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Published: June 18th 2006
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From Potosí we took a very crowded and bumpy, five hour bus journey to Uyuni. The town would be a "middle of nowhere town" if it weren´t for all the Gringos that walk the streets looking for the best-value Land Cruiser tour to the world´s largest salt flats nearby and of course somewhere to feed, water and shelter themselves for a night. No matter where you stay in Uyuni, the nights are so cold that the water in the pipes freezes, leaving you with no running water for morning ablutions. As we stayed in Uyuni for two nights, we cheated the frost on the second day by showering late in the morning and warmed ourselves up before going to bed by sitting next to the fireplace at Los Locos pub (the Bolivian vino tinto and game of darts also helped to raise the spirits).
For us, the two nights/ three day tour of the Salar de Uyuni would also be our last glimpse of Bolivia as we would be transported to the Chilean border at the end of the tour. Thanks to Layla for her birthday gift, I was able to experience this tour.
After meeting the fellow travellers
Left to Rust....
Once a proud user of the British built railway around Uyuni. who´d plumped for Olivos Tours - Dave from England who we´d previously met on the World´s Most Dangerous Road, Paulien (Holland) and Franz (Switzerland), we were whisked to the Train Graveyard, just 1 km outside of town. This was a bonus for T and I as we had already walked to the site on our first evening to get some sunset pictures of the rusty machinery - we could now get the pictures in natural light. We headed to the salar plain, via Uyuni so our driver could pick up his stash of coca leaves to see him through the trip (we soon realised that the more he chewed the more amiable he would become). The Salar plain closest to Uyuni looks like a British road after the salt sprayers have been out on a cold February morning. This slurry is caused by the numerous heavy vehicles that drop off workers and come to collect the cone-shaped piles of dried salt which are sold onto industry and help to keep the town of Uyuni afloat. As we pressed on, the plains became prestinely white and raised salt crystals form hexagonal (m²) shapes, giving you the impression that you´re driving on
a giant sheet of kitchen linoeum. As many a traveller before us has found out, the white glare of the landscape is an ideal backdrop to play with the perspective on your camera so you can appear twice the size of your jeep, or twice the size of your boyfriend as I plumped for.
Along with all the other jeep tours, we lunched on the Isla de Pescadores originally known as Incahuasi (Incan House), which provides fabulous views of the surrounding salt plains from its raised elevation. The island is also covered in cacti, some over 10 metres high and some that are amusingly phallic-shaped - well it amused us anyway! After lunch and stopping for a few more photo opportunities in the Salar, we were driven to our Salt Hotel for the night. Tourists with Olivos stay in this fantistic hotel which has hot showers, electricity for a couple of hours in the evening and warm rooms where the bed (not the matress!) and bricks are made entirely of salt. We were also amazed that the floor was a carpet of brilliant-white salt crystals so there was no need to fret over those red wine spillages! Oddly we
weren´t given table salt with our evening meal....
The next day, we set off at 6.30 in order to catch the sunrise and begin the long day´s drive over the barren and rocky landscape to our destination at the edge of the Reserva de Fauna Andina Eduado Avaroa. We passed numerous lakes, mountains and rock formations which have unfortunately been used as a "baño naturale" by many a tourist with problematic bowels. This didn´t detract from the distant view of Volcano Ollagüe - its active status evidenced in the frongs of steam which jut out from below the summit. We soon realised that all the tours were travelling in convoy, across the red terrain of the Siloli Desert at 4,600 metres high, past the Arbol de Piedra, a formation of rocks that have precariously weathered to form the shape of a tree, all in a race to get the best (he-hem) room in a VERY basic alojamiento by the Laguna Colorada. Due to the effect of the sunlight and wind on the microorganisms that live in the lake, the water appears to be terracotta coloured after midday. Our photos haven´t really captured this irridescent affect and unfortunately we didn´t
Laguna Colarada
With its reddish tones. spot any pink flamingos as they only feed by the lake in the warm summer months. We should have heeded the flamingos tip-off, at 4,278 metres high, the concrete shell of a hostel with few complimentary blankets didn´t provide us with the warmth we needed to get a good night´s sleep. We were told that we would be woken up at 4am the next day and the lights went out at 8.30pm - call this a holiday!
Day three and only 20 mintutes into the drive, we realised why we needed to make that early start when we reached the Sol de Mañana, a field of steam geysers reaching up to 50 metres into the sky. The sound and shape of the steam hitting the cold and dry morning air is so powerful, but again, its difficult to capture on your digi-camera. Here, your feet freeze within about 10 minutes of wandering around the martian-esque landscape so we swiftly took a few pictures of the boiling mudholes before bolting to the relative warmth of our sleeping bags in the Land Cruiser. The next stop was breakfast by Laguna Chalviri, which also boasts 30 degree thermal waters at its shore.
Sorry to say that neither Tom or I, or anyone in our vehicle, fancied braving the cold morning air in our swimming trunks in order to experience the waters. Still, there were a few brave soles who took the plunge and we commended them whilst holding our morning cup of coffee when it was time to get out of the pool and dry off! The last stop on the tour is Laguna Verde (Green Lake) at the foothill of Volcano Licancábur which straddles the Bolivian-Chilean border. To be honest, the lake was so frozen it appeared to be brown rather than green and Tom, Dave and I were far too keen to get moving, cross the Chilean border and make it to San Pedro de Atacama in time to catch the England v Trinidad & Tobago game. Did we make it on time...?
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dave brown
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good descriptions!
Good work on the blog guys, I couldn't have done better myself!