Salt Desert Tour (Salar De Uyuni), Bolivia, 1 - 2 August 2007
Bus from Uyuni to La Paz, 3 August 2007
We arrived into the town of Uyuni on Tuesday 31st July and made our way to the hostel we had pre-booked! However, the receptionist suggested we find alternative accommodation because they had a power and water outage! Fair enough, we set off elsewhere only to discover it impacted the full town! Anyway, we got a bed for the night in a so called hotel (prison like style) and saved a few bolivianos in the process! We went shopping for warm gear: Claire purchased a scarf, pair of alpaca knee length socks & a jumper. Dave got an alpaca belt.
The next day we set off on our 4x4 Jeep tour with two Brits (Fiona & Richard), a Yankie (Steven) and a Japanese girl (Maria) - for what turned out to be a great adventure with fun people. Our Spanish speaking driver, come guide, come cook - Sylvio - looked very young & a little simple! He wasn't that young as it turned out, age 23, but he did turn out to be a little simple (in the cutest & funniest way possible)!!Day 1: We headed off accross the desolate landscapes of the southern Bolivian Altiplano & quickly arrived at the Salt Plains aka Salar De Uyuni. They were simply amazing- 360 degrees of super flat, dazzling white landscape.
We could´ve been on another planet. We stopped off at a hotel made entirely of salt (except for the roof) & took a few illusionary photos standing on wine bottles/cans of pringles.... Next we moved onto the Isla De Pescado (Fish Island). Again, quite surreal - a coral island covered with cacti in the middle of a salt lake!!As we explored, Sylvio donned his cook hat & prepared lunch. I (Claire) returned to the jeep early & witnessed his level of food hygiene, ie none! After a mediocre lunch (including llama steaks) we took some more photos but Sylvio was eager to move on - why? Because he had no lodging booked for us & if we didn't move quick we would have nowhere to stay. A little strange on an organised pre booked tour wouldn't you agree? From then on in Sylvio became known as the Muppet.
We did force him to stop again (thanks to Richard) before leaving the Salt Lakes, we had to admire it´s sheer beauty one last time. We also started to pick up on Sylvio´s endearing idiosyncrasies, eg revving the engine to let us know it was time to go!
Our first night was spent in a small village called San Juan in the middle of emmm, nowhere. At least we had a bed for the night though! Thanks Sylvio. There were a group of 6 lively Ozzy lads staying at our digs and they provided the evening entertainment in the form of a firework display!!! Absolutely perfect considering the electricity curfew was at 9pm so we had to don headtorches to get from A to B. The star filled dark sky was a perfect backdrop for the display!
Day Two: Sylvio had prepared breakfast for us but omitted to give us any plates or cutlery & was surprised when we asked him to do so (bless his little cotton socks)... more washing up for him I guess. We set off on our drive & were treated to snow capped mountains, the first of strange rock formations, high altitude deserts & herds of vicuna (highly endangered wild relative of the llama). We climbed over 15,000 feet!!!We stopped for lunch at a very scenic spot: a laguna with flocks of flamingos. Sylvio had the option to prepare lunch at a table with chairs or a table with no chairs, which one do you think he opted for??
We arrived at our lodgings early & Sylvio secured us what was little more than an outhouse with six beds. There appeared to be better insulated rooms inside the main building & as additional jeeps arrived the occupants were happy to fill those rooms. When we asked Sylvio why we were in the outhouse he didn't seem to understand our concern?! We had been told that temperatures could drop as low as -20oC at night here!!!! Anyway, long story short, we secured extra blankets/hot water bottles/a gas heater & coupled with our two sleeping bags each we managed to have a good nights kip - well, that was until Sylvio chapped us up at 5.20am!
Day 3: Our first stop (at sunrise) was the hot geysers which were active & bubbling with steam & mud. Pretty impressive but the temperature was very very cold at that hour of the morning so we didn´t stay out the jeep for that long. After the geysers we came across natural hot springs where people had already started bathing. To our astonishment Sylvio drove straight past. We were understandably concerned until he told us he knew a better location... we didn´t have much confidence based on his track record however for once the guy pulled the cat out the bag!!! He took us to a secluded hot spring where we had our own changing room. Dave, Fiona, Richard & Steven hopped in immediately - I needed a bit more coaxing & peer pressure (considering the outside temperature was 0 degrees, brrr). Maria refused to join us (or take photos of us), she stayed in the van, poor chica it was too cold for her. It was an outstanding setting with 360 degrees of snow capped mountains & once out of the spring we enjoyed a breakfast of pancakes & hot chocolate.... class.
So back into the van bound for the Chilean border (where we dropped off Maria). Then the long journey back to Uyuni stopping off at more strange rock formations & a railway train graveyard. We stopped for lunch & Sylvio told us our last meal was to be canned tuna & rice.... (we had witnessed 3 dozen eggs in the back of the jeep when we started our trip & thought we´d be having a last supper of omelette's) so we confronted him re the eggs. He said they were raw - yeah of course they were, so cook them please... we reckon he was a tad lazy. We had to coax him (via another guide) to boil those that were salvageable (most got smashed) - it did take a total of 5 minutes after all!En route I witnessed a piece of metal flying off the jeep to which Sylvio was oblivious - we called at him to stop but he really didn´t seem to comprehend what had happened, which is to say he looked the same as he always did ...vacant. It wasn't until the driver of another jeep stopped to help us, looked under the jeep & proclaimed that we had lost the drive shaft (linking front & rear wheels) that Sylvio took it upon himself to go find said object but of course he attempted on the wrong side of the road first! He found it & came running back with a smile on his face & then proceeded to open the boot of the jeep just at the same time as a few trucks were going past - so we got a shower of dust! Good one Sylvio! The jeep was a 4 wheel drive so we were able to finish our journey using front wheel propulsion.
Back in Uyuni we enjoyed a Minuteman pizza (scrummy) before boarding the night-bus destined to La Paz with Fiona, Richard & Steven. The 11 hour journey passed quickly but the toilet stops were the worst Claire had experienced on the trip to date - farmyard smells aint got a look in.
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