Farewell Chile, Hola Bolivia!

Hi all

Before I go on, I want to wish my dad a happy birthday. He and my mother have just returned from a trip to Nepal and Tibet. My dad wanted to visit Everest Base Camp for his 60th, which they accomplished.
You can see where I get my travelling bug from, hey?
Love you lots guys!

Back to it.

Well we said goodbye to Chile last week, and did it in style. We paid 70,000 CLP each to Cordillera Tours for the trip of a life-time across the border into Bolivia, and passing through awe-inspiring Eduardo Avaroa Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina, and finishing off with the world's biggest Salt Flat - the Salar de Uyuni.

I'll format this blog a bit differently. Loads of text, followed by all the pics. The pics just deserve to be on their own. They can speak for themselves.

The trip takes three days, and the only way to do it is via a tour company. We were picked up at 8am from our hostel (Hostel Iquisa) in a mini-van and, after picking up the rest of our party, we quickly ascended to 4200m, behind Volcan Licancabur to enter Bolivia (check the picture of their immigration office.. very basic). This was the first point that the surrealness of the area hit us. We saw sea gulls around the office. Yep. Sea gulls. I've no idea what they were doing at such an altitude, and also when the driest desert in the world is between them and the coast, but I guess that just shows how successful gulls in general are as a species.

Once that's done, you are allocated a 4WD (all Toyota Landcruisers, and LOTS of them as other companies also do the run) and spend the next six hours or so passing through the first section of the park. In total, there were eight of us on this tour with this particular company, and we were split into two groups of four. The French and Spanish couples (Julien, Melanie, Miguel and Sonja) in the first truck, and Fran, myself, Dave and Carla (both English) in the second jeep. We had wolf stickers on the side of ours, so we knew ours was the cooler jeep.
We had also been warned that the drivers were frequently drunk, stoned, or exhausted, and the jeeps were quite often in rough shape so we were quite nervous as to the composition of our driver and his fourbee! Luckily, we had okay fortune with both.
Our driver introduced himself at the beginning, and we quickly forgot his name. It was definitely something Quechan or Spanish or just foreign, and we didn't find out what it was until two days later when we asked the other driver in our convoy.
"Richard" was apparently his name. Didn't sound like Richard when he said it.

That first day we visited Laguna Verde (Green Lagoon), hot springs, geysers, and finished off at Laguna Colorada (Red Lagoon). At this point I'll interject and just state that it has been a dream of mine to visit Laguna Colorada for about 10 years, so getting to this point was a massive highlight for me. It's incredibly surreal to be in a desert-like landscape, not be roasting, and have the lakes covered in ice.
None of us eight attempted the hot springs, simply because we knew how painful it would be when we got out. Sure it might be warm in there, but hell, I'd probably still have the goose-bumps from getting out if we'd tried it.

At our "hotel" for the night, we met a great little kid named Oscar, who was five, and had the most infectious laugh ever. No matter what you did, he would find funny and would launch into a fit of giggles. Fran has some face-warping software on her phone, and she took a picture of him, and then showed him how he'd look with all sorts of weird features, which he absolutely loved.
Lunch and dinner that day was incredible. Our host (the first glimpse of a "Bolivian" woman - bowler hat, long skirt, woolen jersey etc) cooked us very tasty meals and we prepared for bed on very full stomachs.
Some of us had headaches from the altitude, but no one had any serious problems.

That night, we were all dreading, as we'd heard that the accomodation was BASIC and the temperature regularly dropped to minus 15 degrees.
I layered up in:
-Thermal top and long johns
-singlet
-long-sleeve top
-fleece
-another fleece
-sleeping bag liner
-sleeping bag!
-four thick blankets.
And I was still cold.
I don't think it actually got down to minus 15. It was about minus 5 or minus 10 or thereabouts. Still farking cold!!

Early the next morning after breakfast, we visited Laguna Colorada itself. It's amazing colour is due to blooms of algae and red sediment (most likely iron deposits), which then attract large flocks of flamingoes. It's very weird seeing such tropical looking birds at 4278m amsl!
We spent about half an hour there, walking along the shore, taking lots and lots and lots of pictures, before driving to our next stop El Arbol de Piedra (The Stone Tree). A very strange rock that sits in the middle of the Desierto Siloli, it was formed by wind and water aeons ago; it's very Dali-esque. The remainder of the afternoon sees you visiting the Three Lakes: Chearcota, Hedionda, and Cañapa, and also driving past Volcán Ollagüe. Another very active volcano at 5868m asml. This stretch of the Andes is known as the Central Volcanic Zone, so this should give you an idea of how many volcanoes are about the area.

On the way to our accomodation that night, and very luckily, on a flat stretch of road, the back left rim snapped off, and the tyre pushed it's way half-way off the wheel. This caused the 4WD to start fishtailing, which got progressively worse after each swerve. We were also mere feet away from a ditch, going at pace, so if we hit it, we would've rolled and rolled and rolled. Seat belts are non-existant down here by the way.
Luckily Richard controlled the vehicle superbly, and we managed to get back on the road after about 15 minutes repair work (where we found out the spare we'd been carrying was completely the wrong size, meaning we drove with different size tyres).

That night, we stayed at a "Salt Hotel", about an hours drive from the money-shot of the trip - the Salar de Uyuni. The only place that offered hot showers, which we all took greedily. ALthough the air in the hotel was bitterly cold. If you were an inch away from the stream of hot water, you froze. The air also dries your skin out something fierce! So come prepared if you're in the area.

The following day was the big one. The Salar de Uyuni. The largest Salt Flat on planet earth, at a massive 10.5k square kilometers . Nothing prepares you for the sheer size, the sheer FLATness of this once huge lake. Whatever picture you see will never do it justice. The scale is mind-boggling. When we drove to an "island" in the centre of the flat, the size of distant mountains just did not change after about half an hour at pace. Whereas other stops on the trip elicited loads of "oohs and ahhs", we were all in awed silence for the Salar.

Quick fact here - the Salar de Uyuni is obviously a remnant of a massive lake. BUT that lake is itselft a remnant of an enormous lake that stretched from the Salar all the way to Lake Titicaca (in essense, covering the entire altiplano). It's name was Lake Ballivián. When this giant of a lake dried, it left two smaller (but still huge) lakes: Titicaca and Minchin. Titicaca is still around, but Minchin dried up, leaving two current lakes (Lago Poopó and Lago Uru Uru) and also leaving behind the Salar.

Of course, we had to stop and take pictures of us doing silly poses and jumps as is so common on the flats. This is where the compact cameras rule. The depth of field required for such shots just isn't possible on an SLR, especially a full frame one like the 5D. The 40D fared better, but not by much. So be warned photogs who come here. Bring a G10 or something similar as backup!

We then visited Isla Incahuasi, which is covered in cactus and offers superb 360 degree views of the flats. Here we had our lunch and I opted to walk out into the salt flats and eat on my own. It´s pretty surreal to be sat in the middle of nothing, with a china plate eating your lunch at 3660m amsl.

From there we made our way to see the illegal salt hotel, and we took more crazy pictures.
We saw people mining the salt here too. At this altitude, it´s damn hard work. We asked one guy how long he worked for per day and he said just two hours. Then his mate told us to go away. Fair enough!

So we finished off in Uyuni, and said goodbye to our friends. We´d heard some pretty negative things about Uyuni (that there´s not much going for it), but we were pretty surprised. It´s a nice town, and if you want to relax after the trip, it´s a good place for it. But it gets COLD at night! God damn.

On our second night in Uyuni, we two hired a driver to go back to the Flats to watch a sunset. And dear God, I´m glad we did! If the Salar on it´s own is incredible, seeing it reflecting the colours of the sky at sunset is like nothing else I´ve ever experienced. Easily one of the BEST moments of the entire trip, if not THE best.

From there we made our way to Potosi - the world´s highest city, at 4060m amsl. We´ve found a gem of a hostel here as well, that has hot showers, awesome pressure, private ensuite, a TV with cable and a comfy bed! Just as well, as Fran has been quite sick the past few days, so this is a perfect place for her to recover.

Anyway, I´ll finish here. Not too much detail I don´t think (compared to other posts!) as Bolivian internet is a bit slow (which is understandable) - I´ve been uploading pics for the past 4 days!.

I hope everyone is well, and those in the UK enjoying the start of a good summer.

Much love
Adam

And before I forget, remember more pics are in my Smugmug galleries

Immigration into Bolivia! Basic

Laguna Verde

Altiplano desert

That´s our jeep there. Forgot where this was, but the scenery was brilliant

Natural geysers

Little Oscar with his wonderful smile

The deepest part of Laguna Colorada is 80cm, meaning lots of nice reflections

Laguna Colorada

Take off! Flamingo at Laguna Colorada. I took a lot of shots of these birds. Aching for the 500 f/4!

More Flamingoes

The stone tree. Really surreal!

Laguna Chearcota

Red Fox

Laguna Hedionda

Forgot which lake this one.. I think it´s Laguna Hedionda

Self portrait

Busted car

Me and Dave contemplate what to do to our busted car. It´s probably the alternater

Driving onto the Salt Flats!

Air Time!

An overland truck drives past

The view from Isla Incahuasi

Same view

Reflections

Fine dining on the salt flats

Cactus on Isla Incahuasi

Ninjaaaaaiii

Just as the sun went down

Our jeep at sunset

Sunset over the Salar de Uyuni. Can't wait to play with these in PS

Catching our bus to Potosi from Uyuni

Halfway point between Uyuni and Potosi. A very small percentage of Bolivian roads are paved