Blogs from Uyuni, Potosí Department, Bolivia, South America - page 6

Welcome to Bolivia, the worlds best views and worst toilets!! We started in a mini van of 12 people at 8am and were driven to the chile/Bolivia border where as always we waited for almost 2 hours just to be stamped out of chile. We then made it to the Bolivian border which for once was fast and painless. We were given breakfast here then we were divided up into two groups of 6 and sent to our jeeps! In our jeep we had a german couple and a Swiss couple, lucky for us the Swiss spoke perfect Spanish as our driver didn't know any English. He was super cute and his name was clementine and he had no teeth! The german guy looked like David guetta and the Swiss guy looked like a barrister from ... read more

We had a fantastic last meal in Argentina by blowing the budget and having an enormous meat platter, sirloin steak, marinated chicken breasts, sausage, chorizo, veal short rib, Pork loin and a single roasted pepper between us for vitamins of course! The following morning with gargantuan stomachs we hopped on our coach and made our way to the Argentina Bolivia border at La Quiaca. Due to excellent forethought and planning we realised that a complex border crossing was not the best thing to tackle after dark so had booked into the only hostel we could find in La Quiaca, unfortunately it looked, well, take a look at the picture and you'll know what our initial thoughts were! On the other hand we found a TV, watched the big bang theory and didn't get carbon monoxide poisoning ... read more

Up at 5 this morning, I jumped out of bed being used to the early starts not like any of the others in the group. Some decided to miss breakfast to get an extra 10 mins! We were travelling in 4x4´s today so we got loaded up and off we went. The drivers wher very good and a bit crazy at the same time. They must have known were they were going as there was no road signs just dusty tracks. The plan for today was to explore the deserts, the lagoons and the volcanoes in southern Bolivia. We arrived first at the blue lagoon with about a handful of flamingo´s there feeding of the algae in the lagoon. We then saw the red lagoon, green lagoon and the stinky lagoon. They where different colours due ... read more

So after marvellous Machu Picchu it was time for the last sight of Peru, and the first of Bolivia, being lake Titicaca. For those of you who don't know, Titicaca is considered to be the highest navigable lake(meaning boats can sail, or whatever it is boats do, on it) and people say the skies are brighter and bluer there than anywhere else in the world. But first... I had to get there. From Cusco to Puno, at the shores of Titicaca(3.800m), it was a fairly easy ride, despite passing at 4.500m. And well, I found it to be quite funny that when I stopped while climbing to this highest point(if I may add, it was snowing gently) the zipper of my only jacket died on me. So now the only thing protecting me(this is actually quite ... read more

Some places simply don’t deserve to exist. The town of Uyuni barely qualifies. As the 4x4 had pulled up into this dusty town with wide streets a feeling of disappointment struck. The town looked dirty, dusty and seemed to lack human life. We checked out several hostels and eventually settled on Hostal Cacti, where the furniture was made from cacti. We had comfy beds and hot showers which is all I really wanted after 5 days during which time the only washes we had were the dirty hot tub and with wet wipes. We had all planned on spending two nights here, simply to enjoy not being in transit and so we could get laundry done and catch up with the world via the internet. I wish we had left the first day. Within a short ... read more