Salar de Uyuni & San Pedro de Atacama

At the arrival in Uyuni, you get bothered by the sales agents of the tour companies that try to sell you their tour to the Salar. After getting rid of them and checking into the hotel / hostal, we started to look around for a tour. Most of the agencies have 100% the same schedule, but we wanted to have something special, climbing a volcano at day 4 and going then to san pedro de atacama. the standard tour includes 3 days and going back to Uyuni so we looked around.

After 3-4 companies, we shortly revised our options and talked to some people in the street that looked as lost as we were. And fortunately, we met 3 Dutch girls that wanted to do the same (how big is the chance that you meet 3 people from a country that's highes mountain is less than 100 m of altitude??) but anyway, we went back to the first company (that had good information) and booked all together.

Next morning, we left, 3 Dutch, 2 Swiss and 1 US to the cementary of trains close to Uyuni to take pictures (very nice!) before we headed thought the salar. We had a quick stop at the office because the dutch girls thought that they had left there LP guidebook there (but actually it was in their back packs ;-) ). 

Cementary of trains

The salar is a salt flat that receives water and salt from the mountains around and it's flat, flat, flat, white, white, white and hot, hot, hot. It's a good spot to take funny pictures (the dutch girls had 100 of ideas) and it's very impressive (not just the pictures, the site itself!).

Human Star

Salar de Uyuni

 In the middle of the salt flat, there is an "island" with Cactus which we visited and where we had lunch. After another foto session, we headed to a salt hostal where we spent the night. The walls and most of it is made of salt-blocks (no-the toilets not!) and it's pretty nice.

Island in the Salar

Salt hostal

Next day, we visited several lagunes that are beautiful in color, but very toxic so no place to swim. We had a really cool group and the driving between the spots was not boring at all (e.g. the US one is a fire fighter). All the lagunes are in the mountains and you have a great view, colored lakes, mountains and flamingos waling around close from you... the flamingos don't care that the lakes are toxic at all, they enjoy it there!

Flamingos

Lagune with mountain as background

Rolling Stones

On of the highlights was the visit of the "colored-lagune" (Laguna Colorada) or "red lagune" since it has several colors at the same time. Furthermore, it's still a desert, so there is not much rain and it's very dry all the time. In the evening, we were at a tourist-hostel and we had to get up early in the morning (04.30 leaving).  

Laguna Colorada

 

After a short night, (with one of the girls talking while sleeping and one other turning 180 degrees in here bed) we grabbed our swimming gear and we drove to the geyseres which we reached at sunrise (freeeeezing cold!) and there were also some "mud-pools" bubbeling and steaming there! Nice but cold.  Just another hour away, we stopped at a hot spring place where we got breakfast and where we could jump into naturally warm water (nobody knows why they locked the changing rooms close to the springs so that you had to get changed outside while it still was cold!). 

Steam / Geysir

Hot Pool

Closed changing room...

 Heated up, we visited the green-lagune with the volcano Licancabur in  the back (5960m) and we got dropped of in a hostal close to the border (there is nothing there: no water from tab, no shower, .., but a volcano to climb). We relaxed, talked to the guide and prepared for the hike to the mountain.

Green lagune

At 02.00 we had breakfast and we started walking around 03.15. Unfortunately one of the dutch girls was not feeling too good, so she had to go back and here friend went with her, so after 5150 m just 3 of us were left. Passing a grave (yes, the mountain can be dangerous) we continued and we arrived the summit after good 6 hours of climbing and we had a geat view to the lagune and it's surrounding!

The way down took us another 2-3 hours and it was hard and long, and after the car breaking down 3 times on the way back, we arrived tired in the hostal.

On the top

Green Lagune from the top

Our guide should call the transport company in the evening so that we would get picked up in the morning to be transfered to the border. He told us several times, that this is no problem, the bus will come at around 09.30... well, next morning at 08.10 the lady of the hostal shows up and tells us that the bus is there... ? so we rushed out and the diver said, that their cars have passed through 10 minutes ago and nobody had told him to pick up people :-( we packed quickly and we could convince the driver to bring us to the border (there the bus was waiting anyway). So it was not a relaxed morning but we finally mad it to the border, where the next surprise was waiting: we got told in Uyuni that we don't have to pay for the exit since we don't have a visa (just a stamp in the passport). but at the border it was different: 15 Bolivianos, please. After we asked why, the guy wanted to know our company and ¡tada! no, since you come with Andean Explorers, you don't have to pay...? :-) well, we talked to others and it seems that's a bit random: some pay 21, some pay 15 and some pay nothing... :-)

We were happy to arrive in San pedro de atacama (where custom controll found an apple in my bag which is illegal in Chile and I nearly had to pay $100 US but I could redo the form and the let me slip through :-) ).

We currently stay in the "Casa corvatsch" hostal and yesterday, we went for a star watching show at midnight in the desert (highly recommended!!) with a funny french astronomer and an annoying Israeli that was asking all the time very stupid questions... :-( but the show and the stars were great!!

The Moon

Now, tomorrow we head to Salta in Argentina and then further south, but this will be on the next entry!

Sucre - Dinos & Potosi - Mine

For all of you how have been waiting for the next entry, we did not have any internet in the Salar the Uyuni since there is nothing but sand, salt, stones and mountains.... but first, let's talk about Sucre (the white city) and Potosi (a miners' town).

We arrived in Sucre and stayed in a very nice hostal (casa verde) which is run by a Belgian how offers great breakfast in the morning ;-) the first day in Sucre, we visited the city and we packed some stuff together to send home (things we didn't use a lot and some guidebooks we don't need anymore). This sounds easy, but it took us quite a while to firstly burn all pictures to DVD (just because the flyer of the company says that they have a dvd writer, that doesn't mean they have one ;-)  ) and later , we spent some time in the post office..

The friendly lady said, that our stuff will not fit into the box we have (it did) and the other friendly man told us, what we had to do, step by step: 

1) remove all things from the box again

2) write everything on a piece of paper what's inside and how much it weights

3) do the same again, but now on the official paper and weight EVERYTHING 

4) estimate the value of all things

5) hand over 2 copies of you passport (fu.. this is in the hostal, go back and do the copies).

6) Write the receiver address on a piece of paper 

7) Tape the package with tape and add the address

8)  re-measure the weight of the package again to make sure that is still the same weight

9) Pay the parcel...

Total amount of time used: 2 h in the post office, behind the counter

Working at the post office

In the evening, we had a very nice dinner and prepared for the next day, sightseeing!

We started our tour in the center with the visit of the casa de la liberdad (where bolivia became independant), followed by a church stopover (seeing a man peeing on the street and his little daughter sh... next to him), we also visited the army museum next to the church and slowly walked down the city until we reached the old train station behind the Parque Bolivar. Sucre feels nice and save and we enjoyed the sunny day there.

View of Suce

Cathedral

Don't touch... ;-)

Next morning, we headed with the dino bus to the dinosaurs tracks close to Sucre (note: if the cab-driver tells you, that today there is no bus, just ignore him and wait. The bus arrived five minutes later ;-) ) and we drove to the site. It's a nice display of live-size dino's and a good view to the dino-tracks on the other side, but it's not a great park you can spend days in, so after 1/2 a day, we used the public transports to get back to town and we watched Roger Federer on the live - ticker and we went to dinner with the two swiss we met in Coroico, another funny night

Dino in real size

Dino tracks...

Our plan was, to catch the train (a bus on train tracks) to Potosi, but since the taxi decided/thought that there is no train tickets, it was late. We still went to the train station and we almost got tickets (with another taxi it would have been fine!!) so we had to change the plan and go by bus and we arrived in the afternoon in Potosi.

Potosi is famous for it's mine where the spanish and now all others are mining for silver. The mine is pretty basic and you can do tours to it (we hoped, it will not be a human zoo and it was luckly not like this) so we booked it for the next morning.

the tour is done by an ex-miner who knows the mine and starts with a stop where you get dressed appropriately (boots, helmet, etc) and you head then to the miners market where you can buy all things the miners need.. TNT / Dynamite (what we bought as a present) 96% Alcohol to drink, cigarets, helmets, soda and much more... together with the group, we then visited a refining factory where they refine the rocks to 1% silver-salt (50 tons of rock are more ore less 24 kg of 1% silver). The next stop is then the mine itself; don't think of a new mine, it looks still like in 1700. the mine is narrow, low, dark, sticky, dusty and hot, so that you have to crawl through howls, climb down rocks and you start swetting a lot due to the temperature of almost 35 degrees where the miners are. most of them are between 15 and 25 years old an started with 13 to work in the mine and most of them will not turn more than 45 years old... but it's the only way to earn something in Potosi, therefore they work there.

Refining Silver with toxic liquids

Entry to the mine

Crawling

Men at Work

It's all manual work, there is no big machines and therefore, they use the TNT to ease the work. In the end, we were happy to be back in the sunlight and went for a shower.

In the afternoon, we also visited the national mint museum (Geldmuseum) and took a guided tour. Nice place and we got some funny information: We know that bolivia is exporting most if it's products directly (fruits, coffee, etc) and re-import the refined products at the end. Not much is produced in bolivia, not even their money: the coins come from Spain and Canada and the bills from France ;-) 

Well, after this special and interesting day, we headed to Uyuni, to the salt desert (but not with the bus below!!)

But this you can read in the following blog.

Salar de uyuni is waiting...

We have left sucre, stayed shortly in the mining town of Potosi and arrived yesterday in Uyuni. Today, we start our 4 day tour and we'll pass the border to chile, to San pedro de atacama on Monday. If all goes well, we can update the blog either on Tuesday / Wednesday next week, either from San pedro or from Salta!

There and Back, a story about Sorata

We had a comfortable trip to Sorata in a small bus with hardly no place for long legs, but we finally arrived after a 3 hour journey. As it is normal here, there is people buying things in La Paz and bringing it back to the place where they live to sell it there. So we met an elderly lady which just bought a bag with sugar (46 kg) and she asked us to help here to lift it up to the bus roof :-) what a weight! And have a look at those pumpkins!

Once we arrived in Sorata at the main square, we helped to unload the bus (again 46 kg to lift down) and we noticed a statue in the middle of the square... we don't exactly know this person, but he does look somehow familiar.... Any ideas??

...

We stayed in a little hostal (las piedras) and the friendly owner (Petra from Heidenheim) helped us to call a guide to organize our trekking in the mountains around (Sorata calls itself "trekking capital of Bolivia"). Eduardo seemed to be nice and friendly, so we decided to hire him, we'd leave on Friday, so we had 1 day in Sorata.
We actually didn't do a lot this extra day, sitting around, reading emails and newspaper and visiting a hostal (Oasis) for coffee and lunch and at 6 we expected Eduardo to pick us up to go shopping for the next days... but he called and postponed it to the next morning.
So next morning we were ready at 08.00 to buy food and hike up the mountain... but no Eduardo. At 08.30 another guy shows up, telling us that Eduardo is sick and that he will guide us... and after the shopping he had another change in plan: since the mula (donkey) was not ready we would not hike up but he would drive us up to the mountain :-( well, since the weather was not great, we thought this was ok since he said, we gonna walk around in the mountain. This actually containd of a 20 min ascend, a pick nick and the descend back to the tent where he said "You can relax now, I'll wash my car" and at what time do you want to have dinner? Relaxing from what??? so we spent 4 hours in the tent since it was raining...
At 18.00 dinner was eaten and he announced: "I'm leaving now, I'll be back at 08.00 with the mula. Bye" ... (no comment)

View to Sorata

Illampu (just seen quickly)

We had some time now to rethink our plan and decided to head back next morning to Sorata because the weather was not great and the organization and the guide (and his cooking) was "not great either".
So we haven't seen the lagunas in Sorata but we took a bus to La Paz (no sugar this time, but 17 people in and on the bus) and further to Coroico, a town in the Yungas (hot and humid).
In Coroico, we had a pleasant evening and next day was sunny in the moring and a bit of rain in the afternoon, so we relaxed an enjoyed the time in shorts (only the sandflies were a bit anoying). In the evening, we met 2 other swiss people who traveled from the Caribean Sea to south america and we had dinner together (yummy dinner).

View to the "death road" from Coroico

Our Hostal

Next morning it was raining, so we dropped our hiking plans and changed to getting breakfast and spending the day reading the guidebooks we have. In the evening, we checked out a place that offers "fondue" and really, they mean cheese fondue... together with the others, we decided to try the Raclette that was on the menue as well and it was good! (4 swiss eating Raclette cheese from Argentina in Bolivia).
Since we had booked a local flight to Sucre, we headed back to La Paz next morning and stayed the night there to make sure that we get the flight. It's now about the 4th time that we have encountered road blockades in La Paz or somewhere else, therefore an extra day is good to have. Our swiss friends wanted to head to Potosi this day, but the road was blocked, so we had some more meat in La Paz (yummy and plenty!) and we had breakfast in this cafe.

The owner is the friend of Petra from Sorata :-)

Just a normal market place in La Paz

Well, International Airport of La Paz is great (tiny) and La Paz is great for shopping outdoor equipement, so if you go there, choose is as first or last destination since you get everything (North Face, Mammut, ...) with a huge discount (e.g. 420 Bolivianos price = 200 paying... )
Our flight was on time, that means 1 h delayed, and we arrived in beautiful Sucre where we stay in a nice hostal (casa verde).

Flight view to Sucre

As far as we can tell it, Sucre is nice, white, clean, european and the post office is kind of complicated, but this is a story for the next blog!
p.s. we have sent postcards from 2 places (Cusco and Arequipa) but aparently, the Cusco ones are still somewhere :-( though sent 2 weeks earlier...

Sorata - Hiking

We arrived savely in Sorata, a town in the mountains (Cordillera Real) and we organized a guide that will take us to the high mountains around. Actually, we will not be alone, a mula (Maulesel) will help us carrying our stuff and especially the food for 4-5 days.
Yesterday we also visited the "bus drivers championship" which took place in Sorata. They were playing football in the afternoon and got drunk in the evening ;-) therefore, just few buses went between Sorata and La Paz.

Since we gonna be in the mountains, we will not be able to update the blog for about a week, we may have time around the 24th again!

La Paz and Choro Treck

Heading to La Paz from Arica is a 8-9 hour journey, but due to an accident with several deads and the road constructions in between, it took us 11 h to get there... so instead of arriving at daylight, we arrived around 20.00 in the dark. The good thing is the splendid view over the illuminated la paz, the bad thing is that at night it's less secure... Luckily we had booked a hostal so we grabbed a cab that drove us directly to the hostal Republica.

As usual, we spent the first day in a new city with sight-seeing and organizing the next days. La Paz has actually a bad reputation, since we like this city a lot, it's pretty special and has very interesting corners and we feel safer than e.g. in Quito. In the evening, we had our first bolivian menue (actually we went to an indian restaurant) which was great (and a lot).

Our next day was a "la paz on foot tour" (only for the two of us), where we walked from the altiplato "El Alto" down into the city centre. We visited markets, carneval shops (there is plenty of them) a museum of music instruments and finally, we ended up at the south part of La Paz which is completely different from the rest since here, the rich people live (it looks like a western european city). Great tour but tireing!

La Paz

Illimani

Mummi in the music instrument museum

Close to La Paz is the archeological site of Tiahuanaco, a pre inca civilisation. we booked a "dummy tourist tour" but it was a great trip finally. We got picked up by our tourguide and collected the rest of the group: 4 brasilians, 2 chilenians and two from the UK. Tiahuanaco is worth a visit since it's a great place but the presentation of the artefacts is not too good. But Victor from Brazil entertained all in the bus (with his funny spanish, his stories and his funny ideas).
The way back was hilarious, talking about a lot of non-sense things, and we decided to have dinner all together (the 4 brasilians and the two of us). So we wanted to meat at 20.00 in an Argentinian Grill restaurant (due to the heavy traffic we arrived at 20.45) where we had great meat and delicious wine. After the dinner we went close to our hostal to a party hostal called the wild rover where we had some beers and some more fun :-) before we went to bed (good preparation for the 3 day hike we booked).

Sun Gate

 

At El Arriero

After a short night, we packed our stuff for the 3 day choro track, starting at la cumbre at around 4900m and trailing donw an old path to Chairo on 1400m altitude. At the beginning, it's freezing cold an no vegetation at all, then some gras land appears, little bushes, followed by small trees, clowd forrest and subtropical forrest at the very end. We were accompanied by our guide and a cook that prepared the delicious lunches and dinners and it was a great trip. There is hardly any other tourists in this area at the moment and our guide Daniel was very good!

El Choro Treck

Share your Adventures with SpotAdventures

Broken Bridge

One of the highlights was a about 90 year old Japanese that owns a remote hostal / camping ground. he's collecting postals and he has a vast set of pictures of all over the world. We spent some time with him, looking at swiss postcards and a picture-book of the Bodensee (very funny).

Not to funny were all the insects in the lower area (horse flys / Bremsen) that are ubiquitous :-( at some places, the chickens try to catch the horse flys but they mostly mis (we guess since they dont see enought ) but we survived and had a great trip!

El Japanese

50 % of all our meat

In the evening, our mood was for food, so we went to the el Arriero (Arg. Grill) again! This time, we ordered a 400g sirloin steak (entrecote) and 300g of filet .... very tasty! it comes with salad and fries (and for a strange reason with rice pudding), but you have to fokus on the important things... on the meat :-)

so, what's next? Tomorrow, we head to Sorata, a small town in the mountains, for hiking. There are several options and we'll see what we do exactly there!