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Published: January 9th 2010
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Bolivia- Three day Desert Crossing One of the highlights of this trip was the three day desert crossing from Chile into Bolivia. First it was a bus that drove us to the boarder where we got our passport stamped. Because of going up into high altitude most of our pens exploded and there was ink everywhere; on the floor and all over our hands! After getting all that sorted we started getting our bags onto the roofs of the 4WDs (ours was a Lexus!), and then it was off to the adventure! We started driving across the desert, how the drivers know where they are going beats me but they know the desert like the back of their hands! We did a few stops along the way; to look at Vicunas or to see the beautiful lagoons. We had lunch by hot springs where I had my first taste of Llama meat; it’s surprisingly a very tasty meat! After the springs we continued on; we stopped to see the flamingoes and then we continue climbing up in altitude to a shocking 5100 MASL! Up there it was to see some geysers unfortunately I couldn’t even get out of the car
as the altitude was starting to have its effects on me. We finally got to our first stop where I was straight away put to bed and then spent the remaining afternoon/night running back and forth between the bathroom and the bed! I have not felt that bad in a very long time!
The next morning we woke up bright and early, thankfully I was feeling a lot better. On this 2nd day we went to see some flamingoes where Steve and I took lots of photos. We also went to see Laguna Colorado known as the seven colored lagoon its very beautiful and has amazing reflections of the mountains surrounding it. Our second night was spent in a very interesting hotel made entirely out of salt; tables, chairs, beds, walls and even the floor were made out of salt! We spent the afternoon/night playing card games, we went to bed quite early as the next day it we had to wake up before the sunrise!
Day 3 started in the dark. We woke early and made our way to the salt flats. There we watched the sunrise. After sunrise we spent a few hours making illusion photos
on the salt flats. We then drove to an “island” which is actually coral with a lot of cacti growing on it; it looks very out of place in the flat desert! We had breakfast out doors, after that we got back in the cars and headed off to the salt factory where we got to see how the salt was cultivated. Unfortunately at this point Steve was not feeling well. Luckily there was a bed where we had lunch for him to lie down. After that we went to the train cemetery which was really cool and also a little sad because it’s basically a bunch of trains that have been left to rust in the middle of the desert. That was the last stop of our desert crossing and we were than driven to Uyuni where Steve went straight to bed after a very well deserved shower! (We didn’t have showers for those three days). That night I went exploring and found a local barbecued chicken place packed with locals and got some chicken, fries and rice which I brought back to the hotel we ate watching Sopranos and then had a very early night!
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Mike
non-member comment
awesome!
Very interesting pictures! great experience!