The Lonely Planet guide book's favourite superlative is 'mind blowing' which makes us chuckle. But when it came to the very south of Bolivia we just couldn't stop the words 'mind blowing' from popping out of our mouths! Literally every five minutes!
That and "it's sodding freezing!"
To travel across the south of Bolivia you hire a jeep (or buy seats in a jeep) that comes with a driver and a cook. We shared our jeep with the lovely Simone from Derby, and Andrea from Bergamo (northern Italy). They made for the perfect travel companions, not least because of Andrea's entertaining English, our entertaining Spanish, and Simone's supply of chocolate, biscuits, rum and enthusiasm!
Scenery on the first stop
Lots of huge open spaces with Llamas before we got too high for anything living
The journey was bumpy. I am not sure that covers it actually! No roads - and some very skilled driving across constantly changing and challenging landscape.
We went from 3000 to 5000 meters and down again, across rivers, ice, dried up lakes and over small mountains.
Each lake we visited was a different colour due to the different mineral contents, the scenery constantly changed and amazed us.
And the ubiquitous llamas
The accommodation for each night was basic. Basic was fine, but it was also absolutely freezing! No heating, no insulation, one night no window and minus temperatures! We slept fully dressed, including thermals and hats, under as many layers as we could find. The warmest night was the last night where the entire hotel was made of salt - the floor, bed, walls, tables, chairs - everything!
Three days later we arrived at the Salar de Uyuni, the famous salt flats. Twelve thousand square kilometers of salt, at an altitude of 3600 meters. Once upon a time the entire area was ocean, but a volcanic eruption (and the subsequent lava flow) trapped a section of the ocean between the Andes and the lava. The heat eventually caused the ocean to evaporate and just leave salt behind. The sight is phenomenal. You have to constantly remind yourself that you aren't looking at snow! We got up at five am (pretty much the norm on this trip) and were on the salt flats in time to watch the sunrise - the change in colours was amazing.
After breakfast at an 'island' in the salt flats - a beautiful place covered in Cacti that were 500 to 1000 years old, we headed to the middle of the flats for the traditional silly photo taking session.
On the way to our final stop Uyuni we stopped at the train cemetery. Train lovers (i.e. Dad and Richard) may want to avert their eyes now! Lots of dead trains.
And so, having started our almost 1000 kilometer journey four days before, we arrived at Uyuni. Totally exhausted, rather dirty, and pretty much in the same clothes (it had been too cold to ever take anything off)!
Our lovely tour companions
A Tamale, delicious hot snack. Well it wouldn't be the same without at least one food mention!
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