The Salt Flats

12th May

A. The Team and our 4x4

We finally made it to Uyuni in the south of Bolivia after an unscheduled two day stop off in the rail town of Oruro. We did not see much of the town as we were both confined to the safety of our ensuite room with another bout of the sour apple quick step. With plenty of bog roll to hand we decided to brave the train journey to Uyuni as the next train did not leave for another two days. We arrived in the middle of the night to the bitterly cold town, and along with the other 30 or so gringos that got off the train, traipsed round every hotel in the Lonely Planet trying to find a bed for the night. Lucky we were picked up by a tour operator looking to earn a quick buck from hotels by bringing them guests, he found us a room in a hotel we would have never found in a million years.

B. Alex on the salt

Although the place was no palace we fell asleep immediately only to be woken in the night by some girl having a screaming match with the owner at about 5am, Graham got up to tell them to shut up, they seemed to be having a disagreement over the £1.25 a person it cost to stay there.

After a days rest we were ready for the first day of our 3 day 4x4 trip of the Salar de Uyuni and the national reserve that surrounds it. In the office we met up with the first of our party, Sven from Sweden who´d packed his rucksack with only the bare essentials; enough beer, wine, cigarettes, and hard liquor to see him through the the 3 days. In the Toyota Land Cruiser waiting out side we met the others, a German guy and a Danish couple, Graham later realised it was the very same couple he had told to shut up the night before! Our driver was also our cook, guide and mechanic.

C. Alex doing some power lifting

We headed out of town and to the edge of the Salar, a flat expanse of white salt that stretches for 12000 square Kms. Millions of years ago the sea was pushed up by the movement of tectonic plates and formed a salt lake, that over time evaporated leaving behind a thick crust of salt that looks more like an Arctic landscape. We had a brief stop at a town that processed the salt on the edge of the lake before heading across to the Isla de Pescado. The island in the middle of the flat white ice like landscape was covered in giant cacti, some of them were over 10 meters tall and when you think that they only grow about 1cm every year you get an idea of now old they were. The islands rock was covered in a thick layer of fossilised coral and with Boliva´s only active volcano in the background, was a very surreal sight. Being surrounded by whiteness gave a lack of perspective enabling us to play camera tricks such as creating pictures of us balancing the jeep in the palm of our hand. We reached the other side of the salt lake where we spent the first night. Our accommodation was in the Salt Hotel, the building and most of the furniture comprised of square blocks of salt with more salt scattered over the floor, it was unexpectedly one of the warmest hotels we had stayed in for some time.

D. View from Isla de Pescado

On day two we sat in our car and watched all the other groups disappearing off, after 30 minutes we decided we had better go and look for our driver, who as it turned out had loaded us into the car and then taken himself off for a hot shower! Cheeky git.

I guess the guy did have a long days driving ahead of him, in the eight hours driving that day we covered all sorts of terrain. This is the perfect place to film a 4x4 advert, we sped over desolate volcanic plateaus and boulder fields, the driver picking his own path. The highlights of the day included mind boggling wind shaped rock formations, flamingos wading through mineral red lagoons and incredible canyons. That night the accommodation was a little more basic and a lot colder, outside it dropped to -20 and we were in what was not much more than an outhouse. Unfortunately the Danes had not brought sleeping bags, so it was their turn for a sleepless night... Sweet Justice.

E. Inside the Salt Hotel

The next day was an early start to the volcanic field and to see a steaming geezer before the sun came up and the air pressure changed. At the next site sulphurous pools of volcanic mud bubbled away, this was our highest point on the trip at 5000m, and with the wind chill we didn´t hang around for too long. We didn`t know what to anticipate from the thermal pools that were next on the itinerary. When we arrived the setting was beautiful, with a steaming pool in a stream overlooking a lake that reflected the snow capped volcanoes above but there was no shelter from the biting wind. Getting in wouldn´t be the problem, getting out would be hellish. I, unlike Graham, had had the foresight to put my swimming gear on in the morning so was first in. It was heaven as my feet started to thaw out for the first time since the day before. We headed over to the Chillian boarder were we dropped half of the group that were continuing south. On the way we passed another lagoon, this time green with a perfectly symmetrical volcano on it´s shore and the Dali Rocks that looked, from afar, like grazing dinosaurs. We had been experiencing a strange rubber smell for some time and as the driver pulled over the problem revealed itself. The front wheel was bent at a peculiar angle. Christopher our driver donned his overall and dismantled the front axle and other concerned drivers stopped to offer advise. At this point as we stood in the freezing wind we recalled the tale we had been told by a Danish guy in the hotel about his friend that had to have his leg amputated after leaving his stricken jeep and going to find help. Never stray from the car the old man warned. Eek! After 2 hours of Sven entertaining us with tales of his Brazilian ex-girlfriend and her sleazy dog that liked to join them in bed, Christopher had the wheel back on straight minus the brake. After our delay we headed back on the long route to Uyuni. We fell asleep to be awoken by half the roof rack crashing onto the bonnet. Our driver who we started to realise was a little short sighted, had miss judged his speed and driven full pelt into a dry river bed. This as it turned out was just the beginning. In the middle of the night, approaching the lights of Uyuni the combination of no brakes, short sightedness and an unknown road block had exciting consequences. Christopher had to swerve into the fields in the pitch black to avoid the 4 ft piles of earth the someone had deposited across the road. The only warning was a small line of stones about three feet before the earth.Christopher seemed convinced this was a one off. However Alex and I sat with our eyes glue to the road but even our warning shouts of PARE, PARE (stop!) didn´t stop us exiting the road a further three times. After the fourth block Christopher decided to take the cross country route to town as it seemed safer. We later discovered these were protest blockades over petrol prices and that they had been placed all over the roads north of Uyuni. Thank god we were heading south!

F. Graham having a high altitude climb

G. One of the extinct volcanoes

H. Isn´t volcanic mud Brilliant!!!