Oh this is cool.

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oh my days. forget the last post i did, that wasnt even proper desert or anything,there were people in it.how naive i was. we needed to go to Bolivia and wanted to see the Salt Flats so we went from San Pedro and got this 3 day excursion tour thing into the desert.6 people in a 4x4, driving all day. for starters the Bolivian border is hilarious, its just a shack in the middle of nothing (this would become a bit more normal). Stamped through, feeling well good. had an excellent last night in Chile, went to some house parties and stared at the stars until about 3 hours before we had to leave. The stars are so numerous and feel SO close that it seems entirely reasonable that the heavens are a huge sphere around earth, you could seriously almost touch some of these stars, it was quite something, cant describe it well enough but the stars are by far my favourite thing about Chile.
So anyway, the desert. on the first day we drove around various landscapes and visited some lagoons. Lagoona Verda, Blanca and Laguna Colorado. They were green, white and red.very cool. Laguna Verde had the slowest waves ever, it was quite odd. we drove through the desert in the national park all day and looked at loadsa neat stuff. Had a paddle in some hot springs,tho it was freezing outside it was super refreshing.Saw some geysers which werent erupting but were full of boiling mud.apparently people die cuz they fall in.silly people. The driver of our jeep was completely awesome, he didnt speak any english but he loved it, he had a well good 80s mix tape! we made sure to get him drunk so hed love us. it worked.after driving all day we arrived at this sketchy building where we were to stay the night, the roof was made of cloth and corrugated iron and was opposite Laguna Colorado. It was massive and had huge red patches in which were algae. had lotsa flamingos in mincing about, they get their colour from the algae apparently. it was awesome. the edges had salt crusts on which you could walk on if you didnt stamp about.
Next day we got up all early again and set out for even more driving, the jeep got a flat a few hours from the shack, the driver fixed the whole thing with rocks and a tire iron!mental. we were literally nowhere at this point but a couple jeeps passed us and one gave us a hand with the rocks.This day was mostly driving, 8 till 4 roughly, through nothing, we drove through a couple teeeny little towns with nowt in them which was the most we saw until we finished the tour.The highest we got was 5000 meters above sea level which is pretty high.Being 5km up gave me a bit of a headache. We traversed many different terrains, valleys and rocky desert and sandy desert and dust desert then it got greener and more hilly and we saw plenty of llamas.where we stayed on the 2nd night was opposite the Salt Flat.No electricity or water.huff. We got the driver to drive us out there right then even though we were going the next day. This thing is crazy, its the biggest in the world and seems to go on forever.Its over 10,000 square meters. we thought it would be fun to ride back on the roof of the jeep, and it was, although me and this german dude thought itd be manly to do it again the next morning.It wasnt really, the dude drove way further and faster and we only had tshirts on, never been so cold in my life.went to Cactus Island, it takes 1 year for them to grow 1cm.we saw one which was 1203 years old!du va mafs.
Salt hotel was pretty funny. Train graveyard was well fun.Didnt see many animals on the way from San Pedro to Uyuni, a fox at the border,a chinchila thing,plenty of flamingos and too many llamas.maybe a sheep here and there. 3 days of driving through various deserts and harsh environs, hot and unbelievably dry in the day and absolutely freezing cold at night, saw plenty of amazing scenery and unique sights.
Well Good.

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Photos

Laguna Colorado
Yes.I AM awesome.

Geysers spewing sulfur
full of boiling mud and stank of eggs

Laguna Verde
whos that bad boy?

somewhere, nowhere
drove through alot of this...

nowhere,somewhere
..and this.

Salar de Uyuni
This is all salt, 1meter deep, under which is 20cm of water.its really big.

Cactus Island
thats all salt too.

Salt Flats
Our jeep crew

Salt Hotel
this was made entirely of salt. The sign says "no pissing".ha.

Salt mining
60kg of salt gets you 1boliviano, which is the equivilant of 10p.each pile was, i guess, 60kg though it didnt look it.harsh.

Train graveyard
there were loads here, perfect HQ for the lost boys rocking out.jealous.

Comments

[vicky]

hola!
You are a fantastic photographer...a new career for when you return maybe? You better bloody return because I miss you catboyocelot. Love me xx