The southwest of Bolivia cradles one of it´s show pieces, and tourist trap and all, and i wasn´t going to miss it. The biggest salt lakes and deposits in the world - well, that sits that far up high, like the nearly the whole rest of the country. I get to Uyuni, the town, book myself a seat on a 4x4 and wait for the convoy which was to come the following day and last 3 days while circling the Salar.
First day went racing through the salt lake itself, passing the salt factory, salt hotel and continuing the blinding drive to an island of cacti in the middle of it all, to lunch on llama steak. It was splendid, reminiscent of an endless desert yet looking like snow. I took note of a french woman, Marlene, on my boat and took a liking to her since we agreed to share on our first night a cheap, but not so bad red, one of only 2 bottles that we found in our village on our first night. (But more than that, the following morning i heard her mumbling to herself excepts from the monty python´s holy grail, accent and all, and i knew we´d get along.) We tossed the bottled down in the open air, albeit quite chilly, with 2 other youngsters from the north east of the states, looking at the beautiful clear night sky and the billions of stars it was blessing us with. You could say we were merry.
The following day, we passed by volcanoes, lakes of various colours and mountains (cerros de 7 colores) of pink and blue and green etc, similar in fact to the crazy coloured mountains in the north of Argentina. We were got to the 4, 450m altitude. The terrain desert like but not. We reach a lake that´s rusty red from the mineral deposits and in awe took millions of photos of the pink flamingoes going about their business there. By the end of the day however, Emily had been flamingoed out. We also spotted vacuña (they´re related to the llama), and long tailed rabbits which brought our driver to a halt, got out of the car and started chasing some of them, in vain of course cos they were too fast. We´ll need dinner, he said...
That night we resided in a place near the lake of the flamingoes, in army barracks looking place. Facilities were basic but the tucker was good. We got up at 5am the next day to see the sunrise first at the geysers, the hot sulfuric springs that lay 5000m high. It was freezing, in fact, only me and frenchy got out of the car to run around and take photos of ourselves and the brilliant sun on the red earth. An hour later, we arrived to a lake which had hot springs and i was one of the few that dipped my freezing arse into that hot bath of delight with 2 of the few aussies i´ve managed to meet and like, Brendon and Rob from Perth. A few more sights were left on the itinerary and then began the long trek back to town.
915 km was the drive around the Salar of Uyuni, not that long by australian standards but the colours of the earth, the mountains, the bleeding white salt, the red, brown, orange, grey and green earth, spotted with lakes similarly coloured - green, red, orange, even blue. It was wonderful and wonderous, despite all the dust i ate, the bumps on the uncealed roads, our flat tyres and lack of showers.
Back in town Marlene and i stuffed our faces with hamburgers off the street before having a hot shower and booking our tickets together to go to Tupiza, south of Bolivia, since we were both needing to get out of the country (visa etc). More on that later.
First day went racing through the salt lake itself, passing the salt factory, salt hotel and continuing the blinding drive to an island of cacti in the middle of it all, to lunch on llama steak. It was splendid, reminiscent of an endless desert yet looking like snow. I took note of a french woman, Marlene, on my boat and took a liking to her since we agreed to share on our first night a cheap, but not so bad red, one of only 2 bottles that we found in our village on our first night. (But more than that, the following morning i heard her mumbling to herself excepts from the monty python´s holy grail, accent and all, and i knew we´d get along.) We tossed the bottled down in the open air, albeit quite chilly, with 2 other youngsters from the north east of the states, looking at the beautiful clear night sky and the billions of stars it was blessing us with. You could say we were merry.
The following day, we passed by volcanoes, lakes of various colours and mountains (cerros de 7 colores) of pink and blue and green etc, similar in fact to the crazy coloured mountains in the north of Argentina. We were got to the 4, 450m altitude. The terrain desert like but not. We reach a lake that´s rusty red from the mineral deposits and in awe took millions of photos of the pink flamingoes going about their business there. By the end of the day however, Emily had been flamingoed out. We also spotted vacuña (they´re related to the llama), and long tailed rabbits which brought our driver to a halt, got out of the car and started chasing some of them, in vain of course cos they were too fast. We´ll need dinner, he said...
That night we resided in a place near the lake of the flamingoes, in army barracks looking place. Facilities were basic but the tucker was good. We got up at 5am the next day to see the sunrise first at the geysers, the hot sulfuric springs that lay 5000m high. It was freezing, in fact, only me and frenchy got out of the car to run around and take photos of ourselves and the brilliant sun on the red earth. An hour later, we arrived to a lake which had hot springs and i was one of the few that dipped my freezing arse into that hot bath of delight with 2 of the few aussies i´ve managed to meet and like, Brendon and Rob from Perth. A few more sights were left on the itinerary and then began the long trek back to town.
915 km was the drive around the Salar of Uyuni, not that long by australian standards but the colours of the earth, the mountains, the bleeding white salt, the red, brown, orange, grey and green earth, spotted with lakes similarly coloured - green, red, orange, even blue. It was wonderful and wonderous, despite all the dust i ate, the bumps on the uncealed roads, our flat tyres and lack of showers.
Back in town Marlene and i stuffed our faces with hamburgers off the street before having a hot shower and booking our tickets together to go to Tupiza, south of Bolivia, since we were both needing to get out of the country (visa etc). More on that later.
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