Trick photography on the Salt Flats
Monday, July 2nd, 2007
As you can see, the mind does wierd and wonderful things in a land of dazzling white for as far as the eye can see….
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The Salar de Uyuni – Salt Plains trip
Sunday, June 24th, 2007We arrived in Tupiza at 4:00, took an overpriced taxi to the hostel, (turns out we could have walked the two blocks) and slept till mid day.
We had decided that we now had to speed travel if we were goign to see as much of Bolivia and Ecuador as we wanted before Galapagos, so as soon as we got up we booked a tour of the salt plains departing the very next morning. There was another english couple waiting to go then too, so we decided to go with the slightly more expensive option of only four people in a jeep and also to splash out for an English speaking guide instead of a cook. A risky option to take, but turns out we were right on both counts, we were far more compartable for four days in a small jeep with only four of us, and our guide turned out to be a great cook. Spent the afternoon gathering vital supplies for the trip, Flease for 1.75GBP, quality sunglasses for 70p and of course a few bottles of alcphol. We ate dinner that night in a really great Italian place, I don’t understand why people think the food in Bolivia is dodgy, we have had great food all the time.
Anyway, 9am the next day we met Roz and Scott our travelling buddies, northerners, and bundled into the back of the truck with Havier ur driver and Milton our cook/guide. If we said it once we said it a hundred times, we were so glad we only had four in the jeep, six would have been a squeeze and a very uncomfortable four days. Anyway the trip…. it is a long four days so I will just bullet the stuff we did and saw and best you check out the pictures online.
Day 1.
Drove up, up, up and accross a real load of barren nothingness to spectacular high views over a lunar valley, not dissimilar to that outside Cafayate.
Stopped in a couple of small villages to played contrivedly with the children and give out sweets and pencils.
Learnt how to use Banos Naturales whilst leaning no the back of the truck.
Stopped for a Llama meat lunch in a field of llamas to take photos, tasteful!
That evening we stopped in a little village San Antonio de Lopez and we had a little room with lots of blankets on our beds but no heating. Absolutely freezing at minus 7 degrees and all feeling a little to altitude sick to drink wine. Slept well tho in the end with thermals and blankets. Chatted to local kids for a while, whilst they fleased us into buying handicrafts.
Day 2.
Up at 5am to leave at 6. Drove through a couple of villages we were reliably informed were rife with incest. Entered the national park and went to dip in some hot springs before unch. Very nice.
After lunch with visited Leguna Verde and Leguna Blanco and the boys complained the colours weren’t quite right. We were then taken to a “secret” place to collect some ancient beads from the ground, the look impressive but the jury is out on authenticity.
The drove up to 5000m to the geasers *can’t spell it* and enjoyed a beer at 5,000m watching them spew, very cool. That night we slept at minus 12 degrees in a barrak like place by the Red Lagoon. Depite expections of being icy all night it wasn’t too bad with blankets and the hotwater bottle trick I learnt in Torres del Paine.
Day 3.
Depsite only having a 8am start we were all up at 630 to watch the sun rise, mainly cos we neded the loo then. Had pancakes for breskfast, amazing!!
Visited the Red Lagoon and some flamingoes.
Drve to a place with stone tree structures calved out of lava by wind and rain, then broke down and had to change a flat tire. We also met some crazy people doing the route on bikes!!!
Drove through a stink sulpherous five lake region, very beautiful.
After lunch we drove through a “small” salt plane for about an hour to whet our appetite for the following day.
Nearly ran over a picuna (llama like animal) which would have given us 5 years in goal!
Slept that night at a hotel made of salt. Kind of cool but a bit grey. Were able to have a luke warm shower though and finally felt up to a glass of wine. Played a Bolivian dice game with Milton, can’t remember the name but a bit like Yatzee.
Day 4.
Had to leave at 6am this morning to see the sun rise over the salt flats, unfortunately our truck wasn’t ready and we left at 10 past and it wasn’t so impressive, oh well.
Salt flats werre prety amazing tho, huge and white and freezing. We stopped for breeakfast on a small island of cacti in the middle and the spent the rest of the day driving accross them and stopping to take some trick photos, pretty cool, have look. We all got very sun burnt and unfortunately I was il all day but still really cool. By 3pm I did really just want to get back to Uyuni and sleep tho and did not need our next flat tire, but it was fixed eventually and very impressivly since we didn’t have a second spare.
Back in Uyuni we checked into a pretty awful, cold hostel and I just slept and thre up and Paul, Roz and Scott went out for legendary pizza. It was a really amazing trip, but realy quite tiring by the end of it, and we were so glad not to have had six in the truck, did I mention that?!
p.s. Sorry for the croppy typing, I am writing this on a really difficult key board.
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