Mountains, Snow, Dust, Deserts, rocks and Salt

  Uyuni, Bolivia
Saturday, May 20, 2006

From the Iguazu falls we headed off to Salta in Argentina´s Northwest. This was a 26 hour bus ride which we were glad to see the back of. Salta turned out to be a great little town. We´d only planned to stay one night but ended up staying four. The hostel we chose had a lot to do with this! Cosy rooms, lovely rooftop terrace including bar and restaurant, friendly staff who had us play soccer with them on two occasions (once after midnight!!!) and they also hosted their very own meat feast BBQ!!! I was a happy carnivorous backpacker! Fortunately the hostel´s chef cooked up some delicious veggie options for those less carnivorous backpackers i.e.. Katie!

While in Salta we sampled various tasty restaurants including a great vego place and an excellent Italian place which we attended twice respectively. Also we made pigs of ourselves (well I did anyway) at a yummy middle eastern restaurant. We also had a good night out at a Simpson´s themed bar called ¨Barney Gomez¨.

The town had some beautiful old architecture and a large hill with the obligatory statue of Christ overlooking the town. Katie and I walked up the hill one day to get some exercise and to check out the view. The following day Katie, Ryan and Dave (a mate we made at the hostel) did the same walk again while I caught up on some e-mailing.

Though Salta was lovely, we needed to move on to dustier pastures. Bolivia was next. A five hour bus ride took us to the border town of La Quiaca. Crossing a bridge and passing through Argentina´s and then Bolivia´s immigration we found ourselves in Bolivia´s border town, Villazon. We had decided to take the train to our next port of call, Tupiza. After waiting a while to buy tickets an official announced that there were no train tickets left. So Ryan and I rushed down to the bus station to purchase some bus tickets for us while Katie looked after the bags in the train station. After successfully buying bus tickets, Ryan and I made our way back to the train station to collect the bags and Katie, only to be stopped by two plain clothed ¨policemen¨. They insisted that we accompany them to their ¨office¨ for a drug search. When they attempted to get us into a car we knew it was time to get out of there. It was as easy as saying ¨no!¨ firmly, turning and walking away. The dodgy coppers didn´t even try to stop us. Welcome to Bolivia!

Note: Beware fellow travellers. This is a common scam. There are no plain clothed police in Bolivia that deal with travellers.

With that behind us we got back to the train station to find that there were, in fact, plenty of seats left on the train! So instead of bumping into our friendly ¨policeman¨ again we forked out (so cheap here!!) and bought train tickets to Tupiza.

Once in Tupiza we had to arrange our four wheel driving adventure to Bolivia´s famed Salt Flats. After a bit of searching around we found a suitable tour company and set off the following day.

The tour was a four day, three night four wheel drive adventure. Ryan, Katie and myself were assigned a Landcruiser, a driver/guide (Samuel), a cook (Matilda) and two other traveling companions (Brian and Sivan) who had to put up with us for the next three nights.

The first day was a long one with lots of driving and even more Llamas. Not only did we see plenty of these funny creatures, who stroll around almost arrogantly, we also got to taste them. After winding our way through the mountains (pretty freaky) we stopped for lunch where we chowed down on sandwiches and Tamales. Tamales are commonly found parcels of rice, corn and meat. In our case it was dried Llama meat. Good stuff. The only real action for the day was dropping in on the town where Butch Kassidy and the Sundance Kid met their demise. We visited the cemetery where they were once buried before the US government allegedly removed them and whacked them in a museum somewhere in the States. Exciting stuff!

Our overnight accommodation was ´basic´ and it got pretty cold at night but we coated ourselves in blankets and sleeping bags which helped.

The second day we drove to an amazing old ruined city which had been abandoned some 25 years earlier (by the inhabitants of the town where we´d spent the previous night) due to a belief that the Devil had entered the town and decided to call it home. Spooky stuff!

Next we drove on to the natural hot springs (Aguas Termales) of Quetena Chica where we braved the cold outside wind and dunked ourselves in the 30 degree plus waters. It was our first bath/shower of the trip. Nice.

After lunch we drove past the ´Rocks of Salvador Dali´. Beautiful desert landscapes with large eroded rock formations which did indeed look like something out of a Dali painting. We didn´t get close enough to take any decent photos though. Next stop was Laguna Verde or the Green Lake. It´s name told no lies! Quite spectacular. Our last sight for the day were some Geysers. These bubbling mud pools reminded me of Rotorua and we were able to get pretty close....not sure if this was a good thing or not.

That night we stayed in a town called Huayllajara (ooayeyahara or some such tricky pronunciation) and after getting to bed at 9pm we were permitted to sleep in until 6am. The previous mornings start was 5am. So we set off and arrived at a large lake which was home to thousands upon thousands of Flamingoes. I took way too many bad photos of them and so will only bore you with the better one/s. Quite an amazing scene in general though.

Next was the Arbol de Piedra (Tree of Stone). I´ll let the photos explain that one.

After driving past numerous lakes and yet more flamingoes we arrived at a viewing point of a large and active volcano. More amazing than the volcano itself was the hardened lava formations surrounding the volcano for miles from an eruption ages ago.

That night we were to stay in a town called San Juan which had an interesting museum with information about the area and its people. Also not far from the town was its ancient Necropolis (cemetery) which housed a bunch of mummies in old rock formations. Most of which had lost their mummy clothes and where merely freaky skulls and bones.

The final day started at 4.30am. This is what we had come for! The mighty Salt Flats. Driving through the dark we arrived on the flats and drove to a spot where there was a small lake and waited there for the sunrise. There´s really no way to describe the scene when the sun started coming up and I doubt the photos will do it justice but check it out anyway. Just beautiful. The colours and landscape was perfectly reflected off the still water.

After mucking around with silhouette photos for a while we drove through the immense vastness of the Salt Flats. It´s such a foreign and amazingly beautiful landscape. A long time ago the flats were a huge salt lake which now, obviously, has dried up.

Next we were headed to an ´Island´ called ´Fisherman´s Island´ in the middle of the Flats. I suppose there was once good fishing from this Island. We arrived and had breakfast and then went off to explore. This crazy place was completely covered with cactus. The largest of which was 12.3 metres high and 1203 years old!!

Leaving ´Fisherman´s Island´ in our wake we headed to a Hotel that was built on the Salt Flats constructed entirely out of Salt. Interesting place.

Finally we stopped by the area where the salt is collected for treatment and eventually sold and consumed. Looking at the Flats one would imagine that Bolivia certainly has sufficient salt to supply the entire world with their salty needs but amazingly Bolivia does not export any of its salt to other countries and instead has chosen to maintain the flats as the natural wonderland that it is. Good on you Bolivia!!!!!

Finally we were dropped in Uyuni. No sooner had we arrived, we were keen to leave. Not much to keep us there except a good pizza restaurant called Minuteman!! Next stop is Potosi.