We went from Potosí to Uyuni, and thankfully only had to spend 1 night in that wretched town. The following morning we were supposed to be picked up from our hostel at 9am. By 9:45, when they still hadn´t arrived, we walked over to the agency to have the women tell us that actually we would be leaving at 10:30. We returned at 10:30, and they were still not ready for us, but because of a strike at the Laguna Verde, our transfer from the end of the tour to Chile would take 8 hours instead of 1, as we would have to cross at a different border, and that it would cost 250 bolivianos instead 70. A little after 11 we finally departed, and our guide did not speak a word of english. This was fine for Clare and I, as we hadn´t requested an english speaking guide. There was a mother and daughter, however, from Denmark, who had paid an extra 200 bolivianos each for an english speaking guide, and they were pissed. It ended up being good for my spanish though as I ended up being the de facto translator for the Japanese and Danes on the trip. Also, hanging out with Alejandro has been really good for mine and Clare´s spanish, as his english is not very good, so we can´t get lazy and just revert to english. His Argentine accent is impossible to understand though! He says jo, playja, cajje etc. instead of yo, playa, calle. I´m constantly just like "como? Como? COMO?"
When we finally departed, we first went to an abandoned train cemetary which was really cool. If there were something like that in Canada, there would be fences up everywhere to make sure no one hurt themselves and sued, but here we could just climb all over them.
From there we drove into the Salar de Uyuni (Uyuni Salt Flats), and it was amazing! The was white in every direction as far as the eye could see!
We slept in a salt hotel the first night where the walls, tables, beds, everything, was made of salt¡
We went to Isla del Pescado which was this one tiny patch of salt-free earth covered in cacti, in the middle of the salt flats. It was so unreal¡
The second day of the tour was a lot of time spent in the jeep, which was not so comfortable, but we got to see some pretty cool sights. First we went to the Volcan Ollague, which is still active¡ Then we went to a few different lagoons and saw flamingos which was really cool. They are born black, but become coloured pink in part due to their diet, and in part due to the high mineral levels in the lagoons.
From there we went to the Arbol de Piedra which is a rock in the form of a tree due to the high winds blowing sand in the air and erroding it into this shape. There were a lot of other cool rock formations were but it was so windy¡
Finally, we went to the Sol de Mañana Geysers at over 4000 m above sea level. It was freezing there, but the geysers looked so cool! We slept at the Laguna Colorada which is coloured red due to high sulfur and other mineral content, and it was soooo cold¡ I was in my long johns, wool socks, an alpaca sweater, a sleeping bag, and under 2 blankets in the fetal position DYING.
The final day was supposed to be spent in the hot springs in Laguna Verde, but because of the strike, we instead had to drive 3.5 hours north to cross the border and take a bus 4.5 hours south. On the way to the border we got a flat tire, and then about a half hour from the border we passed by a car that had completely flipped over. There was a woman dead on the side of the road, it was horrifying. There was no cell signal, and when we got to the border to inform the police, they said that they didn´t have any ambulances there so they would have to call a town over an hour from the crash site to send an ambluance for the body. The drivers here are so dangerous, and many of these roads are so remote--had the crash happened at night or on a road not so close to the border, it could have been hours upon hours before anyone drove by to get help. Apparently an entire family had been in the car--it would be so traumatizing to see your own family member die in a crash right in front of you.
The border was ridiculous, we had to walk into an office to get our exit stamps, and then got driven about 100m into no mans land where we had to wait for our bus (which was 45 minutes late) into Chile. They had oversold tickets, and also had no room for anyone´s bags, so they had to call for another pickup truck to come and get all our packs. So sketchy. Then we drove about another 100 m to do immigration into Chile. Then we had to wait for about an hour for all our packs to come so that we could go through customs. The dude in front of me got his San Pedro Cactus confiscated which was hilarious. Finally we got on the road, but when we stopped in Calama to let some passengers off, we found out that the truck with the packs had gotten a flat tire, so we had to wait there for it to catch up with us. We finally arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, only about 4 hours after our projected arrival. Oh Bolivia, I´ll miss you!
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