Salt plains, Bubbling geysers and midsummer snow
Trip Start
Dec 06, 2005
1
16
80
Trip End
Jun 17, 2006
Uyuni,
Bolivia
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Anyway, we found a tour company to take us on a 3 day tour of the salt plains and surrounding countryside. Our tour group was us three and four spaniards, two blokes from Barcelona and two girls from Madrid. Plus the driver, who was also (apparently) the guide, and the cook
01 Excitement at the "Train Cemetery"
. All squished into a Toyota Landcruiser (called a 'Jeep' here). The first "attraction" was a Train Cementery, where old rusty british trains were just sitting there. I'd hardly call it an attraction. Quote of the day came from Al: "Look, I've tried as hard as I can to enjoy this, but I can't, 'cause it's SHIT. VAMOS!!!" See photo.Soon after leaving that pile of rusty metal, we hit upon the main attraction of the tour - the Salar de Uyuni (salt plain). This was impressive. The salt plain was left behind after a massive lake drained into the earth following an earthquake many years ago. It's 12,500 square metres in area, and stunningly white. It's now the rainy season, so most of the Salar was covered in a thin layer of water, producing crazy mirror reflections. It felt just like sand as we were walking through it, but left behind an obviously white residue. We stopped off at a Hotel made totally of salt - the walls and roofs were all made from these salt bricks, held together with salt mortar. Crazy. Didn't stay at the salt hotel, just looked around, took more photos, and found a hole in the salt that looked like a fishing hole in an frozen lake.
Next stop was an island in the middle of the plain. We were heading slightly downhill, so the layer of water was becoming deeper and deeper, and the salty water was splashing everywhere
02 Salt Plains
. Great news for the engine, but I suppose they're used to it(?). The island was covered in massive cacti, and was our designated cooked lunch stop, however the incoming storm put an end to that thought, and we ate bananas and bread in the Jeep instead. Drove for a couple of hours to get off the Salar and onto actual earth, through a big thunderstorm, using frypans and saucepans as water-catching devices as the seals on our doors leaked, but then the real fun started. We broke down, due to radiator trouble. So our driver/guide/cook took most of our bottled water, poured it into the radiator, and we watched it leak out. Oh shit. We made it another kilometre or so, then broke down again. Stopped another 4 or so jeeps, took all their water, same deal. Got another km, same deal. And it was raining pretty hard by now. Luckily we used this fact, got some dirty salty rainwater from a pond on the road, used that for the radiator, and made it through to a small town where we stopped for the night.Next morning, we had a crap breakfast, then watched two drivers fix our radiator. Something about disconnecting one panel and joining the adjacent two together. Fingers tightly crossed. Loud brazilian lady just wandered off in the morning, and we almost thought we lost her, but luckily found her on the side of the road. Our first attraction of the 2nd day was a snow capped volcano, where the 'lookout' was really just a pile of rocks on the side of the road, 20 minutes past the closest point to the volcano
03 Me at the Salt Plains
. Didn't really matter though, the volcano was covered by clouds. Then we got bogged. Everyone's a mechanic now. Didn't even have a jack, had to borrow another Jeep's one. Lady from Hong Kong (from partner jeep) helped out by cleaning the ridges of the tyres with a small stick. After an hour we got it out with the immense combined brainpower and muscle strength of the whole group. Not. Al reckons it was the 4WD setting of the front wheel that did it. Had a poor salad for lunch, then it started snowing. This was cool. It's the middle of the summer, we're at the latitude of Cairns, and it's snowing. We passed by four small lakes, most with a whole heap of flamingoes. Had a walk around in the snow, back in the jeep for more driving, to the next attraction. A big rock that resembled a tree, about 20%. It was called the Tree of Stone (Arbol de Piedra). Charlie got the most excited I've ever seen him. Everyone was laughing, and the spaniards in our jeep said it was a great pity they couldn't understand him. Anyway the tree was ridiculously shite, just a big weird shaped rock. Found another jeep badly bogged, and our guide Andrés saved the day using a series method of towing, using 2 jeeps. 20 minutes later, a whole bunch of people cracked the shits becuase we had to pay to enter a national park. Problem was not the fee (maybe 5 dollars), but the fact the agency didn't tell us it was an obligatory cost. HK and Brazil ladies the worst complainers. Blah blah blah, after half an hour everyone was convinced to pay and we moved on to our place for the night
03 What's this, a fishing hole?
. Hilarious dinner, cooks didn't cook enough pasta, everyone unhappy, then they magically found another 3 packs. Marie (Brazil lady) turned into a master chef, and with Charlie's onion-slicing skills, prepared the best meal of the trip. Played the international card game of Shithead ('Cabeza de Mierda') until bed.Got up at 4:30am. Went straight to some volcanic geysers. Really cool, i'd never seen this kind of thing before. Strong smell of sulphur, bubbling liquids, hot patch in the middle of cold snow-covered plains. After lots of photos here, we headed to some natural thermal springs, and were the first group there - a brilliant move, considering they were pretty small and shallow. Great hot temperature, made us all feel somewhat clean again. Next was Laguna Verde, a lake of somewhat caribbean green colour, due to the presence of copper. The scenery in this area was the next best after the Salar, spectacular with red/brown desert and snowcapped mountains surrounding us. Met another Tomas who studied Mechatronics at the Chilean border where we dropped some spaniards off. Another nearby lake, Laguna Colorada was a crazy red-orange lake becuase of some algae which attract flamingoes - the water colour is becuase of the flamingoes. On the drive back to Uyuni we saw some crappy rocks similar to the tree one yesterday.
After we finally arrived at Uyuni, having missed our connecting bus, we found a hostel, felt seriously hungry, and ate some of the best pizza we'd ever experienced. Minuteman Pizza, run by an american, provided us with the equivalent of a family pizza each, which we duly devoured. We even got a warning after ordering, that we had better be hungry, "that's a LOT of pizza"...
Next day was a lazy one, waiting for a late afternoon bus. My iPod and Charlie's USB stick were infected by a virus at a Net Cafe, couldn't find AntiVirus software until about the 8th place. That was fun. Charlie recieved a haircut for about a dollar. He was sure he'd asked for a symmetric one, but ended up with a killer part.
