11-01-07

Uyuni and the Salt Flats

Well we finally arrived in Uyuni after the bus was supposdly meant to take 10 hours, which was long enough, but in the end took 18!! This meant that instead of getting to Uyuni at about 6 in the morning, we got here at about 3 in the afternoon. Problem with this, is that we were originally meant to go on a 3 day tour that day when we arrived, but the tours leave at 10. So, we had to stay a night in a hostel and wait until the next day until we did the tour. Uyuni isnt a big place at all, and has very little to do, so after a shower was taken, and some food eaten at a local restaurant, there wasnt much else to do but get an early night, oh well, at least i would be fresh for tomorrow!

12-01-07

First Day of the Salt Flat tour

So today we got our tour started at about 10am. On our tour with us, was and Benji ( a girl i met at the hostel in Cusco), A dutch couple, a woman from Barcelona and a woman from Argentina. Our guide was called Oberto. So the first day entailed a brief stop in a small village where the salt from the salt flats is processed. This place, the salt flats i mean are meant to be the biggest of their kind, but they dont export the salt all. Its all kept inside Bolivia....Strange i thought. So from here we went onto the actual Salt Flats, which because of a fair bit of rain ove the last few days, was more of a shallow lake.

In the middle of the plain was a hotel made entirely of salt. It looked like a normal hotel from the outside, but on the inside it was literally block after block of salt! it was here that we were to have lunch, and then it was a long drive. The salt flats were a bit of a disappointment as in the picutres it looks amazing, but like just said, it was more of a lake than a flat of dried salt. We went back through Uyuni, collected a few more supplies, then headed down south. we got to a mining town, which for the life of me i cannot remember, but it could be cotopia, which is supposedly where some american company has found silver that is meant to rival the amount found in Potosi, and provide 20 years worth of predicted mining. So this place has literally popped up from nowhere, and is full of people who work in the mines hoping to get rich. So it was only a short drive from here to where we were to stay, a small village which i think is there prodominantly for the tourists to stay.

When we arrived, we went to the place we were meant to stay, but our reservation had been taken by someone who got there before us, which was at first kind of bad as there werent many other places to go, and the driver joked in a semi serious way that we may have to sleep in the car! but as luck would have it, we did find somewhere. Wasnt exactly the Hilton, but it had a roof.

13-01-07

Today promised to be another lond day in the car. Usually, i dont travel the best in cars, but i think after having been on so many dodgy bus rides since i got here, it had acclimatised me the road conditions, and i feel pretty good. So first we set off at about 7 to a place called the rock canyon. It is what it sounds like, a canyon with rocks either side. Not the most spetacular thing in the world, but still, it had some pretty cool shapes and colours. From here we headed out to our first lagoon. Again with it being the rainy season the lagoons were feeling it, and werent their best, but we still got to see thousands of Flamingoes, although the little sods wouldnt let you take photos of them as when you went anywhere near them they just walked off, further away from where we were. b******s. Anyway, we didnt stay long here as the smell was pretty bad, and we had to cover a long drive again.

After a brief stop for lunch, the scenery changed drastically. It went from mountainous wetland, to dry desert land. We were driving on a desert called Salvador, after Salvador Daly, and shortly after getting onto the desert we reached the stone tree, which for those who dont know, is the tree that Salvador Daly included in one of his famous paintings. If you look at the photos, you'll see what i mean, then probably go "ahhhhhhh"! Its weird though that he travelled this far out from , well nowhere. we were miles away from anywhere, and he came out here and found this stone that looked like a tree, obviously he had brought his easel, paints and funny lob sided hat, under his arm of course, and painted this thing! anyway, it was pretty cool, but even more fun were the rocks around. I spent most of the time there just messing about "bouldering" about on them, until i found one rock, which i think must be the banos of the cluster, which stunk! so decided if i fell i didnt really know what i was going to fall into, so that was a no no. So from here it was to a red lagoon. So so far i had seen a blue on and now i was getting to see a red one! Ace, well sort of. It was more of a pink lake, that i figured must have been from the Flamingoes dropping acting like colour dying things. but it was near here we were to stay for the second night. The altitude was a cold 4700metres above sea level, which is about 15,400ft AKA bloody high, and cold at night! but it wasnt so bad as the place we stayed, which i could hardly call a hostel, had an old log burning stove that gave off quite a lot of heat. So i slept pretty well, which was good really considering we had to be up at 3:30 the next morning. Thats 3:30AM!! but it was all for a good cause, which was fine.

14-01-07........Just!

So yeah, by 4am we had got up and were now in the car, again, travelling higher still. The reason we had to get up so early was we were heading towards a geiser at 5100m, which supposedly only went off at sunrise. How it knew when the sun was rising i havent a clue, but still when we got there, just as the sun rose, the ground started to tremble, and all of a sudden this roaring noise came, and the steam from this tiny hole was propelled high into the air, and it stunk!! Just around the corner from here was a load of what the guide called lava. but it was just bubbling mud that had been heated from the volcano. Oh yeah, i forgot to tell you, we were actually in a crater of an active volcano!! So maybe the bubbling mud was actually a form of lava, i dunno! but it was pretty amazing, pretty amazing, and smelly! so after the sun rose, we headed down to get our breakfast, which as silly as it sounds, it was only 6:30, so was still early in my books.

The place we stopped at for breakfast was right next to a lake with a natural hot spring, so loads of people were sat in it with their bathing suits (Get me being all formal) enjoying the warmth. I wasnt going in, as the silly plonkers didnt realise that as soon as you come out the "hotness" of the springs you are greeted by the coldness of the altitude in the morning, which doesnt really act as an incentive for me to jump in, so i just sat inside the place, with a nice hot cup of tea watching them all come out of the pool, and freezing their bits off!! he he.

After Breakfast we were to head to our final lagoon, which was a green one!! lol, but was by far the most beautiful of them all, and had a nice backdrop of a 6000m volcano behind, plus there werent any flamingoes, so the air was pretty nice smelling. i know i keep going on about it, but flamingoes stink! they may look nice and pretty, but the really do stink. Anyway, from here we had to drop two of the guys from our group off, the two dutch people, as they were going into Chile from here, instead of back to Uyuni.

When we got to the border it was just one guy in a hut with a barrier, thats it. Oh yeah, and if you look at the photos, two buses, on with people getting on ( the chilian side) the other a burnt out reck ( on the bolivina side) thats it. Then from here we had a very long 8 hour drive back up to uyuni. Thats one thing that i may have mentioned before, but it still amazes me that bolivia is twice the size of france. i thought it was only going to be a small country, but i guess i was wrong!

So after about 3 hours of driving we went through this small village that when we tried to get out of it, we were greeted by a blockade of villagers who had put rocks in the river where the road went through, and then stood in front of them. Supposedly the villagers were going to have a new road built for them on the other side of the village, which you would initially think a good thing, although this created a problem for them as the relyied on the tourists coming through and buying convenience goods from them. so if this road was built, they would get the tourists by-passing them. So everyone on the tour had to get out the cars in the pouring rain, and sign this potition.