Peacefrog's travel blogs:
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Revolving a day back around the world - From
there I will be one day
younger... and if I can't
get used to the idea,
maybe I'll just have to do
it again the other way...
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Tupiza-Uyuni Trip - Day 2
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For the longest day of the trip, te wake up was at 4.30, thankfully: I had not slept since a 10 minutes nap at 3.30. Same for the others, and big headache for everyone.
The breakfast was "ameliorated" with a pine tree infusion to try fluidify the blood and stop the headache. Don't know if you've tried to chew some pine bark with good sap in it, but I tink this smelled the same. The taste was ok though, and in the end I even liked it. The placebo effet worked for a while too.
After loading the jeep, our fingers were frozen. In the car, the windscreen was frozen, inside. We were freezing. We changed configuration, having three at the front and one at the back, it was more comfortable than 2 and 2, as the back seat was rater cramped. Everybody was feeling sick, another effect of the atitude sickness. Note that in the other car they were all fine, bastards!
So what happened that day? Apart from more chatting and debating and pee stops, we drove through rivers, valleys, plateaux, with incredible colors, a pure blue sky, herds of llamas and other cattle. I had never beem in such HUGE mountains: not that they appeared high, as from our 4000-5000 meters, the 6000m peaks were not that impressive (?). HUGE in the sense that we had a universe around us, and half an hour later, passing over a pass, there we were in another one, revealing more mountains in the distance, and more valleys and canyons, colors of rock we had not seen, and the road looks like it's going this way, but no in fact the trail takes us around that mountain, and and and... how the hell do they know the way?
We went over 5000m, and I think it was my first time this high in open air. Thin air, razing light, cold airstream. At our feet were lagunas and volcanoes.
We stopped in a village to see if we could pass till Laguna Verde. Alexandro had been te only one in Tupiza to warn us that we might not pass, all the others were positive: yeah no worries, no there's no snow. Well forthe past two days, nobody had been to the Laguna Verde, as there was too much snow. Did I say we chose that guide because he looked reliable (information wise)?
We arrived at the termas, the place was just stupid: mountains and volcans far away, ten all around us a laguna and a flat that went on for kilometers, all kind of colors there, and just there, a steaming pool of water. Nice.
We had lunch there too. I was feeling very very very bad, as I had been all day, because of the lack of oxygen. Headache, dizziness, loss of appetite, feeling like shit. I layed down on adobe bricks tat were drying in the sun, and decided that my physical state would not impair all the enjoying that I was to have. That did not make me feel any better, but I did not care anymore.
We also spotted vicunas, the wild parent of llamas and alpacas: te vicunas have shorter hair, and only of light brown and white color. Other local specimens we crossed were jeeps coming from Chile, doing tours including the salars of Atacama and Uyuni.
We reached the Laguna Verde, with in the background te volcano Licancabur, border with Chile. A place where you could stay a week. Well, except that it is damn too cold. Beauty.
Our last stoppover was Sol de Manana, a geothermic area, where geisers spitted mud and steam. There again, and like in New Zealand, you have to bring over your body there, to feel the power of mother earth... and then just get used to it!
Another special and incredible place, unforgettably unique.
When we arrived at the refugio, we had to set upa battle plan to fight the cold. Rearaging the beds and seting up a matress in frint of the window did the trick.
The next problem was that everybody was feeling very very bad. I found aspirin, and that helped to have Joanne, Amit and myself getting up instead of letting ourselves die on our beds. Brian was not getting better, so we let him sleep, checking him from time to time, as he was exhausted and very cold.
All along the day there was more... plateaus, rivers, valleys, snow!, 6000m peaks seen from 4000-5000m.... All of that was just... IMMENSITY
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