4-day-trip to Bolivia

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Geo: -16.2902, -63.5887

As recommanded by my new friend Sarah, whom I met in Santiago, once arrived in San Pedro de Atakama, I looked for the travel agency "Cruz Andina" to book a 4-day-trip to Bolivia. Lionel, who was going to be our guide, gave me all necessary infos and made me a very good price (125.000 $ CLP). Afterwards I returned to the hostel I had found just before and where I would camp that night. I spent the afternoon discovering the center of San Pedro de Atakama with it's nice artisanal markets and relaxing at the pool of my hostel. I must say the first night in my new tent was terrible : it was really really cold and without any mattress the floor was soo hard. Well, I survived but I should buy somewhere a rollmat or something.

But that cold was nothing : in Bolivia it was sooo cold all the time, we hardly ever took off our jackets and in the morning 2 pullover and a jacket were standard for me to get outside. I'm not someone who fears the cold, but I wasn't prepared for that weather in Bolivia....

So on Monday 21st of december, they came to pick me up at 7 AM at my hostel. In my group were 2 women from Hong Kong (Molly and Conny) and John and his daughter (I forgot her name...) from Paris. She was really sick and was vomiting all the time. She had eaten some salmon that wasn't fresh, it seems. I was like "Shit! This will completely destroy our travel! Why don't they leave her here?" But fortunately I had some medication for an upset stomach and sleeping most of the day in the car she got better and felt great the second day.

After crossing the border we had breakfast and got to know each other. We visited two lagoons (green and white), the DALI rock desert, the salt lagoon Chivalry with it's hot spring, the morning sun geyser basin (volcanic geysers) and the red lagoon with a lot of flamencos. On our way, we saw a lot of flamencos, lamas and vicuñas. It was a nice day but the altitude gave me a huge headache (we were between 4000 and 5000 m high) and I was happy to arrive at our hostel. That evening I met Alistair (Ally) from Glasgow who lives in London now and who is travelling for 6 month across Australia, South Africa and South America.

We were actually travelling with 2 other groups of young portugese guys and 4 people from Brazil. It was quite nice with them, especially with Ally and later with Arianne, her sister Natany, Samia and het husband Marcelo who are all more or less of my age. We had a lot of fun together and I am so happy I met them.

More to our program : the second day we had breakfast at 8 AM and of course I forgot the time difference and woke up 1 hour early.... But I felt better, my headaches almost gone. 😊 First we visited the paintings of an old today extinct community (I forgot their name, sorry!) who escaped into the mountains when the Spanish colonization in Bolivia started. They lived in tiny stone houses and had only few things to live from like potatoes and lamas. Later when the danger from the colonization was over, they went with their lamas to San Pedro de Atakama to get fruit and vegetables, what took them weeks. They conserved their meet by drying it with salt and their potatoes by keeping them in 3 to 5 m deep holes in the earth. It was an interesting place, I really can't imagine how anybody can live this way!

By the way, our guides didn't speak English so well so I had to translate for the people who don't speak Spanish, but that was ok. :-)
Afterwards we went to the Valley of Rocks where we saw some natural windows in the rocks and streets between them. It was fun and we took some nice pictures.

Then we visited the Inca Canyon which was really beautiful. Between lots of high rocks a wide green space with many lamas and the black lagoon. By the way, all lagoons take their names from their color given from the minerals or plants in them.
We climbed on the rocks and rested for a while. That's when I got to know the guys from Portugal (all 19-20 years old) who were really nice. The way back to the cars was the moment I got really really sick. I had huge headaches and the feeling I had to vomit... I guess it was everything together : the altitude, the hunger (we ate really late), the hot sun and the cold wind. Fortunately one of the portugese guys had some medication against the height sickness and gave them to me. I couldn't eat so I drank a lot of sugar-water and sweet juice to hydrate myself and get back some energy. It took a few hours though until I felt better. At some moment we visited the Catal lagoon (I can't remember when exactly) and at the end of the day we visited the old abandoned train station of Julaca where you can find an old train that worked on carbonate. The other people climbed on the roof of the train and jumped from one wagon to the next what looked fun but since I still felt not completely well, I prefered just to watch them.
That night we slept in a salt hostel in the Uyuni salt flat. It was really cool, the walls, tables, chairs, beds, all made of salt ! :-) We had a nice evening with some bolivian wine and went to bed early because we were totally exhausted and the departure time on the next morning was 5 AM.

It seemed much too early to get up at 4:30 AM but it turned out to be worth it! We drove onto the Uyuni salt flat to watch the sunrise which was fabulous!
Then we went to the "Isla Inca Huasi", on which grow a lot of big cactus, because from it's top you have a 360 degree view on the salt flat. After breakfast there we should have had half an hour to take pictures but since one of the cars broke down we had more than 1 hour. We had a lot of fun though and in the end they fixed the car. Until we got to our destination it broke down 2 more times but they always could repair it.
It the center of the salt lake we took more pictures and learned that under the salt is water and lots of salt cristals. It was fun to get them out of the water.

The crust in geomeyrical form on the lake come from the evaporation after raining due to the sun and we also learned that the lake is deeper in the center (10m) than on the border (1m). It was all very interesting and the side was just incredible!
Before getting to Uyuni we visited the salt museum (no actual museum but the first hostel made only of salt) and the train cementery of Uyuni.

Most of our group stayed in Uyuni to take a bus to La Paz and 5 of us went back to San Pedro de Atakama. We had 2h before leaving so I had a coffee with Ali and we visited the little center.
On our way back (in total 9h), I got to know better the 4 brazilian people (Arianne, Natany, Samia and Marcelo) and one of our tires got so bad that Lionel had to refill air every hour...

During this travel, we saw a lot of small villages with many unfinished houses. They start building a house, run out of money and just leave the walls like that. Really strange : if you have no money, why start building? Well, I guess there is an explanation. The people there live on so poor conditions compared to us in northern Europe, it makes you appreciate much more what we have, even the rain. They have 300 days of sun there and in the Norte Chico and Grande Norte of Chile. Can you imagine this? No days where you can say : "Oh it's raining today, let's stay inside and just watch a movie!" ;-) In the parts of Bolivia that we visited they have no phone connection nor internet and I guess no TV anyway, so they have no reason to hide inside all day like us anyway.

In conclusion, this trip was up to now one of the highlights of my travel and I'm soo happy I followed Sarah's advise. If you ever have the opportunity, do it! :-)

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