Uyuni via Laguna Verde, Laguna Colorado, De Salar

Trip Start Jan 26, 2000
1
13
30
Trip End Jun 14, 2000


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Flag of Bolivia  ,
Thursday, April 13, 2000

April 9th. San Pedro in Chile to Uyuni in Bolivia. After my 2:30am stumble home, the last thing I wanted to hear was my alarm ringing at 7:30. It was the start of a 3 day tour through what promised to be some truly unique scenery. Day 1 and our tour started with us meeting the rest of our fellow passengers. There were 12 of us leaving altogether in 2 4WD vehicles. In our truck we had 2 Belgium girls, Sabine and Barbara, an Alaskan, Alec and a Spaniard, Miguel. It turned out to be a fun group of people and we had lots of laughs on the way. After ascending to out highest point, 5000M, we started passing lagunas which were so calm you could see the reflection of huge imposing mountain in them, absolutely fantastic. After a short time we arrived at Laguna Verde. This stunning lake at an incredible green appearance, apparently caused by lead, sulphur and calcium carbonates. Behind the green of the lake towered the huge conical Volcan Licancabur. Sol Del Maņana was our next stopping point and besides a few fumeroles the main interest were the bubbling mud holes, with many differing colours of mud, the steam, the smells of the sulphur and the 'hells kitchen' like bubbling noises all around it was a unique experience(I'm sorry for over use of the word 'unique', but that's the way it is!). The rest of the day was spend driving through arid mountainous landscape, past salt lakes until we arrived at Laguna Colorado where we were to spend our first night. At 4278m the altitude gave most of the group headaches and one of the ladies was throwing up. Laguna Colorado was a rich red colour, caused by the alga and plankton which reside in the water. The laguna was home to thousands of flamingos, which was a bit of a surprise to me as I thought flamingos likes warm tropical waters.
Day 2 was spend going through similar landscape to the previous day, small desert villages and military checkpoints. One of the most notable features were some strange rock formations which stood alone on sand in the middle of nowhere, the most remarkable of which was Arbol De Piedra, a structure which resembled a tree.
Day 3 and our last day. Just when we though things couldn't get much better we arrived at the Salar De Uyuni, at over 12,000sq miles this salt plain was one third the size of Belgium! After driving for about an hour over this pristine white expanse we arrives at an island, Isla Del Pescadores. All we could see for miles around was white with the blue sky up above and away on the horizon we could just see the tops of the surrounding mountains. The salar itself used to be a huge inland sea about 10,000 years ago. The island we arrived at in the middle of this sea of salt was scattered with the kind of cactus that typifies Hollywood westerns. It was an amazing island in and equally amazing setting and we spend a few hours here just wandering around.
Uyuni was where our tour finished, it was a dirty dusty town with it's only endearing quality being the friendly indigenous people who had a habit of staring at us gringos and laughing quietly to themselves. It was a huge change to come from westernised Chile to a very culturally different Bolivia where the old women with their weather beaten faces wore brightly coloured clothing and bowler hats! - it was almost as if they were on their way to some important business meeting in the heart of London!
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