Advertisement
Published: December 17th 2005
The Train Grave Yard
With a train driver wanna beWe caught the 10am bus on 20th November from Uyuni to Potosi which as the norm with Bolivian buses was over subscribed. We had reserved seats which were unfortunately on the second row from the front of the bus. I had someone sat on the arm rest of my seat for three hours of the journey and a womans big ass wedged in the aisle near to my leg and whenever someone needed to pass she just sat on my knee without prior warning. At least we had seats unlike many who were crammed into the aisle, swaying from side to side and up and down as the bus negotiated the twist,turns and bumps in the road.
I am not a good bus passanger at the best of times but on a bus with an erratic driver, very winding roads, a window that wouldnt open and the smells of raw meat from another passengers bag I was starting to feel pretty sick. I dosed up on travel sickness pills and tried not to breathe through my nose so as to block out the smells and I was soon feeling slightly better. This is also not a bad bus experience speaking
to many travellers whom had experienced other passangers vomiting and worse bodily functions happening on bad journeys, I am glad we took the option of flying on the long journeys throughout Bolivia.
The scenery was fantastic as we passed though the southern Altiplano of Bolivia, towering mountains in shades of many colours which opened out into plains. The land is barren and deserted with only a few small mining towns and farmsteads along the way. Sunday was obviously picnic and washing day (alot of people go to local rivers to do their washing - of clothes, vehicles and themselves) as we passed a lush valley bottom which did seem along way from any homes or villages there were cars and taxis parked, children bathing in the river and washing drying on the rocks at the side of the river.
As we were getting off of the bus we got chatting to three other backpackers which were on our bus and it turned out they had the same travel plans as us for the trip through the Salar ending in Chile. Therefore we decided to stay at the same hostel and go and try and organise a tour just
At the Salt Hotel
Sue relaxing at the Salt Hotel for the five of us, that is me, Andy, Louisa, Jessica and Guy. Easier said than done!
Uyuni has hundreds of tour companies, many of which have dubious and some even dangerous reputations. The local tourist office has books of recommendations and complaints and a ranking system of tour companies performance, however they are meant to be impartial and will not tell you which is the best company or the worst company. We therefore spent two hours trawling through all the data before finally decidng on the tour company. After that decision was made it then took us two hours more of negotiations with the tour company to get what we waned at the price we wanted as they initially wanted us to pay for an imaginary 6th person as the tour "wasnt full". However with it being low season there were not enough tourists to feed the multitude of tour companies so we're not going to pay for a place they would not fill even if we werent having a tailor made tour.
After the bus journey and four hours trying to sort the tour out we were thoroughly exhausted and very hungry! So we headed off
Team Salt Flats
The group we travelled with Guy, Jess and Louisa to a recommended restaurant with our new found friends. It was at this point we discovered we were travelling with probably the most ill travellers in Bolivia, both the girls were dosed up on immodium, one had a skin irritation picked up in Rurre and the other after lunch suddenly burst into a rash all over her body that looked like insect bites and her eyes swelled up, at this point we felt the trip maybe destined not to go ahead at all. Before bed we all went and stocked up at the pharmacist and when the morning came all was well again.
The first day of our Salar trip started with us being picked up by our guide Rudi in his Toyota Landcruiser 4 x 4. We were all quite impessed by the size of the tread on the tyres and what the vehicle looked like compared to many of the tour companies 4x4's we had seen driving around. Then we picked up the cook and we were off!
The first stop was the train graveyard which is where all the old redundant steam trains are sat rusting away to nothing, but providing some shelter to the
roaming Llamas and sheep by the looks of it. Uyuni used to be the hub and maintenance of the rail network which carried minerals from Bolivia to the ports of Chile.
The next stop was Colchani a small settlement on the edge of the Salar, most of the populations income is in someway connected to the salt, whether it be processing for table salt, making salt blocks for cattle licks or carving souvineers for tourists out of the salt. Here we had a quick tour round "a salt factory" which was basic and small and produced just enough salt to provide the family with enough income to sustain a modest life by Bolivian standards.
We then came to the salt hotel where we just stopped for a quick look. We originally wanted to stay there but we were told the service there was abismal and to stay in the better Palacio de Sal however this was expensve and also only just on the edge of the salt lake. So we moved on to our tour guides recommended hostel which was perched on the slopes of Tunupa Volcano on the north side of the Salar. The hostel had no
elecricity and only a cold water stand pipe outside for water, but it was clean and we got a great view of the salt lakes at sunset.
We were woken at 5.30am by our guide singing and cheerfully moving around our hostel (which was to become the norm for the next few days) and after breakfast started the climb up Volcan Tunupa.
At first it was easy but the altitude soon got hold. The ascent was slow with frequent short stops to stave off the dizzyness! After a while we arrived at what we thought was the stopping point for us as we had a 5 hour drive the same day, however our guide had different ideas and soon made it clear that we were to go up to the crater. After crossing the fields at the base of the Volcano the ground underfoot turned to shale making the walking much harder. After about an hour of walking in this all I could manage was 5 steps at a time before I needed a rest as the air had just got so thin it was hard to even breathe never mind scale a 5,500 metre high volcano, but
the hard work was rewarded by the views at the top, although I'm sure that Sue will remind me constantly that she beat me to the top and found the walk alot easier than me. The decent was much easier though, as the ground was loose under foot we could run down which started a race between myself and Rudi so what took us 2-3 hours to climb took 10 minutes to descend.
The rest of the day was taken up with driving across the salar broken up by a trip to fish island (an island shaped like a fish) which had lots of cactus on it, quite a sureal ladscape.
On day 3 we left the Salar and headed for Laguna Colorado, a laguna that is coloured with streaks of red which is home to thousands of Flamingoes. All this while driving through barren desert landscape.
The 1st stop on the 4th day was to visit some Geysers, with smoke pouring from the ground and Rudi keeping a close eye on us as the ground is very thin and unstable in places (and we didn't want to fall into the boiling mud under ground) we walked
round the geysers which were constantly bubbling and shooting large dropplets of mud into the air. After a quick explanation about how the geysers were moving we were packed back into the jeep and headed off to a hot spring on the edge of another coloured Laguna where we spent about half an hour soaking in the healing waters (which the girls desperatley needed, as Jess still had her skin irritation and Lou was still coming up in insect bites at about 5ish every day).
We were going to climb Volcano Lincancabur, and were originally given the option of straight transfer to the border or a night in Laguna Blanca if we devided to climb the volcano. We were all up for it until we were told that ten tourists have died on the peak in less than that amount of years. Also once faced with the hulk of the volcano in front of us we could see the sharp technical assent which was required when nearing the top of the volcano. We decided not to do the climb as we didnt want to add to the statistics owing to the fact that we didnt feel in peak fitness
to tackle an 18hour (in one day) technical climb at high altitude.
We got a transfer to the Chilian border and after a quick check of our passports by the official and a gorgeing on the mandarins we had with us (you cannot take vegetable and animal products into Chile) It was goodbye to Bolivia.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.156s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 19; qc: 73; dbt: 0.1036s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Sarah
non-member comment
I look forward to digesting this one at dinner time xx