We had been debating this trip since long before leaving home. It´s the rainy season.... the huge salt flats will be covered in water.... it´s a must see, in nearly everyone´s opinion.... it´s not cheap to do the standard 4 day trip by jeep... what to do? We ran into another couple with grey hair (travelling in South America for a full year!) and they wanted to do it, for sure and share the jeep, etc.! OK! We´re in! Let´s do it! We met at 7:30 in the morning with one big backpack to be tied on top (it had a rain cover on it AND the driver, Rolando, wrapped it in plastic tarp. There it was, riding along with bottles of Coke (argh!) and water, as well as gas tank, stove for cooking, etc. We were off and heading through interesting country with Candelabra cactus as well as the Peludo cactus that is absolutely adorable with hairy fluffy fuzz all over the upper portion of it! Lots of brightly colored birds of yellow and turquoise, many llamas vicuñas, alpacas, burrows and even the strange and interesting big rat-rabbits called Viscachas! Nice Toyota Land Cruiser and Rolando had the most diverse and amazing collection of music for us to enjoy... much of it right on for our age group! Took us all back in time! Included some Green Day, which I never thought I would say I liked, but I am saying it now! 10 hours that first day, to an elevation of 16,500 ft.! Saw some snow, had a bit of hail and too much rain! Wild, muddy, steep, bumpy road, taking us through some major water courses, brought us to our ¨basic¨accomodation only to discover a bit of dampness had seeped into my pack AND my hiking boots, which were INSIDE the vehicle, got soaked when a plastic water bottle that the cook, Angela Marta, was sleeping on broke and leaked into my boots! Rained hard throughout the night, but was looking much more hopeful in the morning, as we continued our journey, U2 blasting from the speakers!
This second day brought us to a lovely lake with many flamingoes walking along it´s shallow shoreline. The most beautiful ones were at Laguna Colorado, where the pink algae and the pink flamingoes, with mountains in the background, creates a most magnificent site! Passed a hot spring that we soaked in, happily! Visited some fumaroles (geysers) that although impressive, pale when compared to our Yellowstone Old Faithful and surrounds! More ¨basic accomodations this night, in another very small little pueblo, again with a common dining hall where Angela Marta and Rolando brought us red wine with our dinner! No toilet seat, which is always a sad site for our eyes and an uncomfy situation all the way around!
Day 3 brought us to incredible canyonlands like rock formations that begged to be scrambled up and over. Rolando and I climbed up one that presented some fun bouldering problems and we celebrated on top by photographing one another in our victory poses! Managed to get ourselves stuck in the mud in our Toyota! Two other vehicles have been travelling along with us for parts of the day and this day we stuck (no pun intended) close together just in case of anyone getting stuck! The mud was clear up to the doors on the drivers side and he had to climb out the window and began digging and jacking up the vehicle (with the help of the other 2 drivers), gathering large rocks to put under those tires. We eventually had to all get out on the other side, minus shoes and socks, pants rolled up, and slosh across to wait with the other passengers (from various points around the world!) while the rains began to fall, we bagan to get wetter and wetter and the car continued to be mired in the mud! One of the vehicles drove back around and hooked up a tow rope and to our great joy, pulled us out! Yay! Slept this night right on the edge of the salt flats in a hostel made of salt blocks! Honestly! All of the tables, stools, beds were made of salt... even a salt candle holder for our candle lit dinner!
Our sunset journey out the Salt Flats, with sparkling apple cider, was a trip! The vast enormity of this expanse of flat, salt earth, covered in water, leaving the distant mountains looking as if they are floating islands, truly is a must see site! Tom and I rolled up our pants and waded out into it, the water cooler and warmer depending on depth and currents. It never went above mid-calf and sometimes was just a skim of water. The colors in the ground, the sky the clouds, was magical and the entire scene otherworldly!
The following morning we awoke at 5 a.m. for our sunrise visit back to this remarkably unique place and this time drove out into the distance to take more incredible photos, eat breakfast in the original salt hotel that sits right on the salt flats and has fanciful salt sculptures and carvings throughout. Crazy photo ops of odd perspectives, i.e., me in Vira II and Tom balancing in my outstretched hand! When we get this photo download figured out, if ever, we´ll share some of them!
That final day put is in a different jeep for the trip back to Tupiza and we took off at noon on our journey of 5or 6 hours. An hour out we were brought to a complete standstill by a roiling, rolling, deep and 35 to 40 foot wide water course blocking our progress totally! Some said we´d be there for one hour before the water subsided enough to allow passage... others said 3 hours... we waited... walked on nearby sand dunes, took photos and after an hour, our driver decided to go for a Camino Antiqua (old road) that he recalled from his 20 years of driving in this part of the world.
Off we raced, with a line of other jeeps following behind us. This old road was not easy to see or follow through the brush, but we continued our search, our barely make it over the ditches and washed out areas, until we came to an unpassable zone and had to all get out and help hauling rock, digging and finally making it through! That wasn´t the last time! We continued to come to these obstacles, over and over and over until our 5 hour trip to Tupiza turned into a 10 hour trip! The adventure continues!
Ahh, never a dull moment! That's what you wanted, right?!
ReplyDeleteDull it is not!
ReplyDeleteBack from the Solar. No part of our journey has been discussed as much as when, if and how long to visit that Bolivian landscape. We finally decided on a four day excursion with a couple of Americans we met here. We decided about a day into it that we made a mistake. We are not tour people, eight and ten hours in a land rover is too much and lots of the landscape that was ooed and awed is common to us from the American West. Plus the accommodations were less than pleasing, there are only so many meals with onion and potato soup that satisfies hunger and hours looking at desert landscape discussing llamas is almost boring. We did however keep our sense of humor and positive natures and laughed at our own folly.
ReplyDeleteWe did enjoy the llama, vicuna, pink flamingos, ostriches, and multicolored lakes and etched rock hillsides, volcanoes. We climbed rocks (Peggy higher than me) photographed and one time while wondering around the country side I discovered ancient structures - wow.
Driving from Uyuni to Tapiza we encountered a flash flood. A wash turned raging,eight foot wave , muddy river halted our progress. Soon about eleven tour jeeps were lined up along the bank. Peggy and I walked up stream but found the situation worse. Than Rusty and I headed downstream on the premise it had to widen as it flowed down hill. In the mean time the driver/guides held a meeting on a dand dune and decided to take an old (I mean like in barely visible) up stream. With our Lexus Land rover in the lead eleven SUV´s headed across railroad tracks into the desert. Our caravan careened over rocks, bushes, stream beds and rutted roads for four hours. At one particularly deep, watered gulch everyone, including passengers began collecting rocks and pitching them into the gulley. The German couple, the young women from the Netherlands, the two Argentinean, local men in dress pants and business shirts, woman dressed more like models, along with guides and cooks all hauling rocks and twigs to make the crossing. The image remaining is the traditionally dressed older Bolivian women in skirts, shawl and bowler hat beside the blond made-up Argentinean girl in skin tight pants hauling rock, side by side. Our Lexus, with Sergio the guide leader, made it across but the second vehicle got stuck and then out came shovels and more rocks and twigs and so it went until all eleven were safely on the the other side.
Our driver, Sergio is a natural leader. If any other vehicle had trouble he was back there helping dig and push out. He stopped atop hills and counted the other coaches strung out for a couple of miles. No one challenged his decisions and he was always first. After four hours of no apparent progress and the landscape most forlorn, I started figuring out how much food, water and gas we had because it looked like we might spend the night in the desert and more storm clouds were on the horizon. Sergio kept his eye on a very obscure track (often broken by huge cracks we could not cross), chewed his coca leaves drove like a Baja race car driver. We got stuck once and he called up the drivers, we once again collected desert twigs, shovels dug and we attached a nylon strap to his back bumper and pulled and pushed until he came unstuck and headed off once again. He had confidence but you could see the fatigue in his face. He had traveled this road over 20 years before but it was only a burro track now. We were four hours making it back to the main road and ten and one half before we reached Tapiza and our beautiful hotel room with a hot shower, toilet seated flushing john and warm air with flower blossoms. Even a restruant open with cold Bolvian beer and pizza. Ho! to Tarija on an all night bus tonight.