The cold of night and the comfort of Ron
Trip Start
Apr 09, 2008
1
20
115
Trip End
Apr 19, 2009
Uyuni,
Bolivia
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
The woke up again later in the morning and outside of my room was a friend I had met in Potosi one member of two couples, we had planned to all get the tour together so along with a girl I had met on the bus the six of us signed up for the tour. It seemed to take ages to actually leave we managed to cram in food shopping and breakfast. The most notable purchases were a bottle of Ron (Spanish for Rum) and coke each.
The first day was on the Salt flats proper (I just stole some photos they are on my facebook profile under photo's of me taken by others, and I will hadmore soon) you can have some great fun with perspective as you will see
The Flats
. The whole landscape looks alien like the moon or something. It is just incredible it feels wierd just walking around or sitting down to lunch. We went to fish island which has no fish and isn't really an island, apparantly it looks like a fish from the air. There is some climbing to be had and huge cacti all over. That night the ron came into play. We played cards and things with the french boys from the other van. It was absolutely hilarious everyone got really into "Doug's crazy word game", a variation of shirades taught to me in Sucre, it got quite heated. It was so cold though. Because we had more Ron than coke we used the coffee provided as a vehical for the ron, I believe that is called Jamaican. Since then I have been drinking really weak, sweet tea and coffee as long as its not too hot. Some of you will be shocked I know. It is partly the cold and partly the lack of any other drinks! That night and the next one were enorous fun I think because of the comradary and the simplicity of the places we stayed forcing us to appreciated what we had.
The next day started with my first ever dip in a hot spring, an incredible feeling given the absolute freezing temperatures outside the water. After breakfast (with warm coffee for me) it was into the mountains and some lakes one green one red
Inside the (illegal) salt hotel
. I feel photos are required here so I wont bother describing it all. There was a lot of driving the last two days which meant that I-pods in the jeep were nessesary if only to stop the driver putting on the awful bolivian music that is part of every trip in bolivia from the first train I got to santa Cruzthrough every bus ride to the shops in towns and even hiking in the mountains the music will find you. It is a wierd combination of the pan pipes out of the fast show, bad singing and everything played on a synth keyboard like Ross from friends. (Great artists are only apreciated after thy die!)On the third day we got up early to visit steaming geysers quite impressive again. After that it wasjust a day of driving. We reached 5000 meters about lunch time. Then just outside Uyuni we stopped at the train graveyard a memorial to the now closed Bolivian railway system. I think it was ended just because of money, imagine having to repair train track if the line goes straight over a mountain! That night we had some quite nice pizza and I caught the bus to La Paz. Not a pleasant ride, I didn't get much sleep but my walkman MP3 was as ever a great comfort at night when sleep is not an option.
Next stop La Paz
Comments
Nice!
Looks like you have met some great traveling buddies! It's always cool how many new people you can meet by traveling alone.
Louise Brown
TravelPod Community Manager