3 Days, 1 Jeep

After only spending a short amount of time in La Paz, we hopped on a bus that would take us to the small, remote town of Uyani in southern Bolivia. Uyani itself does not have much to offer but it is the starting point for salar, or salt flat, goers! The salar region in the south is filled with salt plains/flats, hot springs, geysers, lagoons, caves, volcanoes, mountain ranges & deserts, just to name some of the areas trademarks. From here we would hop in a jeep and begin a 3-day tour of the region, with us ending in Chile, in the town of San Pedro de Atacama.

The bus ride to Uyani was the worst that I have experienced thus far! It was HORRIBLE! Imagine that a bulldozer came and dumped an abundance of large stones to make roads..... now take a large, rickety, old bus, with windows that don´t seal, some duct-taped shut, no defrost- with ice an inch think on the windows, and then drive! It felt as if I was sitting on an extremely powerful massage chair that it so strong its painful! Or maybe more like the Excalibur at Valley Fair! It was such a bumpy ride that my whole body, along with everyone else on the bus, was shaking vigorously for hours. I actually found myself laughing aloud and asking Laura ¨is this some kind of joke?¨ It was absolutley ridiculous! We found out the next day that the stretch of road we were on is noted as being the WORST road in Bolivia.... and Bolivian roads in general are pretty bad as it is!

After hours of discomfort and no sleep at all we arrive in Uyani the next morning, Thursday July 15th. It is absolutely freezing here! I am so crabby, cold and tired. We had to wait outside the bus forever to get our bags, which were laying in piles of dirt under the bus. We were given the wrong directions as to where our tour agency was and there were creepy men starring at us at every corner. There was no bone in my body that wanted to be here right now. I was so frustrated and had a bad attitude about everything! We finally found our tour agency and were greeted by a happy fellow who escorted us to a warm breakfast cafe where we found a table right next to the fireplace. It felt amazing! We had breakfast with some British girls who have actually been in Bolivia for quite awhile volunteering at an orphanage. We chatted with them for awhile and then walked around town buying some snacks and things we would need for our next couple days in the jeep. At this point the sun was shining, it was light outside and there was a little warmth to this city. My attitude changed tremendously at this point! I rearranged my bags, ran to the street market to buy some fruit and then arrived back to Andes Tours just in time to meet our ¨family¨that we would be spending the next 3 days with! Our jeep consisted of myself and Laura, Steven-the Chinese tourist who loved taking pictures, David- the crazy Frenchmen, Nicki and Dustin- the adventurous couple from South Africa, and Elias- our guide, who getting him to talk was like pulling teeth! I could tell right away that we were going to have a fun group! And here began our 3-day jeep excursion.

Day 1: We left Andes Tours in Uyani around 10:30 am. We first stopped at el cemetario de trenes, an old graveyard of rusting locomotives. Here we got to climb on all the old trains and take pictures. We then headed to find the famous Salar de Colpasa, the salt flats of Bolivia! We visited the salt factory and spent hours walking around on the flats, attempting to take all sorts of crazy photos with our family! We had an amazing lunch (alpaca meat) at a hotel made of salt. Everything from the walls, to the table and chairs we were sitting on were made of salt. It was impressive! After lunch we spent more time exploring the flats and then headed to La Isla Pescado. This island, called Fish Island is a rare site. It is actually an island filled with cacti, but is in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by salt flats! The wind and air were so cold here that rather than climb up the cliff to get great pictures, Laura, Nicki, Dustin and myself chose to sit inside the little cafe area and drink hot chocolate instead. After leaving the island we headed to a different salt hotel, this time being the one we would be spending the night at. The rooms were so cute, all made of salt! The walls, the bed frames, even the pillars decorating the place were made of salt. There was a cute little fireplace in the common area, where we right away all found ourselves gathering. The weather outside was like a cold MN morning in the middle of winter, except our salt hotel had no hot water, nor electricity, meaning no heat! I found myself wearing almost every piece of warm clothing I had in my backpack at this point, and had no intention of taking them off for the next 3 days! That night we had an amazing dinner with hot drinks, which quickly turned to cold after being exposed to the cold air, and went to bed rather early as one, there were no lights to do much of anything and two, we were told we had to wake up at 3:30 the next morning to be back in the jeep by 4am! The six of us all said goodnight, as we really were one big happy family, all sleeping in the same room!

Day 2: The next morning came really early, as I didn´t sleep much due to the fact that I was sooooo cold! We loaded the jeep at 4am and began a 3 hour drive to see volcanoes! We arrived at Ollangue volcano first, which was amazing! After visiting a few more volcanoes in the area, we came to a chain of lagunas, or lakes. We stopped at Canapa, Hedionda (where we had an amazing HOT breakfast) and Ramaditas. We spent a couple hours driving through the Siolo desert, arriving at el arbol de piedra, which is actually a rock shaped as a tree. Here it was so windy it was unbearable. I literally jumped out of the jeep for less than a minute, just to take a couple photos, as it felt like giant hail was belting me in the face, due to the wind blowing the desert sand and rocks. After fighting the painful wind we entered the national park of Eduardo Avaroa, Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina. Here we spent some time at it´s various lakes (particularily Laguna Colorada, which is the most popular lake in the area) which were filled with flamingoes! I have seen flamingoes in the zoo but have never experienced them in abundance in the wild. They are so fun to watch! We then continued on to el Sol de Manana, where we were surrounded by geysers of all sizes. We learned a little about the geysers and how they were formed before entering my favorite part of the day..... the Hot Springs of Chalviri! These aguas termales were awesome! I have been in quite a few natural hot springs while living in Venezuela and didn´t think these would compare, but they were quite amazing! The idea of taking off my clothes and putting on a swimsuit sounded horrible in the frigid air but I did it and it was well worth it! We all enjoyed ourselves and wished we could stay in there all day, as it was the only chance we had of feeling warm! The hard part came when we had to get out, and run through the frigid air again before getting warm, dry clothes back on. We took turns sharing the two large towels that the group had brought and modestly had to get naked and change clothes, pretty much in front of everyone, as there was no changing room or bathroom around, just the open landscape! Again, one big, happy family!

After the hot springs we visited Laguna Verde, an emerald green lake, which was absolutely beautiful, and from there spent time driving through the desert of Salvador Dali, before returning to the Laguna Colorado where we would stay night. I could not help but be amazed with the landscape as we drove from salt flats to desert to mountains to lakes to volcanoes and more. The change of scenery was so beautiful; I couldn´t have asked for more! All of us in the jeep have been traveling for a month or longer at this point and we all agreed that this had to be one of our favorite experiences! It definitely was a highlight, despite the bitter cold that we were all ready to get away from! We arrived at the site we would be spending the night, again at a place with limited electricity and no hot water nor heat, and had another amazing dinner, this time consisting of traditional soup and a Bolivian version of lasagna. It was delicious! This was our last dinner as a group so we shared bottles of wine and played cards until the power went off at 9:30. It was then quiet time as we said our good-byes to everyone. Tomorrow morning Laura and I would be splitting from the group, as they'd be heading back to Uyani and we are off to Chile!

Day 3: This morning we woke up before the rest of our group, as we were now forced to split from them and go our separate ways. (I had not slept well as the wind was blowing vigorously on our tin roof all night long! The guides were actually worried for our saftely, not allowing us to sleep in certain rooms with windows incase the wind caused them to break. They said they had not seen wind this bad in quite awhile.) We hopped in a new jeep with a new driver and started our trip to the border. We passed many lakes, volcanoes and mountain ranges along the way and finally approached migration! It was so windy here that honestly, I almost blew away when I stepped out of the jeep. It was so cold!! We were told a bus was going to pick us up here, but we soon lost faith in this bus after waiting for over an hour! More and more jeeps pulled up, with other tourists waiting for the bus as well. It was a mess of organized chaos! Jeep after jeep pulling up with travelers, peoples things flying all over the place, tourists running in and out of the migration office to get their exit and entrance stamps and guides trying to fix two of the jeeps that had died for one reason or another!..... Eventually the bus showed up! We waited until all the passengers coming from Chile got off and then all of us heading to Chile finally got to enter. We back-tracked a little as we had to drop off a few passengers, and then we were headed to Chile! San Pedro de Atacama here we come!