Southwestern Bolivia

Hi Everybody,

Sorry we haven't written for awhile. We are currently in Potosi, the world's highest city, in Bolivia. Getting here today was quite the experience. Unfortunately, they pack the buses so that people are standing in the aisles (and falling asleep on top Mike), but that wasn't the biggest problem. The roads through the mountains are narrow and winding and there is not enough room for two vehicles to pass each other comfortably. So, at one point our bus pulled over as far as possible to let a car by and then accidently slid into the ditch (thank goodness we weren't on the side of a cliff at the time!). The bus was leaning on about a 45 degree angle and we all had to file out carefully so that it didn't tip over all the way. It then took about an hour of digging under the wheels on one side and putting rocks under the wheels on the other side before finally, with the help of some tourists hanging off the windows on the high side before we finally got the bus out of the ditch. But now we are here safely and I have a bit of time to tell you about the amazing 4 day adventure we had from Tupiza to Uyuni. We crossed the border from Argentina into Bolivia in La Quiaca/Villazon (as it is called in Argentina/Bolivia respectively) and jumped on the train to Tupiza the next day. We had initially wanted to go straight to Uyuni and do an excursion from there but starting at Tupiza cut at least a days worth of travel out of the equation (a welcome deletion since the bus to La Quiaca from Buenos Aires was a long 26 hours or so--at least we splurged for a super cama, the highest quality of bus you can get for the majority of the trip). We started our four day tour through the desert and the salt flats the next day from Tupiza. Mike and I have seen and done so many incredible things on our trip so far, but if I had to rank them, then this last excursion would definitely be one of, if not the top adventure we have had.

Day one near Tupiza

Bolivia is geologically spectacular and we got to see everything from Patagonia like desert to red volcanoes to roaring geysers. On the first day, we drove through the mountains, on a couple perilous passes where I had to hold my breath, close my eyes and hope we wouldn't careen over the edge. Incidentally, we were right by where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid met their maker. We also got to see llamas galore!

Aren't they cute?

Days 2 and three we travelled through the desert, which at times was almost unbearably dry and dusty. I resorted to breathing through my shirt to avoid inhaling all of the dust. We visited some really awesome colonial ruins (which interestingly enough looked exactly like alot of the modern habitation we saw), where apparently the people of the city all died from a plague sent to them by god for their corrupt and sinful ways. Now the ruins are home to a group of wild relatives of the chinchilla.

Mike in amongst the ruins

Mike and I playing with some Bolivian children in one of the towns we stayed in. We played frisbee until it went brittle and broke from the cold and then entertained them by taking their picture--they loved to see themselves on camera.

Picture of daily life in the Andes

These are our friends from France that we met on our tour: Jonathan, Dona, Henry and Marie. We've been traveling with them since. They are each exceptionally musically talented in their various ways and have been putting on awesome performances for us each night. Also, I should add, we play the card game "uno" just about every night and Henry is the undefeated world uno champion.

The Landcruiser


A flamengo (who knew they live at such cold temperatures?) walking in the borax that covered part of one of the lakes. Strange to see borax on the lake too...but not as strange as the one lake of arsenic (no flamengos there!).

Another lake. Those little dots are flamengos. There were hundreds of them.

There were also lots of different geological sights, including this rock tree, a volcanic rock shaped by thousands of years of rain and wind erosion.

The coolest part of the tour were the salt flats themselves. They are the remnants of an ancient, now evaporated sea. The salt, some of which has rivers running under it, can be as thick as 3-4 meters. The salt is mined and processed by hand (only for use in Bolivia however...the Bolivian government opposes exporting their resources or letting foreign companies in to mine it themselves) at a near by town. The salt is actually a mixture of a number of chemicals, including lithium, used in rechargable batteries. In fact, the salt flat at Uyuni has 60% of the world's lithium, but just like the salt itself, it can't be exported. We also got to see an entire hotel made of salt and slept in bed made of salt ourselves. Check out the wickipedia article for some more info if you are interested because I am just about out of time!

Salar de Uyuni, the salt flats, first thing in the morning. Check out the full moon.

The salt was covered with about 2 inches of water which made for cold, wet feet but great pics

It was worth getting up at five for the sunrise

Quite the perspective, isn't it?

A bit of capoeira on the salt.

Although the trip itself was uncomfortable (mostly because there were 8 of us all together, crammed into an ancient--it had an 8 track player--Toyota Landcruiser) the sights we got to see were absolutely stunning. The rough accomodation that was mentioned in the pamphlet was exactly as advertized. I have no doubt that the sheets weren't clean, there was no heat, and there was only the most basic of basic bathroom facilities (you could pay extra for a hot shower however). It was also damn cold. Being that we were up as high as 5000m I guess it is to be expected, but it was below freezing every morning and evening. The open air toilets (meaning where ever you could find a rock or bush...difficult and at times impossible in the desert) were also a little tough to get used to.

However, the sights, the cook and the guide more than made up for it. Seemingly out of nothing, the cook, Christina, made us three gourmet meals plus snacks everyday, even going to great lengths to present it beautifully. She even made us coca tea one day when we were particulary cold and headachey from the altitude. The guide, Samuel was super knowledgable and professional as well. It couldn't have been better.

(Just in case other travelers are reading this blog, since reading blogs is how I got all of my information, choosing a company for the Salar de Uyuni tour is somewhat of a crapshoot because you may buy at one agency but be put on a tour with another agency so that they can fill the jeeps completely. However, I can highly recommend booking with Tupiza Tours. Our guide was Samuel, who had been recommended to the people we went on the tour with, and requested by them. He was absolutely excellent, and the vehicle was in good working order. We paid $110us because we booked from Villazon, but the people we went with paid $105 by booking from Tupiza. It was worth every penny.)