Rio to New York in 6 Months

While we were in Tupiza we booked a 4 day jeep tour to go and see the Uyuni salt flats. We have been looking forward to this part of the trip since we started planning it and we were not disappointed.

We left Tupiza in a jeep with our driver named “Wilfur”, our cook named “Martha” and our two fellow tourists from Denmark named “Huub” and “Sarah”. The first day gave us a taste of what was to come. The scenery changed so much during the day it was amazing. Here is a picture I took towards the start of the journey

 We stopped for lunch later and I took this picture. The animals in the forground are Llamas. We just chilled out for a while admiring the scenery while eating our lunch.

We arrived at our first nights accomodation which was 4200 metres above sea level (13779 ft). We both had a bit of a headache and noticed that we got out of breath really easily. It was also really cold. Martha gave us some hot water and recommended that we make some coca tea to help with the altitude. Here is a picture of me making coca tea (that is Hoob next to me)

It was lucky that we hired sleeping bags from the tour company because it was freezing that night. I hardly slept at all and felt like crap the next day. Having to get up at 5:30am didn´t help much either.

The second day was even better than the first. Even though we were in the jeep quite a bit it didn´t seem like long as there was so much to look at. Wilfur would stop the jeep whenever we wanted so we could take pictures. Occasionally we would stop at villages in the middle of nowhere and kids would be playing.

Midway through the second day we stopped for lunch at a thermal spring while Martha prepared lunch. Here is a picture of Kelly in the water. (Temp of water was about 35C)

It was so nice in the water compared to the temparature outside that we didn´t want to get out.

On the second and third days we saw some really beautiful lagoons. Because they are at such high altitudes the water is often frozen in the morning. Lots of Flamingos live on the lagoons too.

Here is a picture of us standing in front of Laguna Verde which is 4400 metres above sea level. Our guide said that the water has high concentrations of arsenic in it so it cannot be used for swimming or drinking. We could not believe how green it was.

We also visited Laguna Colorado which is red due to Algae that grows in it. The algae feeds the flamingo that live in the lake. Here is a couple of photos of us and the lake. The white line in the background of the next picture are flamingoes (Honestly !!!)

Here a couple more pictures.

 

During the trip we stopped at a rock that was supposed to look like one of Salvadore Dali´s art works or something. See what you think.

 

We also went to see some geysers and bubbling mudpools which was pretty cool. They stunk of sulphur and we walked around the various pools of mud carefully as we were told that the mud boiled at 300 degrees C and someone had fallen in a few years ago and died. We both got a headache while we were here as they were at 4850 metres above see level.  Here is a picture of the area it looked like something from another planet. You can see the steam in the background and the hot mud on the right.

On the second night we slept in beds made of salt and the floor was salt also which was a bit annoying when you had to get up to go to the toliet in the middle of the night. Unfortunately I do not have any e mail size pictures of the salt bed and floor so you will have to take my word for it.

On the final day of the tour we went to see the Uyuni salt flats. The salt flats cover an area of 4085 sq miles and are the biggest in the world. They are estimated to contain 10 billion tonnes of salt. Here is a picture of us as the sun rose.

Here is another one of Kelly.

We drove to an island in the middle of the flats that was full of cactus. Some of the cactus were over 1000 years old. Here are a couple of pics we took from the island.

First of all. Here is a picture of our group. From left to right they are, Huub, Sarah, Kelly and me.

Here is one of me and Kelly

Here is a view from the island.

Here is the final picture of me and Kelly sitting on the salt.

There are probably more things about the trip that I forgot to say but this post is already pretty long (especially for those reading it in work).

Hope you liked it.

James

Tags: Bolivia, Salt Flats, Travel, Uyuni

This entry was posted on Monday, May 22nd, 2006 at 12:38 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.