled high, and llamas! We stopped off at some mud geysers, had fresh snow on the ground (we were at 4800m), saw the stone tree, had only one mechanical issue, and eventually made it to the Bolivia-Chile border, where they wanted 15 Bolivianos just to make sure we left the country. We paid our dues and then proceeded to drop 2000m in 45-min as we headed to the
dry desert and oasis of San Pedro de Atacama. Here we had our most thorough baggage check as we pulled out almost all our belongings for customs, but passed through with no problems.
San Pedro was very dusty and overcast on arrival, so we were not expecting a good sunset, which San Pedro is famous for. Again we had to get used to vendors on the streets trying to entice you in. The Lonely Planet said this had just begun at the time of publication, but 3 years on it is in full swing trying to get the gringo peso.
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