The Salt Flats of Uyuni: "It needs more seasoning".

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We have finally made it into Bolivia. After roughly 3 weeks in Argentina we're now getting stuck in to the hardcore travelling. Our first stop was Villazón, a town on the border that fuses with the Argentinean town of La Quiaca. Here we did nothing. We immediately caught our first Bolivian bus to Tupiza. The bus was actually alright. We were expecting to find ourselves on some rickety old deathtrap with no wheels or engine, powered by llamas eating coca leaves but it was actually a proper bus. Don't let this experience fool you though, looking at the buses here in Uyuni it's obvious that the bad reputation they get is probably deserved. They look crap.

Anyway, we arrived in Tupiza, which is a town renowned for looking like something taken out of a western film. This was pretty much the case, minus Chuck Norris. The landscapes were amazing, we were surrounded by huge red rock canyon-ey features and billions of cactuses that gave the whole place a very strong cowboy feel. And what better way to get into the cowbow spirit, we thought, than to don our boots, spurs, hats and lassos, and, yes you guessed it... go ice skating. So the rest of the day was spent on the rink (with a small interlude for some horseriding).

We then decided to book a 4 day tour with our hostel that would take us from Tupiza, around the southern Altiplano, finally ending up in Uyuni for a visit to the famous salar (salt flat). We were met by our driver and guide Johnny and the cook, also Johnny´s brother, Jonas, on the Sunday morning. We were also met by a Toyota Landcruiser, which is what we would be driving around in for the next 4 days. Will was incredibly excited by this. There were 4 of us in total: us two and Hanna and Ronja who were two travellers from Germany, thankfully equally as up for taking wacky photos as we were. The first ascent up to higher altitudes took us on some hair-raising roads that were basically dirt tracks with huge cliffs on the side. Once we got up onto the main section of the Altiplano however, they were much flatter, still just as bumpy, but flatter. Over the first 3 days we drove mainly through incredibly surreal lunar-like landscapes seeing deserts, lakes, mountains, volcanoes, mining villages, rock formations and flamingos. It would take me hours to describe and explain all the different things we saw, so here is a vague summary:

Lagunas: several strangely coloured lakes (Laguna Negra, Colorada, Blanca, Verde), added to the extra terrestrial feel of the surroundings.

Aguas termicas: thermal hot spring pool by a huge lake with flamingos. Only allowed 15 minutes in the water otherwise you get ill and your face falls off.

Mountains and volcanoes: I can add no further details, they were just mountains aand volcanoes. Very cool ones though.

Geysers: lots of smoking craters and bubbling pools. Smelt of farts. This really was like Mars, apart from the fart smell, well I don´t really know whether Mars smells of farts or not.

Flamingos: or as I annoyingly keep calling them, Flamincos. They were very cool and very pink. They walk funnily. I don´t think I´ve ever seen so many maflinkos in such a short space of time.

Llamas and Vicuñas: these are the 2 animals that mate to make alpacas.

Desierto Dali: a desert that looks a lot like those in Dali´s paintings.

Rock formations: arbol de piedra (stone tree) and condor de piedra (stone septic bacterial growth, I mean stone condor), cool climbing rocks.

That´s pretty much it for the first three days. It really was a brilliant experience and we´ve definitely seen a lot of things that we haven´t before and that we may not ever again, so definitely worth the slightly higher cost than just the salt flat tour. My only complaint would be about the music being played in the jeep. I think we listened to "Forever young" and "Land down under" about 20 times, often on repeat. Even now I still can´t fully decipher the lyrics to that Men at work song, here is what i could here:

Rubadumbuba land down under

shruberblurbumdem thunder

sobarobdubbedycrumbumdumder

you better run, you better take cover.

Is that right? I think it might be.

The fourth day was the day we saw the true big dog of the tour: the Salar de Uyuni. We woke at 5am and drove to the Hotel de Sal, a hotel entirely made of salt located on the salar itself. Although apparently it´s really environmentally damaging because of their sewage disposal and the lonely planet urged you to not give them any business. Well we did (sorry), and we had our breakfast here and waited for the sunrise which we had hoped would be pretty spectacular, but unfortunately the clouds were in the way and we didn't see much. However, when the sun began to get higher, the clouds were no longer a problem as they seemed to form a perfect ring right around the edge of the flats, giving us a pure blue sky above us. After a drive further into the depths of the salar we could finally start taking the funny perspective photos we had been planning for months, using the endless and fairly surreal white as a backdrop. We did this for a good few hours, I think the highlight had to be manipulating the perspective to make me look as if I was really tall. I´ve always wondered what that would be like.

Having taken our photos, which by the way will be up shortly on my other photo blog, we drove back across the polygonally patterned salt, past an area where the salt was being "harvested" and paid a visit to the lesser known pepper flats, formed by the disposal of pepper that has been confiscated from people trying to even out the seasoning of the salar. When I say people I´m largely referring to Greg Wallace and John Torrode. We then made a quick visit to an artesan market before heading back to the hostel for our last lunch. And that´s it from the tour I believe. The plan now is to catch a bus to Sucre where we´ll be for a month or so working with the niños, staying with a family of Vicky´s (apparently that´s what they´re all called). So adios until I can build up the energy to do another post.

P.S I ate Llama today.

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