Bolivia, Salt Flats & High Andes

Due to the current political strikes going on around Bolivia, we could not get the highly recommended train from Oruro to Uyuni, as the protestors had blocked the train tracks. Unfortunately for us that meant the only way down was by bus, something we had heard a lot about and spent a lot of time researching and planning to avoid. But alas it was unavoidable so we forked out a whole US30 each on the newest tourist bus in Bolivia, circa 1980, and made the 10 hour bus trip down to Uyuni. The road was as everyone had described, really really bumpy and not at all comfortable but we did manage to sleep a little despite the ice on the inside of the window and the contents of our stomach rattling.

In Uyuni we met up with Eadine, Ken, Steve and Kelly, who we had met in Cocacabana, to start the Salt Flat Tour. After a fantastic breakfast of pancakes and spiced apple for Adrienne we were on our way, although first stop was the liqour store for a couple of bottles of the wine, either for bribing the driver or consuming if it really was as cold as everyone was saying. Ken and Eadine had kindly booked our tour with a Blueline Tours for us, so we were saved the hustle and bargaining of the early morning tour companies at the bus station. The Salt Flats are amazing, created by the drying up of a prehistoric lake and rewetted many times, leaving the evaporated salt deposits. The final formation being about 40,000 years old. It is the largest salt flat on earth and the flattest place on earth, apparently NASA uses it to calibrate their satellites its that flat. After the salt flat we climbed further into the higher plato to the south of Bolivia where the terrain turned to desert and was extremely cold especially at night. Phil regrets not bringing his puffy jacket as this would have been the 2nd time it would have been cold enough to actually wear it.

Close to the Chilean border we got to 4900+ metres where there were geysers, mud pools, and slightly lower down some hot springs and flamingo filled lagoons. Phil was the only one of our group brave enough to actually get in the hot springs as it involved getting undressed in the subdawn freezing conditions. He waited until the sun rose before he got out. The towel and thermal pants he wore in the hotsprings promptly froze over while we had breakfast. Instead of going back up to Uyuni, we decided to hop off our tour, along with our tour buddies, and go to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. We are so happy we made that decision until we experienced the cash inept town that is San Pedro.