Before I go into any description of our final experiences in Bolivia, I must express my insane happiness at being in Chile again! In order to maintain composure during the 3 previous months of travel I must have somehow put out of my mind how much I have been anticipating my return to the country where I studied back in 2005. But now that I am here, I am psyched up for many weeks of travel south through the varied landscapes of this pencil thin country. It is also much easier to plan an itinerary in Chile because there is really only one direction in which to travel, south, and any east and west travel can be accomplished in a matter of a couple of hours at most. We crossed the Chilean border from Bolivia 2 days ago after finishing up a 3 day tour of the salt flats and other sights in southwestern Bolivia. After the almost 3 weeks of travel on rough Bolivian roads riddled with potholes and uneven surfaces, my first impression of Chile was as we eased away from the border crossing on a minibus. Almost immediately we pulled onto a beautifully paved, two-lane road marked with yellow and white lines. Even in the middle of the dusty, remote Atacama desert, the Chileans have managed to create amazing roads. And that is a major difference between the poorest and the richest countries in Latinamerica.
Bolivia was THE country for viewing some beautifully unique and otherworldly scenery. In the south, Brad and I spent 2 nights in Tupiza, a town with the feeling you get in rural Oregon, especially in places like Grants Pass. The streets were fronted with stores that could have been saloons and the leisurely pace was welcome, perfectly suited to sidling around the town´s plazas. Surrounding Tupiza on all sides are rainbow colored rocky hills cut with valleys and a small river. The scenery reminded me of the North American southwest, deserty and with a strong sunshine that can turn rapidly to dry lightning and thunder. From Tupiza, Brad and I worked on booking a tour to see the remote sections of southwestern Bolivia and ending at the Chilean border. But we had no luck finding other travellers who wanted to do the same tour and we were forced to take a bus north to Uyuni, a town made up mostly of tour agencies just waiting to provide us with our desired itinerary. The trouble with Uyuni is that with over 60 tour agencies, none of which have stellar reputations, we were thrown into the fray of deciding which tour operators were telling us the truth about their exceptional service and which ones were going to send us out onto the salar with drivers who drink or decide to somehow shirk their responsibilities as guides. Luckily, on our first outing to weed through the masses, we ran into our 4 friends from the NW who had just, that minute, returned from the tour and highly recommended their tour operator. Problem solved! We booked with Kantuta tours leaving on Sunday.
There were 6 of us and the driver who loaded into the Toyota "cuatro por cuatro" on the first day of the tour. Brad and me, Guido (Italian), Susana (Bolivian), Morgan (North Carolinian), Daniel (Chilean) and Adalit, our great driver who provided us with good information and super positive energy throughout the trip. We visited the cementerio de trenes (train cemetary) first where we got to climb around on trains that were used back in 1825 and which are now just rusting slowly into the desert sand. Then it was off to the real highlight, the Salar de Uyuni by way of a small village whose existance is determined by collecting mounds of salt from the salt flats and processing, packaging, and selling it (even though we noticed that the salt we used at all of the meals on the salt flats tour was imported from Chile....). Adalit drove us expertly past the mounds of salt and onto the white expanse of salt that extends out in all directions seemingly without boundaries or limits. The farther we drove away from Uyuni, the whiter the salt got and the sun reflected blindingly back at us from the ground. The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world stretching 4,085 square miles. Also, it is really high above sea level at 3,656 meters and impressively it only varies in altitude at most by 1 meter across the entire area! That makes the salar a perfect place to goof around with a camera and create artistic perspective shots that depict tiny people standing on big people´s shoulders or tiny people karateing huge plastic dinosaurs! If you care to peek at the results of our hours long salt flats photography session you can find the best shots on our photo page! You will see we got very excited about jumping too. Also, there was an island (Intiwasi) made of coral in the middle of the salt flat that is home to thousands of giant cacti that have been around for many hundreds of years (there may be a picture of an Andean Emu that lives with the cacti on that island...who knew there was such a thing as an Andean Emu??).
The first night was spent at the edge of the Salar in a salt hotel, literally a building made of salt blocks harvested from the Salar. The ground was covered with a thick layer of loose salt crystals and the beds were supported by huge chunks of salt as well. It was a nice idea but we stayed at a non-salt hostel the next night that was, in reality, much nicer. On the second day of the tour, Adalit drove us to sight after sight of amazing scenery, each one differing starkly from the previous. We saw volcanos, deserty landscapes with Salvador Daliesque rocks, lagunas that changed colors from bright green to white to pink to blue depending on their mineral content, flocks of pink flamengos inhabiting the lagunas, and expanses of desert that ended in rainbow colored volcanic ridges. Through all of this, the roads were created in the moment by the drivers and we bumped along in our trusty Jeep oohing and ahhing and the incredible, surrealistic scenes.
The final night at the hotel next to the Laguna Colorada, a red lake teeming with flamengos, was full of merriment and I didn´t sleep much due to several Argentine rugby players and other partyers who decided that singing was better than sleep and the party continued well into the night before we woke up at 4:30am, primetime for geyser viewing. The high altitude geyser field is a free-for-all for tourists with no safety precautions surrounding the boiling pots of claylike mud that bubble and spurt randomly high into the air. Sulfery steam shot from vents in the ground and with the rising sun and the colorful volcanic mineral pools, the whole scene was wild and otherworldly. I could have spent much more time there but the next stop was a hot springs pool where Brad and I bathed in the healing steamy water before a lovely breakfast catered to us beside a large laguna surrounded by volcanos. And finally, we reached Laguna Verde, a white rimmed greenish lake, complete with flamingos, and a volcano guardian called Licancabur which stradles the Bolivian Chilean border. We departed from our tour there at the remote border crossing marking the edge of the Bolivian altiplano and as we entered Chile, we headed straight downhill (on that lovely paved road) all the way to the Atacama desert and the little touristy town of San Pedro de Atacama. We have plans to stay in San Pedro for Christmas tomorrow and to leave the next day probably for Calama or Antofagasta to commence our tour of Chile! It is very exciting to be in San Pedro because I have been here before and I am having a great time remembering what I did during that time. I found the hostel where I stayed and the benches in the beautiful plaza where I spent time reading and writing journal entries. This time in San Pedro we are camping. Brad took me out to a delicious dinner of salmon and steak the other night (probably the best food we´ve had on this trip). And tomorrow, on Christmas, I think we will rent bikes to cruise around to the valleys around town.
I´m thinking about everyone back home today on Christmas eve. I feel sad that I will be missing our traditional Swedish dinner because I´m sure it will be just as delicious and exciting as ever! But I also feel very lucky to be in this beautiful desert town with perfect, dry, hot, sunny weather for the holidays. I love and miss you all very much. Merry Christmas!
Love,
Anika
Bolivia was THE country for viewing some beautifully unique and otherworldly scenery. In the south, Brad and I spent 2 nights in Tupiza, a town with the feeling you get in rural Oregon, especially in places like Grants Pass. The streets were fronted with stores that could have been saloons and the leisurely pace was welcome, perfectly suited to sidling around the town´s plazas. Surrounding Tupiza on all sides are rainbow colored rocky hills cut with valleys and a small river. The scenery reminded me of the North American southwest, deserty and with a strong sunshine that can turn rapidly to dry lightning and thunder. From Tupiza, Brad and I worked on booking a tour to see the remote sections of southwestern Bolivia and ending at the Chilean border. But we had no luck finding other travellers who wanted to do the same tour and we were forced to take a bus north to Uyuni, a town made up mostly of tour agencies just waiting to provide us with our desired itinerary. The trouble with Uyuni is that with over 60 tour agencies, none of which have stellar reputations, we were thrown into the fray of deciding which tour operators were telling us the truth about their exceptional service and which ones were going to send us out onto the salar with drivers who drink or decide to somehow shirk their responsibilities as guides. Luckily, on our first outing to weed through the masses, we ran into our 4 friends from the NW who had just, that minute, returned from the tour and highly recommended their tour operator. Problem solved! We booked with Kantuta tours leaving on Sunday.
There were 6 of us and the driver who loaded into the Toyota "cuatro por cuatro" on the first day of the tour. Brad and me, Guido (Italian), Susana (Bolivian), Morgan (North Carolinian), Daniel (Chilean) and Adalit, our great driver who provided us with good information and super positive energy throughout the trip. We visited the cementerio de trenes (train cemetary) first where we got to climb around on trains that were used back in 1825 and which are now just rusting slowly into the desert sand. Then it was off to the real highlight, the Salar de Uyuni by way of a small village whose existance is determined by collecting mounds of salt from the salt flats and processing, packaging, and selling it (even though we noticed that the salt we used at all of the meals on the salt flats tour was imported from Chile....). Adalit drove us expertly past the mounds of salt and onto the white expanse of salt that extends out in all directions seemingly without boundaries or limits. The farther we drove away from Uyuni, the whiter the salt got and the sun reflected blindingly back at us from the ground. The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world stretching 4,085 square miles. Also, it is really high above sea level at 3,656 meters and impressively it only varies in altitude at most by 1 meter across the entire area! That makes the salar a perfect place to goof around with a camera and create artistic perspective shots that depict tiny people standing on big people´s shoulders or tiny people karateing huge plastic dinosaurs! If you care to peek at the results of our hours long salt flats photography session you can find the best shots on our photo page! You will see we got very excited about jumping too. Also, there was an island (Intiwasi) made of coral in the middle of the salt flat that is home to thousands of giant cacti that have been around for many hundreds of years (there may be a picture of an Andean Emu that lives with the cacti on that island...who knew there was such a thing as an Andean Emu??).
The first night was spent at the edge of the Salar in a salt hotel, literally a building made of salt blocks harvested from the Salar. The ground was covered with a thick layer of loose salt crystals and the beds were supported by huge chunks of salt as well. It was a nice idea but we stayed at a non-salt hostel the next night that was, in reality, much nicer. On the second day of the tour, Adalit drove us to sight after sight of amazing scenery, each one differing starkly from the previous. We saw volcanos, deserty landscapes with Salvador Daliesque rocks, lagunas that changed colors from bright green to white to pink to blue depending on their mineral content, flocks of pink flamengos inhabiting the lagunas, and expanses of desert that ended in rainbow colored volcanic ridges. Through all of this, the roads were created in the moment by the drivers and we bumped along in our trusty Jeep oohing and ahhing and the incredible, surrealistic scenes.
The final night at the hotel next to the Laguna Colorada, a red lake teeming with flamengos, was full of merriment and I didn´t sleep much due to several Argentine rugby players and other partyers who decided that singing was better than sleep and the party continued well into the night before we woke up at 4:30am, primetime for geyser viewing. The high altitude geyser field is a free-for-all for tourists with no safety precautions surrounding the boiling pots of claylike mud that bubble and spurt randomly high into the air. Sulfery steam shot from vents in the ground and with the rising sun and the colorful volcanic mineral pools, the whole scene was wild and otherworldly. I could have spent much more time there but the next stop was a hot springs pool where Brad and I bathed in the healing steamy water before a lovely breakfast catered to us beside a large laguna surrounded by volcanos. And finally, we reached Laguna Verde, a white rimmed greenish lake, complete with flamingos, and a volcano guardian called Licancabur which stradles the Bolivian Chilean border. We departed from our tour there at the remote border crossing marking the edge of the Bolivian altiplano and as we entered Chile, we headed straight downhill (on that lovely paved road) all the way to the Atacama desert and the little touristy town of San Pedro de Atacama. We have plans to stay in San Pedro for Christmas tomorrow and to leave the next day probably for Calama or Antofagasta to commence our tour of Chile! It is very exciting to be in San Pedro because I have been here before and I am having a great time remembering what I did during that time. I found the hostel where I stayed and the benches in the beautiful plaza where I spent time reading and writing journal entries. This time in San Pedro we are camping. Brad took me out to a delicious dinner of salmon and steak the other night (probably the best food we´ve had on this trip). And tomorrow, on Christmas, I think we will rent bikes to cruise around to the valleys around town.
I´m thinking about everyone back home today on Christmas eve. I feel sad that I will be missing our traditional Swedish dinner because I´m sure it will be just as delicious and exciting as ever! But I also feel very lucky to be in this beautiful desert town with perfect, dry, hot, sunny weather for the holidays. I love and miss you all very much. Merry Christmas!
Love,
Anika
Merry Christmas you two! Long Street ain't the same without you!
ReplyDeleteThat's the best Salar pic I've ever seen! Such a good idea! I'm glad you found a good tour company. Ours was good too except our driver kept falling asleep at the wheel and we had to keep feeding him coca leaves and having loud singing and dancing contests in the back seat to keep him awake. I love reading about your adventures - brings back so many great memories from my trip.
ReplyDeleteLove!
Maureen