08/09/2012 - 11/09/2012 - Un-Bolivia-ble

Two roses (!) between two thorns... Sort of!

Geared up for the big trip - stray dog
in tow!

One of the more impressive border
control buildings...

Time was ticking on, so it was time to head to the third country of the trip. Given the lack of roads between Chile and Bolivia, the tourist route for this journey is generally a three day 4x4 trip across the deserts and mountains. Sign us up! Slightly mixed emotions when we got into our car – we were looking forward to some company but it was just us and our driver, Oscar. He had very little English, although more than our Spanish – was going to be a fun three days! Following a pep talk from some Brazilians finishing their tour over a hearty breakfast, we were off on our way.

Some volcano action

Laguna Blanco

Hot springs, complete with
flamingos in the background!

The stone tree - the fruit was a bit hard!

Mmmm - Geysers. Smelly!

Laguna Rogo

Flamingo time!

First day was filled with lagoon hopping, and our first flamingo encounters. Was also another chance to take a dip in a natural hot spring – no hesitation this time round! Second day we saw the famed stone tree, some more geyser encounters and got to the edge of the Salar de Uyuni for a night in a ‘salt hotel’ – read concrete shell – but given there was a hot shower we weren’t complaining! It was a relief to be there though after a few mechanical issues with the car – who knew hitting the engine repeatedly with a screwdriver would get it running again!

Salt flat fun #1 - a small drink; yes, Tony is under the thumb;
blowing Annaliza over; a monumental jump; and relaxing
in a shady way!

Salt flat fun #2 - in the palm of my hand; crazy crawling;
mind the salt!; would you please shut up;
and trekking boots.

More volcanic action

All snug in a salt hotel

The third day was all about the salt flats – a quick walk around the Cactus Isle preceded a couple of hours attempting hilarity through perspective manipulation in the middle of the flats. Let us know how you think we’ve done – probably all been done before but some of us weren’t lucky enough to come across an ostrich (http://www.ironrik.com/2010/04/giant-ostrich-climbing-anyone.html – once again you outdid us IronRik!). A brief stop at the train cemetery then we were in Uyuni waiting on our next nightbus – 4 hours there was more than enough! Tony’s patience was tested with tales of Annaliza’s exploits in the salt flats 8 years ago – fortunately the timing (different season) combined with Annaliza’s poor memory meant it was a new experience! Tony may regret the promise of going through the 52 rolls of film from that trip – with not even a zoom function on the camera back then the shots are unlikely to be the best!  

Pumping iron in the train cemetary

Key Learnings:

Weird and wonderful
market stalls in Uyuni

1. Hand signals, a phrase book and two way dictionary plus extreme amounts of patience are virtually enough to get through 3 days with someone who knows a limited amount of the mother tongue.  That said we were starting to increase our Spanish knowledge which was a bonus!

2. On a three day trip, the food on the first day is significantly superior to that on the last day!

3. USB ports on car radios are genius – meant we could introduce Oscar to a variety of tunes outside Bolivian pop!