Washing worries from the other day turned out to not be our misery.
Hmm, these tiny car socks don’t look like ours…. Unable to hand them back we were left with a choice. Leave them in the hostel or take them. Obvious choice right!?
So now I have a car phone cosy brummmmm!
(Sorry child with cold feet)
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.
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.
Salon cafe. Man wearing a Union Jack hat with London in big letters. THIS MUST BE THE PLACE FOR A PROPER TEA!!! Then he explains (after a kerfuffle) there is no English breakfast. If I had enough Spanish id have explained that should be a criminal offence to wear that hat and have no tea. We did get a rockin’ earl grey though, like a properly rock and roll super warming and wonderful glorious earl grey. This was partly down to them giving us the tea bag and hot water seperate for us to make our own (rather than them giving us their own little disaster in a cup). Muchooo Graciassss
Please note (particularly parents):
Tomorrow we are crossing from San Pedro into Bolivia to arrive in Uyuni Wednesday 15.00 via a convoy of I think 3 Toyota land cruisers. We’ve been told to expect -20C (not a typo) and 5000m altitude. We’ve done some shopping and starting to look very native- it’s going to be a case of many layers. I’m going for the Joey out of friends look when he wears all of Chaundler’s clothes. Still going to have to be braveeee. We expect no interweb and no hot water. If nothing appears on this blog then I’m probably now a block of ice 😬😬👻
This has started a charging spree:
Do they need the toilet?
Chile top tip: Set your watch an hour fast and continue to run on a British schedule (be on time for stuff).
Turns out Chilean time keeping is about as good as Colombias. If they say ‘6.30 wait outside hostel’ that means that the van to pick us up may or may not be there at 7.30. That’s a lot of time to think about how cold deserts are in the dark.
Our trip was to the Altiplanic lagoon. It was breathtakingly beautiful. Literally. Walking up a mole hill is like running a mile and makes you feel hopelessly out of breath and frankly, quite pathetic. 4200m is too high.
Where’s wally but with flamingos and some help
Don’t see too many Defenders in SA but I had to get a photo. Just looks so heroic!!!
Yesterday I was pointed towards using the least laundrette looking laundrette I’ve ever seen.
We handed over 2 black bin liners full of our clothes to an old lady who we couldn’t understand and was hidden behind 2 giant wooden gates that even I couldn’t look over. We have no receipt, no idea of cost and have no idea how she’ll know to give us back our clothes.
It’s one of those moments when you take a step back and think OH GOD WHAT DID I JUST DO.
Wahhhhhhhh
It felt good to be out of the rainnnn. Actually I lie. There was no rain and the horse did have a name. Mercedes.
Here are some reduced quality photos. Full quality cripples the internet connection
Yes that’s right!! Not in the crumby port town of Antofagasta!!! Ok there’s nothing wrong with it really, but there was nothing to do and I was ill. Finalyyyyy yesterday was well enough to make the 6hr coach to the Atacama desert – the driest place on the planet (plenty of bottled water for me then!!!). Thankfully after our altitude training in Bogota, the altitude hasn’t really been an issue (yet).
I have some stunning photos but the internet is too bad to upload them.
They use a bike to power their food blender:
I can only imagine there’s a Chilean cycling furiously in a shed somewhere keeping a 1Kb line shared between the town alive. I think he tags out every hour
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