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Having made it through our 3 day tour of the Salar de Uyuni we are briefly making our way through the north of Chile to go back to Peru. We stopped in San Pedro for the day yesterday, which was a lovely town with nice bars and restaurants. The people are so much friendlier than the Bolivians, so the jump across the border has been well worth it, and it means another stamp in the passport! Getting quite a collection. In Calama now, it´s pretty nice, very American so I´m loving the food for once... not much to see here but we´re only here just over a day so it´s nice to just take it easy. Overnight bus to Arica tonight and then onward to Peru...
The Salar de Uyuni tour:
The overnight bus to Uyuni was fine, lots of space, and we even got food. The only problem was the terrain... it was like being sat on top of a washing machine on spin the entire way! This made drinking out of cups mucho amusing, have a photo of Pete somewhere...
Uyuni, the town was the most boring place in the world! Literally in the middle of nowhere, hardly any bars or restaurants, and the ones there were were either closed or the service was so slow that it was dinner time before you got lunch!, useful! So just booked a tour and left the next morning.
We were in a jeep with two other English people who were ok but not really my cup of tea, and two Spanish people who were fine, but communication was interesting!! Jeep was also in an ok state, though it was a bit squishy! We briefly stopped at the playground of deceased trains outside Uyuni (which is all in the desert by the way) and climbed on trains... Then we headed off to the salt lakes. Our driver couldn´t really drive, but I guess this wasn't really his fault because no one in Bolivia can drive, they just do. Our cook, Hilda was crazy! She spent most of the time nagging the driver, but even when she wasn't she was still talking. In fact she never ever stopped going. I think she was high as a kite on coca the whole time, between them they got through at least a bag of leaves a day!
The Salar was beautiful. Just a vast desert of pure white salt. We spent a while in the middle of it walking about (I was running and jumping about because it made cool shattering noises when you broke it) and taking photos. Then we visited a hotel made of salt which at the time we thought we were staying in, to my horror because I had to use the 'toilet' (shudder). Then whizzed off to a random island in the middle of the salt which was totally covered in cacti (which I have decided are the wierdest plants on the planet) for lunch and to fry in the sun. God it was so hot the whole time.
Our hotel was in fact made of salt, (walls, chairs, tables, beds, floor was salt sand,...) but luckily not the one previously mentioned. It was very basic but ok, though I didn´t get any sleep because the bed, being made of salt, was not very comfortable, and the place made noises in the night and I was a little freaked out! Things lived in the roof and the walls kind of squeaked.
Day two involved lots of driving to see lakes and flamingos, which were beautiful but smelt really bad because of the bed of flamingo s***! The heat in the jeep was unbearable though, and oh my god if I ever hear the one pan pipe/ salsa tape that got played over and over for 6 hours I may well crack! The morning went by ok apart from the above and one puncture, however the afternoon was a whole load of fun...
More driving through desert, the jeep kept breaking down, it was still baking hot, Hilda was still going on and on, the tape was still playing, and i´d eaten all of my oreos, so it was not a good time or place to get another puncture! Literally in the middle of the desert with nothing in sight and no other cars anywhere. It took ages to change the tyre because the jack just sank into the sand. It was also unbelievably windy so we got covered in dust! But eventually we got on the 'road' again and didn´t break down for at least another ten minutes! We saw the famous tree rock thing¿?¿ (see photos!) and an active volcano, and lake colarada which was actually red, and then it was on to our hostel which was the worst place I´ve ever stayed and I´m not even going to write about it because I want to forget it! Cards were played until the electricity went off at around nine pm!
We had to get up at 4am the next day and drove to see the geysers which were pretty cool, and then on to some hot springs at 7am! it was freeeeezing when we got there, and my bikini was wet when i put it on so getting into boiling water hurt quite a lot! But it was really nice in there, and we hadn't had showers for a day and a half so got to wash the dust and dirt off! Then it was off to the laguna verde, which did look green at the time, but doesn´t in the photos! and that was it... just immigration and a bus to Chile.
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