I was already awake before the alarm went off at 6.30am. My head was pounding and I am not sure if it is the altitude or the glass of red wine I treated myself to last night. I took a migraine tablet and hoped for the best. It was going to be a long day! I crammed the rest of my things into my already overflowing backpack. I really need to lose some more stuff, but what? I have been through it all so many times and need everything i have as we are now back in the cold climate and I need to layer up, and will do until we hit Columbia. I make a promise to myself to get rid of some more stuff by the time we leave Peru next month.
A minibus arrives to take us to the Chile/Bolivia border where we will pass through immigration and check out of Chile which takes about 2 hours, and into Bolivia which takes about 2 minutes!!! There we will meet our jeep which will carry us on our 3 day tour from San Pedro de Atacama, Chile through to Uyuni, Bolivia. There are 6 of us in total, 2 guys from Denmark, Jacob and Morten and a couple from Chile/America, and Nicola and myself. As we go through border control to leave Chile, it seems that the american girl has not got the appropriate visa required and is denied access across the border. We all feel so bad for the couple as they pack up their belongings and head back into San Pedro, their dreams of Uyuni over for now. So we find ourselves down to just the 4 of us as we carry on to the Frontera Hito Cajon (Bolivia Border control) to meet our jeep and guide Wilson.
Wilson is a fun guy, he does not speak any english really but we manage in our broken spanish. We stay at the border, which consists of a small building in the middle of the desert, and a table is set up next to the jeep, with bread rolls, dulce de leche, ham, cheese, yogurt and tea and coffee. I was then offered coca leaves to try which help with the altitude sickness. I gratefully accepted and made some tea from them which I forced down as they tasted like the smell of old grass cuttings. We said our goodbyes to our minibus driver as we headed off into the desert.
Our first stop was the white lagoon which was absolutely breathtaking!!! I did not imagine Bolivia to look like this at all. A backdrop of snow capped mountains, embraced by a lake, so still the reflection was as clear as glass. To complete this image of perfection laid out before us, a lone flamingo moves gracefully through the shallows searching for food in the early morning sun.
Next stop, the green lagoon.
A quick stop at the Dali Rock desert. It was so interesting to be looking at the scene that Dali looked at when he got the ideas for his paintings. I could almost see the long legged elephants walking by and hear the clocks ticking...
We then moved on to Chalviry lagoon and Polques hot springs, where visitors could soak themselves in the warm mineral waters.
The Morning Sun Geiser Basin was the next stop, where we could smell the angry odour of sulphur bubbling up through the boiling mud, while thick bellows of steam were spewed out from deep within the ground below us. We heard stories of people who had fallen into these holes and were extra careful to keep our distance as there is no way anyone could survive these temperatures!!
After making a quick detour to drop our bags at the hostel and have a spot of lunch, which was mashed potato and hot dog sausages, we carried on to the Red lagoon with flamingos. I could now see how the flamingos got their colour. The rich copper deposits stained the water the colour of blood. We stayed for a while watching the flamingos going about their daily business, which mainly consisted of finding food in the waters they made their home.
Back at the hostel in the desert, which was to be our home for the night, the four of us played cards and drank hot tea as we waited for the sun to disappear and dinner to be served. This consisted of left over sausage from lunch transformed into a salad. I filled up on the soup served beforehand and as the temperature dropped to freezing, made my way to bed to keep warm!
The next morning we packed our bags back into the jeep and made our way into the national park, passing alpacas and llamas along the way. Our first stop was to see some unusual stone formations which we could climb upon. The most unusual being the Stone Tree.
The rest of the day was spent visiting the Highland lagoons, Honda, Chearcota, Hedionda and Canapa.
We then arrived at the Hostel de Sal (Puerto Chubica) and gratefully soaked ourselves in a hot shower and played more cards whilst once again waiting for dinner. Tonight we were spoilt and feasted on hot soup followed by fried chicken and chips and a bottle of wine. I had another really bad migraine today so steered clear of the vino.
The final and most exciting day of our tour was upon us as we made our way to the Uyuni salt flats! We visited the Railway and Train Cemetery on the way which was a collection of old steam engines and parts of trains left in the desert top rust and rot away. I believe in their time they were used to transport minerals across the border to Chile. Some pieces have been transformed into swings and a see saw and we had fun playing around until Wilson had fixed the flat tyre on the jeep!
The moment we had all been waiting for had finally come, and as we approached the salt flats we all smiled and looked in awe at the vast expanse of 12 km of pure white salt in every direction as far as the eye could see!!! On closer inspection though tainted only by the odd yellow patch where people had left their mark!
We set off to onto the salt to put the many ideas we had discussed for pictures into motion. Trying to think up new variations as we went along!
We had soon built up an appetite and headed back to the jeep for lunch which Wilson had prepared and consisted of chicken milanese, with pasta and vegetables. The tyre on the jeep had gone flat again already, so after lunch we headed back out to take some more pictures while we waited for Wilson to fix it.
The tyre now fixed, we took one last look at the whiteness laid out before us and made our way to the town of Uyuni to catch our bus to Sucre.
Uyuni was not really a very interesting place, mainly only a stop for the tourists and people working on the salt flats. We walked around the market for a while and waited until it was time for our bus!
After 12 hours on a very uncomfortable bus we arrived in Sucre. We had to change bus halfway through the night and were left waiting in the cold, while to our surprise our bus then drove around the block and came back, with the driver calling "Sucre" we all loaded our luggage back on and were left wondering what that was all about!!!
As we arrived at 6.30am there was nothing open and we had not pre booked any accommodation, we pulled the lonely planet out and picked a hostel and got the taxi to take us there. This hostel was full as were the next couple. We persevered and eventually found a couple of rooms in Hostel Libertad. This was cheap at £14 per room with cable tv and 2 double beds separate fridge and lounge and bathroom!! Luxury for us!! We booked 3 nights and crashed out for a while and later went to explore the town and get some food. I really need to relax for a while here and there is nothing I am really interested in that I want to spend money on as I have worked out I spent over £2000 in March alone and probably the same in February. I really need to cut back on the spending, so am just going to hang out in the town and enjoy a rest here before we hit La Paz!!
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