At the 6am pickup I met the five persons that was joining me for the Bolivia adventure. There was a young couple from Germany, a mixed nationality couple from Ecuador and Spain and a lady proffesor from Rio de Janeiro. So a very nice mixture of people with different backgrounds. I was the least fluent in Spanish but as it turned out people in the group were very willing to translate for me to english. So, fantastic for me!

After the pick-up we were quickly brought to the border with Bolivia and were soon served with breakfast. The border is at more than 4000 m height and with a temperature of 3C with a strong breeze it felt bitterly cold and I didn’t eat much.

After immigration we swapped to a Toyota land cruiser, 6 people plus driver, and set off for the first lagoon, laguna Blanca. The white color giving the lagoon it’s name is because of the high mineral content dissolved in the water. The lagoons are well known for the pink flamingos who like the plankton rich water and we saw lots of them during the first day where we stopped by a number of lagoons.

Perhaps, the most impressive lagoon is laguna colorada with its red water coming from the borax rich mineral ground.

There were a lot of pink flamingos at this lagoon.

We stopped for lunch at a place where there were hot springs and people put their bathing suits on and went for a swim.

There is an animal from the lama family that is prevalent in the area, the vicuna, and we saw many of those throughout the trip.

After a very long day, 16 hours, we arrived at the night’s lodge at 10pm. It’s at more than 4000 m height and after a quick shower and dinner I went to bed but sleep did not come easily due to the low oxygen content of the air. With less oxygen the heart beats quicker and the brain will not come to rest.

So after a really bad night’s sleep we had breakfast at 0630 and set off for the 2nd day of exploring. This day was dedicated to exploring lava rock formations. I didn’t really find this overly interesting and felt it was included to make it a 4 day trip.

The 3rd day was to be the highlight of the trip when we visited the Uyuni salt flat. First in the morning at sunrise, setting off at 0500 from the salt hotel. The salt plane has in some places water on top making for a mirror like surface and with the sun coming up made for spectacular viewing.

We were than taken to an area where the salt looked very white and I could imagine being in the mountains of my home area in winter times.

While on the salt plane our driver and guide had fun with taking photos using props and geometrical wizardry producing fun looking images.

Next stop was the first hotel of the salt before later going to the famous train graveyard in Uyuni.

After another nice lunch we were brought to the office and were re-located to different cars and started the long drive back to the same lodge as used for the first night.

In summary, the trip was very memorable but really hard work. Distances are very large, 500 km in total?, so a lot of time is spent in the cars driving quite slowly on the very poor “roads”. This gave very long days of around 15 hours and because of being over 4000 meter of altitude very tiring.

I end this blog with a picture of the group hanging off the Toyota land cruiser and a breadcrumb map of the route.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Follow in the next blog: Back to santiago