Day 1: Today I started a four day Salt Flat Tour from Tupiza to Uyuni in Bolivia. Wow! There are seven of us in an old Toyota Land cruiser with bald tires. We have a driver/Spanish speaking guide, good thing the Mexican girl can translate for us, actually I understood a lot of what he was saying and a cook. She offered up a great picnic lunch in a field of lamas today and a great dinner. The other five of us include a French couple, the Mexican girl, Anne from England and myself. We left Harry today in Tupiza, he was going to do a two day horse trek. The landscape is incredible and it has been for the last couple of weeks. Around each corner it is different. Today we traveled by dirt road about 100km’s and it took eight hours. The views were spectacular. We climbed to 4550m above sea level and I (touch wood) do not have altitude sickness, nor the others in our group.
On the drive we passed through barren land and vast open spaces, no cities, just lamas, donkeys and an ostrich to be seen. We arrived in a little village with one block of houses and a school. This is where we are spending the night in San Antonio de Lipez. The village is full of children with lovely smiles and not a care in the world. They don’t care that there is dirt on their cloths, that their shoes don’t have soles, but they can offer you a smile and a fun time. As the sun was setting on the snowcapped mountain in the background I played catch using a tennis ball with three young girls. While we were playing there was another little gaffer keeping himself quite amused by wheeling a bicycle tire through my legs. The simple things in life are free, isn’t that what they say.
The people of Bolivia have incredible faces. They wear bowler hats with long black braids in their hair, wool skirts and either have their possessions strapped around them with a piece of cloth or a baby. They are very old fashioned looking and they are everywhere, in the cities, villages or in the hills with a whip swatting lamas to go in the right direction.
It is a little chilly tonight, I have had to put on my long johns and I have my toque out in case I need it tonight. You can be so hot during the day, the sun is intense here, but yet at night it can go down close to zero. We have an early start tomorrow, 4:30 am so I will sign off.
Day 2: It was an early start like I said 4:30am. It is crazy when your clothing for the day changes so many times. I started the day in long johns, a toque and mitts and by midday was in a swimsuit and then in between going from sweater to t-shirt and a skort to pants.
Today we learned we are the envy of the other tour groups with our 1997 Toyota Land Cruiser. You spend the night in a communal building with your group of five sharing a basic room, no showers, hot water and questionable electricity. At one of the sites we got talking to some fellows who said oh yes you guys are in the good vehicle with back windows that slide open and power windows that work. An added bonus is that the windows are tinted and keep some of the intense sun out. There older version does not have tinted windows or windows that go down, so they are roasting.
My tour is fantastic. They all get questionable reviews and it is a crap shoot as to who you choose to go with. It is basically the same tour and cost, but some have better vehicles, drivers, food etc. All of the mentioned are great with our company. The food is actually fantastic. I am having the most cooked vegetables I have had weeks and it is all sitting well and the altitude is only bringing on a minor headache which is easily treated.
So today we saw geysers spewing out the lovely sulfur odor. Beautiful mountains and a green lake that is green do to the lead and arsenic that are in it, volcanoes, hot springs, bogs and were at 5000m.
Day3: Well it is evening now and as I sit here clean from the hot shower I was able to have after two days of dust from the desert I listen to the military practice across the street. At this point they are chanting or singing some song. I figure we should be good and safe in this town as our accommodation tonight is a hostel and it is directly across from the military housing and zone where there is a guard on the corner. Tonight we are staying in Uyuni.
Well today we saw tons of flamingos. It was incredible they were in the lagoons. There was a lot more red rock. We saw a funeral procession in the middle of nowhere. I do not know how far they had to walk behind the body which was carried on a flatbed truck. For three days we have been in this vast land where we have maybe seen accommodation for a hundred people in total. There is nothing out there, but panoramic views at every turn.
So last night was a little chilly. It was rumored to have been -18 degrees C. I slept in my long johns, pants, socks, two shirts, my toque, neck warm and mitts. I was warm though and had a great night’s sleep. The room had electricity for a couple of hours in the evening, no form of heat or hot water, but comfy beds.
It will be another early morning tomorrow as we head out to make sunrise over the salt flats and therefore will be getting up between 4 and 4:30am.
Day 4: I believe I should really start taking pictures of toilets and washrooms around the world. Over the last four days we have had to use “mother nature’s” bathrooms and I have to say that is way better than the one I had to pay to use today.
Today I literally had to go from sun hat to toque. It is boiling hot in the sun and freezing cold in the shade. Layering is the way to go here.
So today was the end all and be all for the Salt Flat Tour. We went to the Salar de Uyuni, or the Salt flats of Uyuni. It was very cool. The area is huge and looks like it is covered in snow, but it is salt. The locals harvest it for table salt and other uses. It is interesting to think that we are driving over it and walking on it and it will end up in someone’s mouth. It is the end of the wet season here so we had to drive through a foot of water in parts. In a month it will be all dried up and there will be no water around. They make piles of the salt to dry it out and it is cool to see them harvesting it with shovels and old dump trucks, then you should see where they dry it. I haven’t said yet how primitive Bolivia is. I cannot capture it in a picture but wow does it have a long way to go as far as progression is concerned, or it will be interesting to see how long they can sustain their quality of life. I don’t want to dis it, I am not, it is incredible, but it is neat to see how unorganized and old the country is. Internet is not an option and if it is it might as well not be. But I don’t really even want to go to talk about the internet. If you are an electrician you would be cringing over here. Bare wires and tape holding things together and then only having electricity for a few hours a day is the way in many a place we stayed. Agua Caliente (hot water) I think not. I have had that before in other countries but they were hot destinations and in Bolivia the temperature goes to below zero.
In the middle of the Salt Flats there is a Salt Hotel. The Lonely Planet says to not stay there as it was built illegally and its waist is going right into the Salt Flats. So we show up at this place and I have to say I was expecting a posh place, but the walls are made out of salt and the roof has tarps on it that are kept down with tires. That is where we had our picnic breakfast as we were at the Salt Flats for sunrise. No one stays there anymore but the tour groups go inside and use the facilities for a place to serve up food.
I forgot to mention there was one ATM machine in Uyuni. At any given time there is a lineup of at least five tourists waiting out front to use it and your taking your chances on whether it is working or not. In Tupiza where I actually booked my tour there are no ATM machines and it is a tourist town with lots of activities that require cash. The Lonely Planet warns you to get cash before arriving here as there is not an ATM so when we were walking the town we saw one and thought the Lonely Planet is wrong. We asked the tour company about it and they said oh no you cannot use it, It is only for local cards and will keep foreign ones. Good thing we didn’t give it a try.
An incredible four days and a must see if you are in South America. The hospitality shown to us by our driver/guide (Santos) and cook (Eli) was incredible, lovely people, great sites, and an interesting country with incredible vast lands.
Now the bus out there was another story, oh my god. The trip from Uyuni to La Paz took 10 hours to go 536km on a night bus and I have never been on such a terrible ride in all of my life. My back still aches and I am in need of a massage. The Road for FIVE AND A HALF HOURS was like and accordion or washboard and was incredibly bumpy. Think of those massage chairs they have a home that you can sit in and now think of the deluxe one and put the thing on turbo and multiple it my a 100, that is how the ride was. The seat was vibrating like nothing I have ever felt and this went on for FIVE AND A HALF HOURS! I literally thought at one point my insides are going to come right out of me through my private parts (sorry but the feeling was like nothing else) and the sound of all the banging in the bus was so loud. I really thought we were going to break an axel or tire rod, or the side was going to fall off the thing. The totally body vibration was unbearable thank god that is over and I hope to never experience that again. The teacher blockades and strikes are over and so we were not held up with that which was nice.
Now for tons of photos, DON’T MISS THERE ARE TWO LINKS FOR PHOTOS, one is the Bolivian Boarder Crossing and the other is the Four Day Salt Flat Tour.
Click on the link for The Bolivian Boarder Crossing
Click on the link for tons of photos from The Four Day Salt Flats Tour
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