San Pedro de Atacama to Uyuni in a 4WD

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Well well, what can I say about this trip. It was one of those trips were pictures say more than a thousand words. So I´ll keep it short not to spoil the pics.

We booked a tour from San Pedro de Atacama to Uyuni travelling with a 4WD.

1st day.
We left San Pedro de Atacama in a bus towards Bolivia, where we then switched into the 4WD. A group of four; Diana, Fransisco (Portugal), Jean (Brazil) and me, not forgetting our bolivien driver Natalia (Natalio really) then set of on the three day tour.
We left over the Andes, passing some breathtaking lakes/lagoons (Laguna Verde, Laguna Blanco) before stopping for a quick swim in some natural hot thermals. Afterwards we made our way towards the highest geysers in the world(4980 m above see lvl) and then we eventually arrived at our modest camp near lake Colorado. This was a very basic dorm with no hot water, no heating except from an fire with three logs, and nothing around except Lamas and Flamingos.
We were sharing the building with another travel group, where we meet Tanja (Croatia). The lot of us stayed up late freezing around the cold fire. The temp drops dramatically at night and was down to -3 digress.
We had a good laugh, it was the lack of oxygen which helped raised the mood probably, and then went to bed ready for the next day.

2nd day and the longest.
We started our trip am hour late as no one was up in time.
First stop was the Arbol de Piedra, a stone which looks like a tree. This stone is placed in the desert of Dali (referred to because of a painting). Here we spent some time climbing rocks (Diana had altitude problems so no climbing for her) and taking loads of pics of this funny landscape.
We then had an 1 1/2 car trip through Desierto de Siloli, passing Lag. Chiarkota and stopping at Lag. Honda. Don´t know why it is named after the company especially when all the 4x4 are from Toyota. After a another lengthy foto session we drove to Lag. Hediona to observe more flamingos and have lunch under the really hot sun.
Traveling north-east towards our hotel we stopped at the final Lag. containing flamingos; Lag. Cañapa. Beautiful but it was starting to be like "wait a sec, haven't i just seen this'".
But soon we had an active volcano in front of us. Volcán Ollague was set in another moon like valley, which gave us more time to climb (by which time Diana was feeling a lot better) and of course, more pictures.
Around 6pm we came to our night camp, a hostel made completly from salt. The salt was all taken from the Salar de Uyuni, the biggest; and being in Bolivia, the highest in the world. Great meal, chicken chips and wine.

3rd and final day.
This day we traveled with our 4wd on to the gigantic salt flat. Visited the island "Isla Pescado" or cactus island. An island in the middle of the salt lake covered in cacti. After an hour or so we drove towards the mines of the salt lake. Here we met a worker digging up the salt under the blazing sun, for just 1 euro per day!
The sad side being the mines are placed next to a luxury hotel. One could get a pic of a miner and then in the background people sitting in a jacuzzi. Sick. After the lunch we then drove to Uyuni ending our tour. We decided to head towards Potosi that evening as the town was shit.
Jena unfortunately had to go back to San Pedro de Atacama but Fransisco and Tanja decided to join us on our tour there...Dynamite here we come....

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Comments

[anonymous]

Hallo Ihr!! Ihr habt ja super geile Bilder gemacht!! Sieht cool aus!, OK ohne Dean wären sie noch schöner gewesen ;-) Ich freue mich für euch das ihr so viele interessante Plätze seht. Ich wünsche euch weiterhin viel Spass und schreibt weiter in euren Blog! Dean wollte ja wissen wie es beim Hausbau weiter geht! hier findet er alle nötigen Infos ;) http://das-bautagebuch.blogspot.com/ Gruß Tobi

[sven]

aha
mhm.. ich freue mir das euch euch die flamingos so nett aufgenommen und auch gleich eingbürgert haben!!! ;-)