Salar de Uyuni - The Salt Flats Trip

This to date is the most visually stunning trip I have been on. A 3 day 4x4 ride across to the Salt Flats in Bolivia, the surreal desert landscape and in to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. Although an amazing trip, the journey doesn't come without its horror stories of drunk drivers tearing their way across the desert with you onboard or 4x4 breakdowns in the middle of no where. Luckily we found a good company called Latitudes and didn't experience either of these. Gris (a Bolivian girl I met while in Cochabamba) came along with me and we met in Uyuni on the day before the trip. We borded the 4x4 and were joined by four Germans along with our driver and cook.

Day 1

The first day consisted of the visit to the Salt Flats and a train graveyard in the desert. The Salt Flats are just a the name suggests, a large, flat area of land as far as the eye can see covered in pure white salt. The salt is still hand mined by miners and sold in Bolivia. At this time of year the Salt Flats are covered by a layer of water, which, creates a mirror reflection of the sky. It was almost a visual overload and incredibly beautiful. The 4x4 surfed its way over the glistening white plains and it was hard to tell when the land ended and the sky began. Our driver dropped us off in the middle of the flats and we had 50 minutes of play time. Everyone uses the aspect trick of the land to take funny photos and we were just the same...


In the palm of her hand!

Our driver picked us up and we headed to the Salt Hotel, a building completely built out of salt in the middle of the flats for lunch. After that novelty we got back in the 4x4 and headed to the train graveyard for some more snapshots. There were several old and rusted steam trains which you could clamber on to and play around and we did that for 15 minutes. After that we were heading across the terrain to the lodge that we would be staying in. We were in a 4x4 a lot of the time but that was the adventure. The land we were driving across was so incredible that you would be looking out of the windows in awe most of the time. Our driver would then stop at various areas so we could have a little time to explore and take some photos. We stopped a couple more times on the way to our lodge and after a good meal, bedded down for the night.


Salt view

Day 2

We were up early to set off for another day of sightseeing. We made our way across dirt tracks viewing distant white peaked mountains and volcanoes set against blue skies. Around 9am we stopped off for about an hour at a lake which stretched out below some mountains. It was very pretty as you can see below...


Clear reflections

For lunch we stopped off at this cool rock formation planted in the middle of nothing really, and chilled out there for an hour or so. The 4x4 had mp3 connection so our stop was accompanied by the sounds of Air - Moon Safari.


On the rocks

Later on we stopped off in an area that was nothing but dessert landscape. In the middle of this a single strangely shaped rock stuck out from a patch of sand. It resembled something out of a Salvador Dali painting and being there really made me feel like I was in some other world. I think that´s why the whole trip has had such an impression on me.


Dali

The next stop was to the Red Lagoon named for the reason you will see below. Enjoying the lake with us were 1000s of Flamingos...


Red lagoon


Flamingo´s

This was as far as we got on Day Two and we had lots of time to relax before we started very early the next day.

Day 3

It may had been 4.30am that we were prized from our beds in readiness for the final day of travel. The reason we got up so early was that we could see the natural geysers flaring up before dawn. Also Gris and I were going to San Pedro de Atacama afterwards but the Germans had an 8 hour 4x4 journey back to Uyuni before the day was over. We arrived at the Geysers and you could here the steam as it shot out of the ground. It was really cold at this time of day so I only made a quick dash to them before getting back in to the 4x4 and tried to get some more sleep. It started to get lighter and around 6am we could see the faint orange of dawn on the horizon.


Geyser

The best part of the day was to come as around 6.30am we arrived at a large lake and steaming in front of us was a natural hot spring. We slowly changed in to swim wear and stepped out of the cold and in to the blissfully hot water. It was really lovely and as we lazed about we got to watch the sun rise up on a cloudless morning. We were in and around the hot springs for about an hour before getting back in the 4x4 to see a couple more landscape views and lakes. Then around 9am it was time for Gris and I to say farewell to the Germans and head to Chile.


Hot spring at dawn


All together, and the cook

We spent a couple of days together in San Pedro, which, is really a place similar to Uyuni, a stopping off point to excursions in to the dessert. On the second day in the afternoon we went on the half day trip to Laguna Cejar. The lake is so salty that you can just float in it, so that is what we did. Coming back out your clothes come completely stiff. Luckily we were taken to another pool which is not as salty and I dived right in. Again it was a really pretty salty earthed open landscape, and we were able to stay there to watch the sun set on what had been an amazing trip. The day after I left for Salta, Argentina to start another adventure and Gris headed home to Cochabamba.


A setting sun landscape

Sucre & Potosi - Dinosaurs, Mines and Dynamite!

After leaving Cochabamba my journey took me on a couple of whistlestop tours of Sucre & Potosi before heading to Uyuni.

Sucre

I only stayed a day hear but it was a fun time. I left Cochabamba expecting a 10 hour trip, however, that turned in to 16 hours. A crash on the road and a problem with the bus turned it in to one of the slowest trips I have ever been on. Some of the buses in Bolivia are terrible, it's a mentalitiy of getting everything you can out of something until it falls apart. Then you might think about doing something about it.

I got to Sucre around mid day and spent the afternoon looking around and visiting a couple of museums. Sucre is the judicial capital of Bolivia while La Paz is the home of the government. Bolivian independance from Spain was achieved in 1809 in Sucre. The city is very tranquil and quite picturesque with white washed buildings and nice plazas in a setting surrounded by hills and mountains. In the evening I had a good meal and a few drinks with some people I had met in the hostel I was staying in.

In the morning I went with Jack (an Aussie I met the day before) to a viewing point that looks across the city. It was a lovely blue sunny day and we had a great view of the city and landscape. At the view point there is a cafe set in some gardens and we stayed there to have some brunch. I had toasted bread with olive oil, olives, cheese and a glass of passionfruit, banana, apple and lemon. The plentyfulness and cheapness of fruit in Bolivia is one of its plus points. Laying back above the city with great food and drink I had one of those 'I love that I am here' moments.

Brunch in the sun

After the meal I headed to the nearby Cretacious Park to see some 56 million year old dinosaur footprints. In the park you can see the tracks of eight different species of dinosaur. Unfortunately it has become unsafe to get close to them so you have to view them from a vantage point 300m away. The tracks are on the side of a 80 degree vertical cliff in a cement quarry. This comes from the time when the tectonic plates moved, forcing the land upwards and creating the mountain ranges of the Andes.

Dino prints

After the dino park there wasn't a lot left to do so I decided to push on to Potosi that night.

Potosi

In Winchester 150 pence can buy you a 15 minute bus journey in to town. In Bolivia it can buy you a 3 hour bus journey from Sucre to Potosi. The highest city in the world at 4,070m asl and formerly one of the richest cities in the world (although the glory has long faded) it is a place worth seeing. Potosi become rich around the 1550s when silver was found in its mountains. The city funded the Spanish economy for a long time (and some of Englands courtesy of Sir Frances Drake) and the Cerro Rico mountain is still mined to this day. Silver stopped being mined in the 20th century when its price fell and instead tin was mined. Now little is left of either and the minerals are mined by chemically extracting them from the rocks that contain them. I was in Potosi to take a tour of the mine and see it for myself.

The crew (I'm in the middle)

Our guide was an ex miner who had worked for three years in the mines. He spoke great English and was a really funny guy. Our first stop was to get suited and booted in our mining gear and hard hats. Then it was a trip to the Miners Market. As a gift to the miners you are encouraged to buy them some provisions for the mine. For 30 Bs (2 pounds) we purchased them some dynamite and some bottles of juice (we could have bought them pure alcohol for their Friday celebrations but thought better of it)! Next it was off to the mine. A small entrance led in to even smaller passage ways and then crawling spaces on hands and knees. In the mine our guide told us the shocking truth and tales of the mine...

What to buy...explosives, 96% alcohol for the Friday party, water or juice?

The miners will work 8 hours a day, 6 days a week to earn themselves 2,500 Bs (250 pounds). To help with 8 hours in the mine with no food each miner will consume 3 bags of coca leaves a day. They work as a cooperative and get to take home about 86% in wages of what they extract. After working for around 10 years in the mine a lot of the miners will contract Silicosis (lung cancer) and may only live for another 5-10 years. It is the dust in the mine that causes this and the miners do not wear proper masks due to the cost of the filters and the unpracticality of wearing them. Now electric winches haul up the extracted rock but when our guide worked there he could be carrying up to 45kg of rock up tiny passages to the carts. Around 12,000 people still work in the mines and an estimated 1000 of these are children from the age of 10-18. This is illegal but this is Bolivia and there's just no controls. A child working from the age of 10 could have a life expectancy of just 25-30 years due to the Silicosis. The provision of few other jobs in Potosi and the need to support the family are the main reasons they work.

Working down mine

The miners believe in the underworld and that the mines are the domain of the devils. In order to have good luck they give offerings of dead llama foetus' to effiges of the devil in the mine.

A few people have become rich from the mines. One of the last was a man in 1985 who apparently did a deal with the devil by not just giving llama foetus' but also atleast one human foetus as a more powerful offering! He then struck it rich when he hit one of the main tin veins in the mountain and overnight his fortunes changed. He invested in 10 buses for the miners (a first in Potosi) and for a couple of years life was good. However he had forgotten about the devil and his pact. Three of his buses has accidents leading to the death of workers and he lost everything due to the welfare payments he had to make! Apparently he now makes a living charging people a lot of money to tell their fortunes from reading Coca leaves!

We went further in to the mine but stopped when we came across miners excavating the passage ahead. Apparently there had been a cave in which happened over Carnival. The miners were having to clear the block so that actual mining could begin again on Monday. We turned around to leave but before exiting it was time to visit one of the devil idols ,which, had also been decorated for carnival!


Me n Mr Devil

Eventually no one will be able to mine there any longer due to the threat of collapse of the mountain. The increase in rainfall and the unstableness of its tunnel ridden inside is the cause but no one knows if it they have another 10 or 50 years to go.

Once outside again one of our guides starting turning a stick of dynamite in to a usable explosive. I was handed this thing before realising that the four minute fuse was already burning down! The guide then ran off with it and stuck it in the ground so we could watch the explosion. The sound and blast was pretty cool. This place was insane.

Explosive preparations...

The Cochabamba Times

Cochabamba is the city is stayed in for a month to learn Spanish. This blog is not just about my time in Cochabamba but also about my experiences and thoughts on Bolivia overall. It's a crazy country!

I arrived in Cochabamba looking forward to catching up with Wyatt, Johnny & Ben for a few days before heading to Sucre to take some Spanish lessons. However, my time hear turned out to be longer than first planned. I had two really fun nights out in Cochabamba with the guys and some of the locals they had made friends with, and it was one of these chance encounters that led to me staying. I met Sol while out out partying on Saturday and bumped in to her again whilst contemplating what to do on the Monday. I had had a lot of fun in Cochabamba and met a lot of nice people so I was pretty open to staying when she asked why I was going to go. We went to Capresso (a cool coffee shop part owned by Danny who I became good friends with) with the idea of finding out about Spanish schools in the city. Sol called up her friend Luis to see if he could help with any ideas of Spanish schools. In actual fact I would end up staying with him and his family. After spending the day searching we found a Spanish school which seemed to be just what I needed. Thus the matter was settled, I would be staying in Cochabamba a little longer. I needed a place to stay next and Luis offered me to stay with his family which was perfect as I wanted to find a family to stay with.


View from near my house

I found myself really settle in to life in Cochabamba. On the weekdays I had Spanish classes from 3-6pm with Profesora Carolina. The Spanish lessons were challenging but fun. I have found myself struggling and still am with the numerous ways of conjugating a verd but the lessons really helped my Spanish and my ability to talk to the locals. In the evenings I was usualy up to something with Wyatt, Sol & co. One evening I went to a bar for a photo exhibition which one of Sol's friends was showing pictures at. It was really cool and the final photographer to show the video compilation of his photos was a Canadian called Robert Postma. The photos were incredible and he has had photos published in journals such as National Geographic. This is the link to his website so you can check them out for yourself http://www.distanthorizons.ca/.


Conjugate those verbs


Friends

Wyatt, Jonny & Ben were all volunteering with a great volunteer organisation called Sustainable Bolivia. Along with the volunteer programs they organised lots of events from Salsa classes, the trip to Carnival in Oruro and nights out. It was on an 80s themed birthday celebration they organised for the Director that I met a Bolivian girl named Gris. She would later come with me on the Salar de Uyuni trip and to San Pedro de Atacama (another blog required).


Party times, Gris on my left, Sol on my right

On the weekends the Friday / Saturday were party time. Cochabamba has a lot of bars and discoteca's to enjoy. A club called La Pimienta (Green Pepper) was one of the favourites. Sunday is generally dedicated to family. On the first Sunday I went with my family to a big reunion on a piece of land they own outside of the city. Everyone brought something to eat and drink and we were treated to a great lunch of barbecued fish with lots of potato and salad. There was another foreigner staying with my family called Julie and both of us were instantly made to feel like one of there own. It was a really great experience and a privelege to live with a them.


Family fun

I was lucky to be in Bolivia around the build up to Carnival. Carnival is one of the higlights of the year and is a big excuse for celebration. In the weeks before Carnival there are two days for celebration for men and women, La dia Comadres & La dia Compadres. For what I experienced these were both excuses for men and women to get wasted for a night. For La dia Compadres I went to Wyatt and Johnny's house for the evening. Franz (who owns the house and looks after the 7 or so volunteers staying there) was having a barbecue and there was 5kg of beef ready to be put on to it! It was a great meal accompanied by lots of beer and a game of Cacho ( a dice game that I will definately be bringing back to the UK). Both days are meant for the individual sex but they get celebrated by both anyway. On the dia Comadres the guys wait until late in the evening when the girls are suitably wasted and then head out on to the streets on the hunt. Wyatt, Johnny and I headed out with Luis (one of Wyatt's Bolivian co-workers). The streets were filled with cars and people (mainly guys) and the entertainment consited of alcohol and dancing next to one of the cars which filled the streets and blared out music.

Strikes

My time in Cochabamba was never uneventful and I witnessed a few strikes whilst I was there. Increases in the cost of goods like general food stuffs, sugar and petrol prompted the Transportistas (the unions of all local transport) to strike several times. They wanted to raise the price of a bus rides but the public wouldn't let them. We woke up one morning to find the roads in to the centre clogged with every single bus in the city. The city was in complete shut down until they started moving out in the late afternoon!


The day Cochabamba stood still

On the subject of transport, driving in Bolivia is crazy. A lot seems to revolve around the zero adherance to rules. When driving, people routinely skip red lights and hardly anyone has an actual drivers license. Drink driving also appears to be a pretty common thing.

Money

Bolivia really is a poor country and the poverty line can be very close for a lot of families. That is why the cost of a bus ticket going up from 50 cents (5p) to 1 Bolivan (10p) can have such a huge impact. A person working in a restaurant could earn as little a 700 Bs a month ($100). This is also the reason why practically everyone who is young doe not bother to work until after they leave university (it is free) and can get a better paid job.

Family

Bolivia also suffers from widespread corruption in the government, police etc. leading to zero belief in the justice system. Due to the fact that Bolivians cannot rely on the state for support the family is the most important institution in Bolivia. One of the really admirable things about Bolivian society is that families stick together and look after each other. Children will generally stay at home for university and a lot later in life. The families are also a lot bigger in Bolivia and it can be normal to have three or four siblings and countless cousins. The Navia family who I lived with work really hard to ear their living. They own two pharmacies and Yvonne (the wife) and Denisse (the daughter), who, is 20 years old run them. It is a 12 hour a day job with only Sundays off. Denisse also just started back at university and cannot keep running the shop by herself in the future. They also have to look after Yvonne's mother during the day and she stays with Denisse at the pharmacy during the day. Luis, 24 years old, has just got a really good job with Petrogas where he had his work placement at university. He is the only person to get this job from a public university in Cochabamba as the course you usually need is only available in private universities.


My family, from the left Luis, Abuelita, Denisse, Julie, Yvonne

Death Road

La Cumbre to Coroico, a 64km, 3000m downhill cycle along 'The Worlds Most Dangerous Road'. Sounds good huh? Well it was.
I signed up to go with Pro Downhill Cycling who looked like they had pretty good gear. The road starts a few hours from La Paz in a stuning backdrop of snow covered mountains. I was doing the trip in the rainy season but we were very lucky with the weather as it was a mixture of sunshine and cloud all day. Padded up, suited and booted, we were ready to go. I had not ridden a bike for three years but it didn´t seem too bad getting back on. The first 15km or so is a nice steady downhill ride on tarmac. Then comes the real road...


The road up

Gravel tracked with sharp turns leading to 100m plus shear drops and sometimes only 3m wide this is the WMDR. It is so named as between 200-300 people died each year on it before they closed it to traffic and opened a safer route through the mountains. It is a ridiculous road, at some points when the traffic met the vehicle going down (this includes huge lorries) would need to revers up the road to a point where the vehicle below could get by. There are two or three turns which are the dealy ones and there is no such thing as barriers here.


The WMDR

On the gravel track the full suspension on the bikes did their magic. Free of traffic you are able to go as fast as you dare. One of the reasons to do this adrenaline filled ride is the scenery, and it really takes your breath away. The road traverses the side of a moutain which looks out over more moutains covered in lush green cloud forrest. On parts of the road water cascades down the side of the cliff above and across the road. You cannot help but be in awe as you fly down its winding trail.


Cruising down


Sweet pic

Although 99% of the road is downhill it was still tiring and we were happy when we reached our end destination, a lodge with pool situated in one of the coca regions of Bolivia. Overalls were thrown off as we dived into the pool and enjoyed a couple of hours of relaxation in the sun before returning to La Paz. It was a very fun day.


All over