It was raining and cold again when we woke up on Monday, so we took our time getting ready. After breakfast, we caught the Metro to the bus station where we bought tickets to our next destination – San Pedro de Atacama via Calama. The ticket seller claimed that his merchant facility was offline and so could only accept payment in cash. Then he made a "mistake" with our change and when we checked the price on our tickets we noticed that he had also over-charged us by CL$2,000. He refunded us the difference happily enough but we think that he was dodgy!
We caught the metro to Los Domenicos where we went to the handicrafts market. It was on a large block of land next to the church and was in itself like a hacienda complex. It was really quiet because it was lunchtime so we left the market to go and buy a picnic lunch. By this time it had stopped raining and the sun had come out so we enjoyed our lunch in a nearby park. We walked back to the market and wandered around admiring the wood sculptures, horn sculptures, leather belts, bags and wallets, woollen jumpers, hats, scarves and ponchos, silver, copper, lapis lazuli, Inca rose, malachite and jade jewellery, and ceramics. We left the markets without buying anything and caught the metro back to the apartment.
On Tuesday morning, the sun was shining and the sky was blue when we woke up. After a leisurely breakfast at the hostel, we went back to our apartment to pack up our stuff. At midday we checked out and made our way to the bus station where we caught our first Chilean bus. We took pleasure in our last sight of Santiago from the bus windows with the snow capped Andes providing a dramatic backdrop. We passed some vineyards after the suburbs and wound through the valleys in the foothills of the mountains before coming back to the coastal plain. The brown mountain slopes were full of tall cactus and in some spots the coastal plain was incredibly narrow, sandwiched between the mountains and the sea. We drove along the coast past deserted beaches with sandy cactus filled plains in the foreground. There were also fuzzy stalks of an aloe like plant, possibly a relative of the pineapple and flocks of terns at some places. The sunset was spectacular over the Pacific Ocean on our left. We stopped at Coquimbo with a pretty fleet of tiny, yellow fishing boats and a massive church tower on the only hill catching the last rays of sun while the rest of the town was in shadow. Down the road another stop at the more touristy La Serena, and then on through the night with bad Hollywood movies and ordinary bus snacks.
On Wednesday morning, we woke up after a fitful sleep even though this was the most comfortable bus we had been on. We read and watched the desert landscape outside the bus windows. Even though no plants or animals were visible, there was still some action with roads and piles of sand from mines everywhere. In the distance mountains were shadowy reminders that the desert was not all flat. We arrived at Calama at 12.30 pm and had to sit around in the bus terminal until the bus left for San Pedro de Atacama at 3.00 pm. We passed over a plateau and looked down on the town – the only green below. It was dusty and hot but thankfully no wind and the houses were all low set adobe construction. We wandered out of the bus terminal to find accommodation everywhere and quickly settled on the clean Hostel Katarpe with WiFi. We gratefully had a shower and went for a recce around town as it cooled off. We had dinner and then talked to a couple of travel agencies about our trip to the Salar de Uyuni before calling it a night.
We slept in really late on Thursday, only waking up when the maid came to service our room. After breakfast we went to another travel agency to talk about our trip to Salar de Uyuni and then we went to the Tourist Information Office to read their feedback book about the various agencies in town. Finally, we decided to use the Cordillera Traveller agency as they had a mention in the Lonely Planet, were a smaller company and seemed to have a good reputation around town. We changed some Chilean Pesos into Bolivianos at a Casa de Cambio and then went back to Cordillera Traveller and booked our trip. We had a lovely lunch at Grado 6 and tried our first Pisco sours – a cocktail made from pisco (white grape brandy), lemon juice, syrup, and crushed ice.
After lunch we walked to the Church of San Pedro – a small whitewashed adobe mud building with ceilings made from cardon cactus and creaky bowed wooden floors. Then we walked across the Plaza to the Archaeological Museum of Gustavo Le Paige which housed a display of pre-Columbian artefacts showing the evolution of the Atacama culture from before the Inca invasion to the Spanish conquest. There were stone and bone tools, ceramics, jewellery, hallucinogenic equipment used by shamans – intricately carved snuff boxes, trays and snuff pipes. There was also a small display of gold artefacts.
It was really hot when we left the museum and all the shops seemed to be closed for siesta, so we went back to the Hostel and spent the afternoon reading.
We got up to the alarm at 7.00 am on Friday, showered, finished our packing and walked to the Cordillera Traveller office. We left at around 8.15 am in a minibus with thirteen other travellers for the border. We arrived at the Chilean Emigration office very quickly and then drove an hour to the Bolivian Immigration office.
It was really obvious once we arrived on the Bolivian side because the road suddenly deteriorated from a sealed tarmac road to a dirt road. The Immigration Office was also much smaller and more like a shed! Once we had cleared Bolivian Immigration, everyone unloaded their back packs from the minibus and transferred to them to one of three 4WD jeeps. We were sharing our jeep with Freddie our driver, and Patricia, Lizzy and Charlotte. While we were clearing immigration and moving our back packs, the three drivers set up some picnic tables for breakfast for us – ham, cheese, butter, jam and bread rolls. They had flasks of hot water, cartons of milk, tea bags, coffee powder, Milo and sugar. So we all ate our first meal in Bolivia outside the immigration office at 4,200 metres above sea level. Amazingly we saw some seagulls hanging around hoping for a feed in the middle of the desert!
We drove to the National Park Office where we paid our entry fees and had a quick toilet stop. The toothless old lady who was dispensing toilet paper was wearing a tiny bowler hat perched on the back of her head and a shawl around her in archetypal Bolivian fashion! Then it was just a short drive to the Laguna Blanca (White Lake – magnesium and borax) and Laguna Verde (Green Lake – copper sulphate), located at the bottom of the Licancabur Volcano. We stopped at each lake briefly to take photos and quickly got back into the jeep to get out of the wind. On the way we saw a small group of vicuna wandering along in their desert brown colours. They were a smaller less hairy version of the domestic llama.
We continued on to the "Dali Desert" so named because of the surreal-looking flat landscape dotted with misshapen lumps of rock eroded by wind and sand. We stopped at the Termas de Polques hot springs where we had a quick soak in the soothing but sulphurous 30°C water at 4,950 metres above sea level. Once we got out it was really windy and cold so we couldn't get back into our clothes fast enough. By the time we got back into the jeep, we were all beginning to feel the effects of the altitude (or maybe it was hunger). We were short of breath, light headed and slightly dizzy so we only paid scant attention to our next stop at the Sol de Mañana geyser basin with its hot bubbling volcanic mud pots and sulphurous vapour issuing from the fumaroles.
Finally we were taken to our hostel at the "village" of Hualla Jara at 4,350 metres above sea level where we were to have lunch and spend the night. We had a late lunch and straight away we felt better. We organised our night clothes (thermals, t-shirts, jumpers etc) in our dorm which we were sharing with Patricia, Lizzy and Charlotte. We rested for a while as some people were feeling ill and everyone felt slightly strange.
Then Freddie drove us to the Laguna Colorada, the main nesting centre for over 30,000 flamingos of three different species. We stopped to see a group of domestic llamas with ribbons tied into their ears. The lake was really spectacular – it was a beautiful red colour from the microorganisms, fringed with white mineral deposits, and full of beautiful flamingos of various shades of pink.
Back at the hostel, we had mugs of tea and chatted until dinner time. As the sun went down, it started to get really cold so we changed into the clothes that we were going to sleep in – thermal tops and bottoms, cargo pants, t-shirts and two fleeces.
We had really had an enjoyable day – we'd seen lots of flamingos, vicunas and llamas and the weather had been kind.
As it turned out, it wasn't quite as cold as we were expecting it to be. Our beds were innerspring mattresses on concrete slabs and we had two thick blankets each – so we were very comfortable. Unfortunately because of the altitude, we slept fitfully – waking up several times during the night with headaches and mild nausea.
After breakfast of scrambled egg on bread with a cup of tea (which was all that we could stomach) on Saturday, we loaded our back packs back on the jeep and Freddie drove us back to the Laguna Colorada. With the morning sun high in the sky, the red lake looked like a copper tray with the mountains and the flamingos reflected on the surface.
We drove through the Siloli Desert and stopped to look at a set of rocky formations eroded by wind. One of them – the Arbol Piedra – looked vaguely like a tree. Freddie then drove us to the high plain lagoons – Laguna Honda, Chearcota and Hedionda where we saw more flamingos. The flamingos were at their most beautiful when flying. We admired their reflections in the surface of the lakes and their pink plumage against the blue sky. We also stopped at one point to view a strange green coral like plant clinging to the rocks at 4,700 metres above sea level. At Laguna Hedionda, the largest lagoon, Freddie set up a delicious lunch for us at a picnic table. After lunch we went to Laguna Cañapa, the last of the four lagoons. We stopped at a view point over old lava flows to Ollague Volcano which had some white vapour issuing from the top. We stopped briefly at the Chiguana salt flat to see the train tracks laid from Bolivia to Chile and then finished the day at the town of San Juan where we were spending the night.
The Hotel De Sal at 3,700 metres above sea level, was a besser block building located at edge of the Uyuni salt flat. Inside the hotel, the floors were made from loose coarse grained salt and the walls, beds, tables and stools were fashioned out of salt bricks sandwiched together with salt mortar. This time we had a room to ourselves and we'd been told that there were hot showers – pure luxury! We were first in the shower but unfortunately, the water turned out to be freezing – so our showers were very brief! This turned out be a technical problem and so about half of the group were able to have hot showers – until the water ran out!
We went to bed early because we were getting up early to see sunrise at the salt flat.
Our alarm went off at 3.45 am on Sunday and we closed up our back packs and loaded them onto the jeeps in the dark. It was really clear and we had a beautiful view of the starry night sky. We clambered sleepily into the jeep and then Freddie drove us into the heart of the Uyuni salt flat – the world's largest salt flat covering an area of 12,106 square kilometres and at 3,653 metres above sea level. We drove for an hour and a half and as the sky brightened, the dazzling white salt pan revealed itself. When Freddie stopped the jeep, we stepped out onto the crunchy ancient lake bed that seemed to be paved with hexagonal tiles. We had half an hour there watching the sky change from a dull grey to warm pinks and oranges and finally a deep blue as the sun came up over the horizon. It was a spectacular sight with the salt pan surrounded by old volcanoes and hills in the distance.
Then we drove to Incahuasi Island, one of the many hilly formations of chalky rocks, coral and seashell fragments located in the salt flat. Incahuasi Island was covered in Trichoreus cactus and while we walked along the marked trail to the top and back, the drivers prepared breakfast for us. After breakfast we walked around the island on the sea of hexagonal salt tiles. On one side of the island the tiles had cracked, revealing some water underneath.
Then we continued on to the Playa Blanca Hotel de Sal which had been closed due to its impact on the environment. When we arrived at the hotel, now a museum, it was closed but a Bolivian woman opened it up. When we went in there were large notices that entry to the museum was only possible if you bought something. Incredibly when we enquired if we could buy something from the handicrafts spread around the room the occupants motioned us out and locked the door! Next we drove to the salt mining town of Colchani, where saw square salt ponds and salt piled up into little pyramids. We saw a large truck next to some salt pyramids with two men shovelling salt into the truck. We stopped briefly in the village of Pueblo Chico on the edge of the salt flats and looked at a handicraft market run by women whose husbands were involved with the salt industry. There were beautiful scarves, hats, gloves and jumpers at unbelievably cheap prices but we resisted temptation as we had only enough Bolivian money for Freddie's tip and anything we bought we would have to carry and we were already overloaded.
Then we drove around the edge of the salt flat to Uyuni where we drove straight through town to the Cementerio de Trenes which contained the wrecks of several old steam trains from the late 1800s.
Then Freddie dropped us off at the Cordillera Traveller office and we walked a couple of hundred metres to check into the Tonito Hotel. We had a shower and walked into the centre of town where we had lunch. After lunch, we bought our bus tickets for La Paz, changed our Chilean pesos and bought some water before returning to the hotel via a large street market to catch up on photos, diary and emails.
Bolivia felt much poorer than the other countries we had been in. It had its own flavour too with the many Bolivian women with their colourful blankets wrapped around them, stockings, long braided hair and small bowler hats. As we were strolling around town this afternoon, we noticed that quite a few young men were really drunk and were having difficulty walking.
We had a really delicious dinner at Minuteman Pizza which was actually in our hotel and got a big (and well-deserved) rap from the Lonely Planet. We had Mediterranean pizza, fettuccine with pesto and sundried tomatoes, and salad followed by a hot chocolate, chocolate chip cookie and apple pie with ice cream for dessert. We spent some time catching up with our emails and organising our accommodation in La Paz before turning in for an early night.
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