Salar de Uyuni

1-4 August - Uyuni, Bolivia

Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat at 10,582 km² (4,085 square miles). Some 40,000 years ago, the area was part of a giant prehistoric lake. When the lake dried, it left behind salt deserts and a few lakes. Salar de Uyuni is estimated to contain 10 billion tons of salt. Also, Salar de Uyuni holds half of the world's reserves of lithium, a metal which is used in high energy density lithium batteries. There is currently no mining plant at the site and the Bolivian government doesn't want to allow exploitation by foreign corporations, but instead it intends to build its own pilot plant. There's an interesting article about that here

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/JustOneThing/story?id=8257028&page=1

I signed up for a 3 day tour through Salar de Uyuni and the surrounding areas. There was 6 of us on the tour. We had a pretty cool group. There were two Dutch girls, one Chilean guy, and a couple from Spain, but the guy in the couple was Bolivian. The first stop was a train graveyard which contained locomotives from the late 18th and early 19th century, in the middle of the desert.

The next stop was to the Salt Flats. There we took our first group picture and several silly photos and what our driver/tour guide liked to call "magical photos" where you create optical illusions with the camera.

After our photo session we went to Inkawasi, also called Isla Pescado (Fish Island). The island looks like the shape of the fish. It is made of coral rock and forest like areas of cactus.

After we hiked around the island and had our lunch that our guide prepared for us, we had another photo session.

That night we stayed at the Salt Hotel where everything was made of salt, the beds, the tables, the chairs, everything. They only had electricity from 6pm to 10pm, so I took a hot shower while I could. I had to buy a ticket and stand in line for the shower but no big deal. It got pretty cold at night because of the altitude, but luckily I rented a sleeping bag. We hiked around the area around sunset where the sky looked incredible with different colors.

The next day we got up early to see some of the lakes where they had flamingos. I don't remember any of the lakes names but they were beautiful. There were also beautiful mountains and volcanos and we also saw this cute fox when we were driving.

This was our picnic lunch in front of our car, named Fernando. And this is us in the car. It was Felipe's birthday so the girls gave him a balloon to carry around all day.

This is the Salvador Dali desert, where the landscape looks like one of Dali's paintings.

Vicunyas (a type of llama) in the wild:

Our flamingo pose:

Llamas!!!

That night we stayed at a different hotel. It was pretty basic with no heating. We were at even higher elevation which made it more cold. There was one little fireplace that we all huddled around desperately. We drank lots of wine to help us with the cold. At night I couldn't bare the thought of taking my clothes off to change in to pyjamas. I kept all my clothes on, slept in the sleeping bag, and put blankets on top. I was still too cold and couldn't sleep. I was the coldest I had ever been in my life. Then we had to wake up at 5am. I brushed my teeth with the cold water from the sink and then my hand was freezing. I couldn't feel my fingers and toes in the car the next day. Bolivia is some rough times.

Well with frozen toes and hands we saw soem geysers. Geysers are this phenomenon near volcanoes where hot water and steam shoot out from the ground. We tried to warm our feet on it. But the whole area smelled like eggs. Finally we got to the hot springs. Some people swam in it, but I didn't want to take my clothes off when it was so cold. We just warmed our hands and feet in the hot springs so we could feel them again. Its amazing that the water was so hot... and it was natural. Crazy.

We went to one last lake, Laguna Verde I believe is the name. We took our last group picture there, our ice skating posing picture. After that some of us went on to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, and the rest went back to Uyuni, Bolivia.

The Salt Flat tour was definitely one of the greatest places in South America to visit, even though I had one of the coldest and roughest nights there, it was worth it. Our group was a lot of fun and the landscapes were amazing.

Potosi

30 July - Potosi, Bolivia

Potosi is the highest city in the world at 4,090 m (13,420 feet) and is was previously one of the richest and largest cities in South America. It´s known for its silver mines. The most important minerals in this region are silver, lead, zinc and tin. The Spaniards during the Colonial period, 1545 - 1825, became so wealthy that they claimed they had enough silver to build a bridge of silver from Potosi to Spain. However there were about 8 million slaves who died as a consequence of working in the mines.

Today the city is very poor and the production had decreased. Now miners only make about $125USD a month. They only live until their 40´s because of the health conditions in the mines. But in Bolivia, many people still mine for a living because it still earns more than most other jobs.

The thing to do in this town is to take a tour of the cooperative mines. First they give you a mining outfit. And then they bring you to a market to buy gifts for the miners - coca leaves, alcohol (96%), cigarettes, and dynamite. Coca leaves gives them energy and supress their hunger so that they can work up to 12-15 hours at a time without eating or sleeping. The alcohol is pretty potent stuff. Our guide told us that first we have to spill some on the ground before drinking it. At 12 o´clock is for Tio (uncle), then at 3 o´clock is for Pachamama (mother earth), then 6 o´clock is for the minerals, then 9 o´clock is for yourself, and then you say Salud to everyone and drink. Tio is the uncle of the mines, the god of the underworld. You must respect him or else something will happen to you in the mines.

This was the entrance to the mines. You have to crouch down and walk through tight spaces and long dark hallways. You had to move to the side when the miners came with the trolleys, not that there was much space. You had to move quick. There were no brake on those things. We also climbed down sketchy ladders for about 50 m. It was pretty scary and rough but so much fun. It is definitely not for people with claustrophobia.

Here is one of the many statues of Tio where the miners leave gifts.

We chilled with some miners on their break. We gave them our gifts and they offered us alcohol. It was disrespect to say no.

We found gold!!! Okay its fools gold.

After a few hours of tiring crawling through the mines (I can't believe these guys do it for 12-15 hours), we went outside for a dynamite explosion demonstration.

The group picture.

It was definitely a great tour. I was recharged and didn't feel as tired to travel anymore.

Do I look like a Cosmonaut???

I was with Andy on Skype the other day and he snapped this picture of me. He said I look like a cosmonaut. What do you think?

La Paz / Cochabamba / Sucre

24 July - La Paz

After the crazy ride back to La Paz (which part of was on the ¨world´s most dangerous road¨), I guess I didn´t feel like doing much. I think I was getting tired of travelling and the cities in South America. I didn´t do much there except buy some socks and underwear. I keep losing some whenever I get laundry done. La Paz was nice though. It had the feeling of an old city. They also was a parade for something. I think there´s always a parade in South America. We had some good food there and just relaxed really. I was tired of going to museums and churches. I took a picture of a church but didn´t go inside. And I also took a picture of a stand in the witches market (Mercado de las Brujas). They sell things like llama fetuses and dried frogs for rituals.



25-26 July - Cochabamba

After La Paz, Kim headed to Sucre to start her volunteer project, but I went to Cochabamba for a few days before going to Sucre. It was a cute little city. It seemed a little more modern that La Paz. It had cute shops and nice restaurants. But I was still in no mood to go to a museum, church, or market. I just chilled and caught up on my blog. Plus, it was Sunday and everything was closed. I just took a picture of the main plaza. They also had buses there that looked like the jeepneys in the Phlippines. I download a pic to show you.


27-29 July - Sucre

Sucre was once the capital of Bolivia. Now La Paz is the officially the capital but Sucre is the judicial capital of Bolivia where the Supreme Court is. It was a really nice city with white colonial style buildings everywhere. But, I was still in no mood for museums or anything. I was beginning to think I might be too old to be travelling for so long.

Anyway, I decided to do a cheesy tour to Parque Cretacico to see dinosaur footprints. They take you in a cheesy truck with dinosaurs on it to this park with life size statues of dinosaurs. Then from very far away you can see the footprints, but you almost needed binoculars. It was so far. I thought maybe you can see them up close, but no. It was the cheesiest thing ever. Well at least it was something different but I probably should have just done some rock climbing.

I met up with Kim a few times in Sucre. She had broken out in hives from the tick bite she got in the jungle. Yikes! I went with her to find a dermatologist which was a whole day of goose chasing. We finally found one and got the right medicine she needed. She had an apartment in Sucre so we cooked dinner twice. I really missed cooking since I´ve been travelling. We made mac n cheese one night, and papas rellenas the second night. Yum. I left Sucre and had to say goodbye to Kim and was back to being a solo traveller, which was good and bad.

Getting out of the jungle

23 Jul
This is a picture I downloaded of the Rurrenabaque airport. Notice how the runway is grass. So guess what happened. It rained the night before we were supposed to fly from Rurrenabaque to La Paz. So guess what happens to the runways. They turn to mud. They cancelled all the flights for that day. There were very many unhappy tourists in the Amaszonas airlines office. But the Lonely Planet Guidebook warned about frequent cancellations. Buses to La Paz took 16 or so hours. I have heard horror stories about buses that took 30 hours depending on the weather and with the rough roads, buses broke down a lot.



One lady from Mexico was there and had been trying to get out of Rurrenabaque for 5 days. She was trying to organize a group of 7 people to rent a ¨jeep¨ to get to La Paz. It would take 10 hours. We decided to take the jeep and get a refund for our flight. But we had a problem. We had no more cash. Rurrenabaque (and Copacabana) had no ATM. Well there was one atm, but you had to be a Prodem Bank customer. The only option was to take a cash advance on your credit card with a 5.3% fee. To pay for our Pampas tour we had to use our credit card with a 5% fee. Anyway, luckily I had a stash of US dollars to pay for the jeep. There was lots of drama with other groups organizing a jeep, and people saying they would go with one group, and then switched to another. Well we ended up with a 6 person group- The Mexican Lady, an older Spanish couple, a Dutch guy, Kim (another dutch person that lives in Germany), and Yours truly. It was a pretty cool group.

The ride was pretty rough, but with only 7 people in the ¨jeep¨ (its really a van), we were able to pass all the trucks and buses. The roads were pretty scary- steep hills, narrow curvy roads, all dirt roads. The van was somewhat comfortable and even had A/C that kind of worked. We left around 2:30pm, so supposedly we would get to La Paz at 12:30am. There were many stops for tolls. I don´t know why you pay tolls for crappy roads. Anyway, the ride was going smoothly until about 10pm. We stop in some town. Our driver says that the chassis is broken and didn´t want to drive it anymore. He found another taxi van that would take us. We all complained. The van was smaller and the tires didn´t look so good. They had barely any tread on it. The tires were bald! But what could we do. It was late at night, and we really didn´t have any other options. And then he tried to find another passenger... until we all bitched. Well this van was the most uncomfortable van ever, but supposedly it was only another 2-3 hours and we would soon hit some paved roads.

After an hour a so in the second van, we come to a stop, and it wasn´t for a toll this time. There were a whole bunch of rocks and boulders in the road. There was a landslide. Great. We were so close to La Paz. Maybe an hour away. It rained the night before, so the rocks were sliding down the mountain and into the road. Who knows when this mess would be cleaned up.

A few people started clearing an area off the side of the road, just enough for cars to get through. One car started moving ahead and we followed. But then the car in front of us got stuck, and our van was now right in front of the landslide. You can even hear little pebbles coming down. I was staring right at it. If the car ahead of us didn´t move, a whole ton of rocks were about to come down on us. Everyone started to get out and push the car in front of us. Luckily it moved and we moved ahead and out of the landslide area. Phew. It was pretty close and was really really scary.

We finally got to La Paz at about 3 or 4am. Finally! We survived the jungle, the crazy roads, the van with bald tires, and the landslide.