Gives some idea of the roads we were dealing with. This is one of the best (I could actually hold the camera still)
Bubblin bubblin. Bubblin bubblin. The geysers are bubblin.
Category: Bolivia
4.30am start to get to the Bolivian salt flats before sun rise. Turns out the winning part of this was watching the moon go down.
Moon one side of what was once an island and this sun rise on the other.
Temporaliy stole the flag. I gave it back. Honest.
Nomnomnom
Speedy ganzalo our tour driver had all the mechanical sympathy of a drunken ape (or so I thought). I was utterly convinced at some point during our long 60kph sessions over super rough ground that something would break. It didn’t. It made some loud crashing noises and that’s about it. Land cruisers are tough. I see why they dominate Bolivia.
Gonzalo the don pictured here. The sheer space of the salt flats blows the mind. At one point he switched off the lights and continued to drive at motorway speed completely blind for at least 20mins. The only indication we were moving was the tyre roar and occasional bump
The train graveyard of no health and safety. I took full advantage and climbed up onto the rusted old British built steam train. Getting down was less easy..
Im kidding, compared to a Bolivian I’m a massive wimp. These guys are hard as nails.
So last post I mentioned our epic tour from San Pedro in Chile to Uyuni in Bolivia in a convoy of 4x4s over the Andes. The first thing you need to know is that shizzle ma nizzle this was so utterly stunningly amazing that I’ve had to use some random words to try and emphasise that.
The next thing you need to know is that I have a new definition of what cold is. Never again will I complain when’s it’s a measly 1C in London. -22C we were told it was in our first hostel. -22C. I wore 3 t shirts, a jumper, a hoody, a coat, an awesome aplaacca poncho, leggings, trousers, double super thick walking socks, scarf, thick hat and I was still frigging cold. The wind could cut through you like a razor through butter. Strangely, however, this wasn’t the biggest problem.
The altitude. Oh my goodness the altitude. Throughout the day I felt pretty smug, everyone in our group was getting quite nasty headaches as we reached ~5000m. I didn’t feel too bad at all- if anything pretty chirpy. Our super cold hostel was at 4200m so a nice descend. Yet, as we reached the hostel the poor yank in our group started to hurl pretty bad – as did a few Brazilians in another car. After dinner pretty much everyone including myself had a pretty nasty headache. After another 4hrs I was getting pretty concerned I was going to join the hurling club- having seen the others I’d almost resigned myself to it. Then the cocoa leaves came out. I scoffed at this stuff earlier on in our trip. I shouldn’t have. Chewing leaves actually fixed me. BOOM.
It still wasn’t exactly a comfortable nights sleep as I’m sure you’ll understand.
Actually one more thing on the altitude before I break out the highly compressed pictures. I’m not sure if people will understand this but you know when you start thinking about breathing and you have to consciously breath until you forget and it’s sort of automatic again. Well the altitude kept causing me to randomly gasp for air during automatic breathing and I’d have to start thinking about ‘breath in’, ‘breath out’. It’s really strange. A few others complained of something similar.
Crossing through Bolivia customs
Hopefully from my face you can see how cold it is even though this is right next to a geyser. This water was actually bubbling.
Part squirrel, part kangaroo, part rat. I have a video of this weird thing which I’ll try and upload when the Internet is better.
Hot springs so lovely and warm but require bravery when you get out. Brrrrr
Our second hostel was made of salt even right down to the floor being covered in about a 1″ dusting. Strange.
178,000 Colombian peso, 46,000 Chilean peso, 250 Peruvian sol, some USD, GBP & Euro. It looks like enough for a convincing rap music video.
In reality it should be just about enough for a few nights in a hostel. Until then I’ll continue to pretend I’ve worn the lottery woohoooo