In Search of Salar in the thin air of the Altiplano

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Ola,

We took a night bus from La Paz to Uyuni. The bus ride was a nightmare. It was 10 hours long, which wasn't much of a problem. The problem was that only the first three hours were on a paved road. The last seven hours were on what can only be described as a pockmarked, battle-scarred warzone. Neither Peter or Valerie got more than an hour or so of sleep on the bus.

When we arrived in Uyuni, we met up with Tom and Kat, up Inca Trail fame, who would be joining us on the Salar de Uyuni tour, along with Dani and Puppy who had arrived with us from La Paz. Uyuni isn't the nicest of places. We would say it's a one horse town, but the people probably killed and ate the horse!

Finally, we were able to start the tour. We met our driver Miguel, and saw our vehicle. It was a Toyosa Land Gruiser. No, that is not a typo. That is actually what it was. We think it was actually a Land Cruiser, but it's much funnier this way. After Miguel hot wired it, it sometimes had trouble starting with the key, we got on our way.

The first stop on our trip was the Cemetario del Traines. Basically, a whole bunch of locomotives have just been left to rust. It was fun to walk around. Next, we went to Colchani, which is an area where the local population mine some of the salt from the flats. We got to eat lunch there on seats made of salt. Then, we drove on to the actual salt flat. It is the world's largest, and it used to be part of a sea. It was dazzingly bright and stretched for as far as the eye could see. We saw large slat piles built up and the cracks in the salt that had developed because it was the dry season. We continued driving to Isla Incahuasi, which was an old island covered with cacti in the middle of the flats. It was made entirely of dead coral and provided great views of the salt flats. After wandering around for a while. we drove to our hostel where we would stay for the first night.

The next morning, we left the salt flats and then drove to a rocky, volcanic landscape that was moonlike in appearance. There, we had great views of Volcan Ollargue, which is 5822 metres tall. We continued ascending higher into the Altiplano. All of a sudden, we came around a bend and there was a large, blue lake with pink Andean Flamingos in it, flanked by tall mountains. It was a spectactular scene! We had lunch overlooking the lake, watching the flamingos take-off and circle. There was a small fox watching the flamingos as well, but we think it was for entirely different reasons. We continued on and came across another laguna. This one had many flamingos in it as well, but was a light green colour and had white encrustation around it, which was composed of the natural occuring chemical ¨borax¨, not ¨borat¨ as Valerie heard. We continued to climb and went past two more lagunas containing more flamingos and one had a herd of vicuñas drinking from it. We drove through a narrow canyon where a chinchilla was sitting. It was huge! It ran along and posed next to the vehicle, but it was staring at us in a creepy way and then it winked at us! It was about that time we decided to continue. We ascended more, reaching a barren plane of rocks and sand that afforded beautiful views of La Montaña de 100 Colores. Our next stop was the Arbol de Piedra, which is an eroded rock formation that looks like a tree. We started descending, but only to 4200 metres. We stopped at Laguna Colorada, which was where we would spend our second night. Laguna Colorada is much like the other lagunas, except for one tiny little detail. Laguna Colorada is bright red! It was an incredible sight to see. Apparently, it is the algae in it that turns it red. That night was very cold, dipping down to freezing, so we tried to keep warm by trying some Bolivian wine. It was not a good idea. There is a fine line between wine and vinegar and this was well over it.

The next morning, we woke up extremely cold!!! It was a couple of degrees below freezing but no matter how cold it is, we seem to be able to deal with. However, Australians cannot. Puppy was wearing three pairs of pants, three sweaters and she was still cold!!! We got nto the Land Gruiser without breakfast and headed straight off on the road. We kept ascending to 4900 metres where we arrived at the Sol de Mañana geyser basin where we warmed up in the odorous steam of the geysers. We continued on to Aguas Calientes, but none of us wanted to get into the pools with a bunch of backpackers who had not showered in two days. We continued on to the Dali Desert. It is a large sandy area that has odd rock formations thrusting through the golden sand. It was also there that it started snowing. Yes, it actually snowed. Puppy was very confused by what was happening. We then ascended more and arrived at Licancabur, which is a 5960 metre high volcano. At its base is Laguna Verde. Laguna Verde is located at 5000 metres above sea level and it is the shade of green that glacial lakes in the Rockies are. It was a serence sight to say the least. We headed to Laguna Blanca for breakfast, and at that point we said goodbye to Puppy, Dani, Tom and Kat, who were heading back to Uyuni, before getting on a bus that was headed south.

Salar de Uyuni was incredible. It was starkly beautiful and one of the highlights of the trip. We thoroughly recommend visiting it!

Bye for now,
Peter and Valerie


Things we learned in Salar:
-Australians cannot handle the cold. It is tough for them, but very entertaining for everyone else.
-Toyosa Land Gruisers, despite having windows that don't stay up, wheel-wells that don't keep the dust out, doors that don't shut properly and engines that over-heat, are still remarkably durable vehicles.
-Toilets don't flush in the Salar

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Comments

[Katrina]

I just googled all the places you mentioned and this part of the trip looks AMAZING and truly unique! Must go one day...but until then, I will love vicariously through google images!