Blogs from Potosí Department, Bolivia, South America - page 7

It was another early start, for a three-day trip overland through the Salt Flats to Uyuni in Bolivia. This time it was us who weren't ready - I had misunderstood the instructions at the tour company and thought that we were being picked up at 7.30 in order for us to have breakfast first. So we were in the dining room just about to start breakfast when the van turned up. We grabbed as much food as was practicable and made a frantic and harried dash for the door. Then at 7.30, once we'd picked up all the other passengers, we pulled into a breakfast spot. Oops, I'm clearly missing some of the finer points of the Spanish language! So we had a more leisurely second breakfast with our new fellow travellers. There were 12 of ... read more

The fresh guacamole in Santiago feels like a long time ago now. Every night Maria, the maid, would have prepared our bedrooms, her turn-down service matched the best hotels I have ever been to. She made an amazing empenada con queso, which is like a big cheese Cornish pasty, but better. In the daytime we visited the 'museum of memories and lost people' which documented the fascist regime under Pinochet in the 70's. Sadly, the majority of the museum was in Spanish so I didn't understand everything but got the gist. That evening we went to a bar and because it was happy hour the drinks were pretty much free. We had champagne, piña colada and a few beers each. We spent very little in Santiago because all of our food and accommodation was free, thanks ... read more

Sarah (Friday 10th April): Right now we're in the middle of absolutely nowhere, drinking hot coffee and munching on sweet biscuits and I am wearing a llama cardigan which is keeping me really warm and very happy! Going back to Wednesday killing time in La Paz before our nightbus, we went back to the Dutch restaurant for lunch and had a good feed followed by a good hour or so of people watching from our upstairs window seat and reading, escaping the crazy streets. We may have also had to order some hot chocolates to keep us going... (Nick's was actually a delicious hot milk with a chocolate bar melted in and we may have picked up some Dutch sweet waffles on our way out... to keep us going on our 3 day salt flat tour, ... read more

The most obvious way to Bolivia from San Pedro de Atacama is via the salt flats of Uyuni. In San Pedro plenty of operators compete to take travelers through the southern Bolivian highland desert and across the salt flats to Uyuni. We quickly found out that this intense competition has lead to low prices, some times even too low as safety was comprised for the sake of lower prices. In 2008 this led to some accidents with fatalities. According to rumors there are also operators that use this tour to smuggle drugs across the border, and as a result don't care about the income from the actual tour but in turn the drivers aren't always sober and careful. Regardless of whether this was necessary or not, these things made us a bit concerned and led us ... read more

Depuis Potosi, 4h de bus suffisent pour rejoindre Uyuni. Pour aller voir le salar (désert de sel) plusieurs groupes rencontrés sur notre route nous ont recommandé une bonne agence, Blueline (pour ceux que ça intéresse). On réserve notre tour sur 3 jours, avec Grober, un très bon guide. Jour 1 : Le Salar Nous partons le lendemain matin, avec 3 brésiliens qui ont également booké un tour. Tous les déplacements se font désormais avec un gros 4x4 conduits par Grober. Durant les 3 jours, il sera donc chauffeur, guide et cuisinier. Premier étape à l'extérieur d'Uyuni, le cimetière de trains. Il s'agit d'anciennes locomotives et anciens wagons venus d'Europe pour avoir une deuxième mais sont tous aujourd'hui hors d'état. Etant donné qu'il y a de très nombreux 4x4 de touristes, on ne s'attarde pas. Grober veut ... read more