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UNAY!!!
We had a grand total of 1 say in Chile because of the snow on the border. And it was an epic day (see previus blog) and left early in the morning on friday, 7 am! and that felt like a lie in to us. we were with 3 other people, a fench couple who were very funny, and then a guy from america whose job is to write blogs, and he was somewhat interesting........ We instantly went through the border and changed from a bus to a 4x4 and had breaky out the back of the car. First stop was the Laguna Blanco which was frozen on the top so spent 20 mins throwing rocks to smash thru the ice, which was entertaining. The Laguna Verde was next and that wasnt frozen, it was mega flat tho so percect conditions for skimming, i managed my record of 19, and george managed his record of 3, spaz. We also built some towers out of rocks for luck, its what everyone does there so we thought why not? So breaking more records, these are some of the highest lakes in the world, and the highest place where flamingoes live. Next
stop was another hot spring pool, this one was in a warmer climate so wasnt as unbearably cold outside the pool! Had left my towel at the hostel though so that proved to be a big mistaker to maker. Then we looked at more geisha fields, except this one was much hotter and had mud bubbling all over the shot, would be boiled alive if you fell in, and smelt so bad of sulphur! We then got to our hostel and had a surprising good lunch, for being at 4350 metres above sea level which is pretty high, Melissa the french girl had to go to bed as she was feeling the altitude! Next was the Laguna Red (dont know red in spanish haha), and that had hundreds of flamingoes and was a spectacular colour. so by the end of the day we had seen blue, white, green and red lakes, we were laked out by the end of the day as well! Sleeping that night was horrendous as well, went to bed early after food and a few rounds of belotte (the most complicated french game in the world, seriously george couldnt hack it.). He did win a lot
tho, probs coz he was on Melissas team. So got in bed at 8pm, lad, and woke up about 10 times in the night with a mouth as dry as the atacama desert! contextual joke for you there.
We set off early the next day to see the tree of stones, oooooohhhhh. Haha looked pretty cool and meant i could do some more extreme rock climbing. got some great snappages as well. Saw some llamas as well, they are a strange looking animal, made us chuckle a lot as well. And guess what, there were more lagunas! These ones were even higher and there were five of them, but by this time we were slightly bored of flamingoes and lakes, so didnt get as many pictures as the day before, david the american trooped on with unwavering dedication to taking photos tho! We then got some beers for later and set off for our hostel made out of salt. Was a pretty cool hostel, cept the candles (our only form of light) wouldnt stay on due to the lack of oxygen in the air. then we realised we had torches...... a little too late tho as the
urinal had a crack in the pipe underneath it so when you peed it just went through onto the floor, so me and george fell for that (twice). We also played some more belotte and started to get the hang of it, the three beers each affected us quite a lot and we stayed up pretty late (9pm this time!).
we got up for sunrise over the salt flats the next morning, but it was our drivers birthday so he had gotten pretty boozey the night before and took his sweet time. After 20 mins in the car we got stuck on the salt flats, there is mud under 20 inches of salt, and we found our way through and couldnt find our way out. Slowly a build up of about 30 bolivianos stopped and brought rocks and shovels and piles of salts for grip to try and get it out. There used a gas canister and jack to lift the car up and put salt and rocks under each wheel and after 25 of us puishing we managed to get the truck out! We tried to help by getting more salt, well except em, she was
useless. we were freezing, but our driver had started digging the truck out with bare hands which must have absolutely killed his hands, he also wiped his face a few times so he had a muddy moustache. We then drove to fishermans island in the middle of the salt flats and climbed to the top of that, severely out of breath, there were thousands of cactae (?) and some were 1200 years old, and dead. We then got to the main event, taking pictures on the salt flats. the driver let us drive a bit each, probs coz he was hanging, then we stopped and got some good snaps on the flats, including backflip ones, jumps, meditating, standing on hands, standing on beer cans and hand stand ones, pretty standard ones really. we brought a mini llama to use as a prop but that didnt help much, just went fuzzy and couldnt really think of any ideas for it! Last stop was the train cemetary, david took a thousand photos again, by this time he was really annoying our drivier! haha, and em.... We did some boyband fotos in the trainyard and again did lots of climbing which was funsies. Our driver then dropped us off in Uyuni and we went to a bar to get merry and wait for our bus!
Our bus sucked! we had to change over night and the second one smelt of vomit/poo/wee wee and i was sat next to a huge guy who wouldnt keep still. Oh and 30 mins outside sucre there was a road block so we all had to get out and walk. so yeh was a fun journey...... Managed to find a hostel that would let us check in at 6am and its pretty nice tbh.
Will update on sucre soonish!
muchos gracias amigos
Hexsplorer xxxxxxxx
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Andrew Butler
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UNAY!
Wow! It will be very thrilling to play in the snow and that in high altitude awesome:) sky diving will be amazing, we can enjoy a lot:) I really want to do it and waiting to do it