The Salar de Uyuni - Part 2 complete

The first part of this 3-day adventure was posted on 17 September, if you missed it. I was in a Toyota 4x4 being driven across the Andes with 3 Frenchmen and a Spaniard. A companion "jeep" from the same company carried a French couple and their French-speaking guide. We left this collection of intrepid voyagers motoring through remarkable rock formations on Day 2.

On some computers the pictures now look strangely dark. They were quite bright and normal when I loaded them. I hope they are OK on your screen.

An unscheduled stop. The other "jeep" had pulled up and raised its bonnet. Our driver stopped and a rapid conversation in Bolivian Spanish ensued. Both drivers then grabbed spanners and tackled the problem.

For the mechanically minded I can report that the area of concern was soon narrowed to the pedals and the solution involved tying something with a plastic supermarket bag. I bet that´s not in the workshop manual.

For the next 24 hours we normally followed the companion vehicle. If we were ever ahead our driver would periodically stop and check that the other vehicle was still following.

On through the mountains we went. It still seems wrong somehow that so much of the route was parched and yet there were lakes.

A puna flamingo photographed with all the zoom my little camera could manage. I was sure I wasn´t holding the camera steady enough, but it came out anyway. I should have used my little tripod, of course.

These lakes were smaller than Lago Colorado, where almost all the puna flamigoes breed. However, they had good populations in the non-breeding season. I think I saw some andean flamingoes as well but the main distinguishing features are the colour of the legs and the amount of black on the beak. Neither of these is easy to pick out at long range.

We visited lakes Ramaditas, Honda, Charcota, Hediondo and Canapa. Lunch was delayed until the last lake. This was a popular spot with the jeeps of several companies. It has therefore become known to the local wildlife.

This andean fox was the most daring of the scavengers.

There were a few caracaras gazing hopefully towards the lunch site, too. The fox would have to be pretty nippy to get in before these feathered pirates made a swoop.

Smaller birds fluttered to and fro pecking at the breadcrumbs and fallen rice grains.

The flamingoes peacefully ignored the leavings of the humans and carried on filtering brine shrimp from the salty water.

The foreground is tussock and other grasses. the white bit is ice. The pinkish dots in the water are flamingoes. As you can see, the fine weather continued. There were a few clouds about, but I guess they were camera shy.

In the afternoon we encountered our first patches of salt desert. These were a rather grubby white. However, there were reflective enough to generate the first mirages. Vincent told us that they would not appear in snaps, but we still tried to photograph them anyway. I did take some photos of the terrain, but the main desert on the final day was so much more spectacular that I have not bothered to include the Day 2 pictures.

Our destination was another night´s lodging in the wilderness, but this time in a salt hotel. That is, quite literally, a hotel built out of salt. Blocks are cut out and used as bricks.

The furniture is made of salt, too. These tables and stools show the layers very well. We asked why there were coloured strata in the salt bricks, but did not get an explanation.

The bed bases in our rooms were also constructed from salt. These were smaller than the dormitories of the previous evening, with only two beds per chamber. By some accident I got a room to myself.

Either we were significantly lower then the previous night, or the salt is a better insulator, but it didn´t feel nearly so cold. This emboldened one of the French guys to take a shower. He returned very quickly complaining that there was no hot water, despite the specific promises that had been made. Foolish man. Did he not realise that this was Bolivia. Hot showers indeed.

The reason for the non-delivery of hot water was very vague, but it transpired that nothing could be dome about it. Could the dirty tourist get a hot shower in the morning? Not a chance. The water will be frozen in the morning.

Enjoying dinner off a salt table. From left to right the smiling faces belong to Vincent, the keen photographer; Guillermo, the French-speaking guide from the other jeep; and the lady from the other jeep.

If you wanted salt on your food you used the salt cellar. Breaking off bits of the furniture was just not done.

Vincent gave us a slide show of his photos. Not only did he have a large, expensive camera but he was travelling with a laptop in his luggage.

We were allowed two handfulls of twigs in the stove tonight. When half the lights were turned off to save power (the only electricity was from a solar cell) that was a clear sign that we should toddle off to our salt base beds with their piles of thick blankets.

For reasons that were never very clear to me we had an early start in the morning. No-one attempted to have a shower.

The sun rising above the salar.

I nearly missed breakfast because I chose this morning to drop a contact lens. I had carefully placed my universal plug in the sink so I knew is wasn´t down the drain, but it took an age to find.

However, I did get some breakfast and no-one seemed peeved that my pack was the last one to be loaded.

Today was THE day when we were shown the biggest and whitest salt flat in Bolivia. This was what the whole tour was named after.

The first 100m from the salt hotel was pretty much like any jeep track and then we were on the desert, with a blinding white surface stretching before us.

The jeep could have driven anywhere it wanted, but the drivers were very careful to stay in the tracks of previous vehicles and minimise the impact. The result was rubber-blackened trails on a brilliant white background.

At one stage we stopped so that the tourists could get a close up view of the salt. It was hard and crunchy to walk over.

The irregularities in the surface are due, if I understood correctly, to the way the water evaporates out of the ground. These are only a few millimetres proud of the base level. They were barely noticeable from the jeep.

As you can see, it is spirit-level flat. Every summer the rains come and the top of the salar is dissolved. The water then evaporates and the surface is renewed. I forgot to ask, but I imagine that the tracks across the surface are completely erased in the wet season.

There were mirages in almost every direction with mountains appearing to float above the horizon. On one occasion it seemed that I could see another jeep flying across the salar.

Our first destination was Isla de los Pescadores (Fishermen´s Island). There is something a little strange about an island in a sea of salt, but that is what it is.

Nowadays there are no fishermen, of course, but the island is still worth visiting to see the forest of big cactus plants. It is managed by the Bolivian equivalent of DoC and an entry fee is levied.

These are a classical dry land cactus, with vertical concertina folds to allow expansion when water is abundant and can be stored, and contraction when it is being used by the plant.

You should be able to see a cactus-covered hillside here.

They are generously coated in the traditional long, sharp, straight spines. Bolivia is home to many species of cactus, but none more spectacular than these.

We had about an hour to scramble around a path that led to what I think was the highest spot on the island and take photos. I was down to my last set of camera batteries so I was not as extravagant as Victor.

Energy could be spared for a picture that not only proves I made it to the top, but gives a basis for understanding the size of these plants.

If you can see the picture properly you will note that I had not shaved for several days.

Someone has calculated that the plants grow only 1 cm per year. One large specimen has been measured at 12.1 metres and the label solemnly declares that it is 1,210 years old. Happy birthday, cactus.

On my way back down to the jeep I saw some birds with yellow bodies and black heads, a sort of Jolly Hangman outfit.

Off we went again, speeding over the salt and keeping to the established trail. The early start finally caught up with me and the smooth ride lulled me into a snooze.

I woke up as we drew level with the Salt Hotel. This one is not only built oout of salt it is right in the salt plain.

Lonely Planet advises that this structure is illegal and that waste disposal damages the natural wonder that we have come to see. However, the authorities seem unwilling to do anything about it.

The swimming pool is simply a hole in the ground filled with water. It is, of course, salt water. Saltier than the sea I judged.

Jeeps are not the only way to explore the salar. These cyclists had arrived the the salt hotel from Uyuni and set off towards Isla de los Pescadores, following the tyre tracks.

There was an end-of-adventure feeling as we drove the last few kilometres to the endge of the salar.

Here the salt is exploited commercially.

First it is scraped up into little heaps. I was told the perfectly good reason for this but confess I have forgotten it.

A silly pose for the camera.

The heaps are then shovelled onto trucks.

And taken to the nearby settlement of Colchani where the salt is bagged.

This was also the site of the salt museum, two rooms with some crude salt carvings and poorly stuffed birds. It was the poorest value I received, even though it was only 5Bs.

Colchani also boasts several souvenir stalls so I perused these and explained several times that my pack was too full to accomodate the offered trinkets.

In the meantime our lunch was being prepared.

This vicuna was roaming Colchani, apparently without an owner. It was not tame and spat at a couple of tourists. However, it behaved itself while this picture was taken.

Lunch was served in the building behind me. As we finished, another group passed by. Amongst them was Henk Konijnenbelt, whom I had first met on the Lake Titicaca trip. His family had returned to Amsterdam, but Henk had a little more holiday time and was making a whirlwind tour of Bolivia.

We had time to confirm that my email had been received and that we were both well before Henk had to rush to his jeep.

My departure was not far behind.

We had now left the salt desert, but there were still mirages. I tried one more time to potograph the mountains apparently floating above the solid ground. Can you see it?

There are many stories of bad jeep drivers on this tour. There are some that get drunk and even fall asleep at the wheel. Our driver had been a model of sobriety.

I was thinking how well the trip had gone when we pulled up. This driver had put his head under the bonnet once or twice a day to make sure everything was running well so I was not concerned. Only this time there was a problem. We had run out of petrol.

The driver was properly embarrassed. He had driven the route many times before and there was no good reason why petrol consumption would have been higher than normal. We were, he assured us, only 10 minutes from Uyuni.

He flagged down the next vehicle headed our way and begged a lift into town. We stretched our legs and kicked stones into the dust. I looked around for birds but had no success. I did find a little memorial by the road. I couldn´t understand the inscription. Maybe this was someone who had been killed on the road. There did not seem to be any buildings nearby.

Our driver was back with a can of petrol sooner than we expected. He had hired a taxi for the return journey. The taxi was not a 4x4 and drove very circumspectly through the dust. In fact, we had refuelled so quickly that we got back to Uyuni before the taxi.

We had one last stop on our itinerary. This was not a natural wonder, but the "Train Cemetery".

Bolivia once boasted a more extensive train network that it has today. As rolling stock becomes surplus to requirements something has to be done with it. In Bolivia it is taken to Uyuni and left in the sun.

The cemetery is mostly, but not exclusively, the last resting place - or is that rusting place - of locomotives. Anything that can be removed has gone, but the shells of these steam locos sit in the sun for any visitor to clamber over.

Quite how some of them got there is a mystery, because there are gaps in the tracks. You can see how the front wheels of this locomotive are sitting tidily on rails, but the big driving wheels have sunk into the sand.

All that was left was to drop us off in front of the tour company´s office in Uyuni. Goodbyes were said, and promises made to keep in touch by email, although no mails have actully been sent.

I chose a modest hotel just along the street, the Victoria. A sigle room with shared bathroom was a mere 25 Bs. The shower in the shared bathroom was one of those electric heater at the showerhead jobs. But this one actually produced reasonably hot water. Shame on me for scoffing at Bolivian showers.

The Salar de Uyuni - Part One

This is the start of an account of a three-day trek across some of the most spectacular scenery in Bolivia, including the salt desert (salar) near Uyuni. I apologise for the formatting. I have tried to get the spacing right but Blogger just isn´t behaving itself today.

It commenced just across the border in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, with a minivan ride to the Bolivian immigation office. The story really starts when we transferred to a Toyota 4x4. The tourists in the group were 3 Frenchmen, a Spaniard and myself. The same company was running a companion ´jeep´ in which a French couple were escorted by a French-speaking guide. This was presumably quite an expensive extra. The guide, Guillermo, was Chilean and loved to show off his expertise in both French and English. I suspect he thought of himself as one of the boys, and enjoyed the company of the younger men in my party. With this mixture the lingua franca was French. I managed OK. I think it was the Spaniard who struggled most. But he could talk to our driver/guide much more easily than the rest of us.

There were plenty of specific natural wonders along the route, but the background scenery was sometimes quite breathtaking. I apologise for the quality of the photos. Getting the exposure right to capture the range of colours was a knack I never acquired.

Some mountains sported lacy threads of snow, greenish tinges where there was some grass cover and rocks of many different hues.

For the most part we drove across very level, dry terrain. The jeeps were quite capable of driving all over the level sections, but mostly they followed well established tracks.

I´m writing this up so long after the event that I can´t remember names. I think it was Vincent (I will call him Vincent), a French student, who claimed the premium seat beside the driver. The other two French guys had scrambled into the back first, and thus had the least comfortable bench at the back. For them to get in and out the Spaniard and I in the middle row had to get out first so that the seat could be folded forward. We did offer to swap after the first day, but they stuck to their awkward possie.

The first named attraction was the Laguna Verde (Green Lake), which gets its colour from minerals in the water. For some reason I don´t have a picture of it. It was large and green and fringed with ice. This seemed odd in the sunshine, but we were very high and it got extremely cold at night.

We were allowed 20 minutes at a thermal spring. The Europeans were strangely reluctant to take up the chance of a swim. After the cold showers in San Pedro and the prospect of 2 nights with no shower I was into my togs in no time to get a good soak.

At least my example prompted Vincent to strip off and try the water.

Next stop was "the geysers". These turned out to be an area of fumaroles, although one of the holes contained a small sputtering spray of hot water that might technically have been a geyser. However, it was genuine thermal activity with fumes and boiling mud and much higher than any site in NZ. We were almost at 5,000 masl.

There followed a long drive through the dry, multi-hued rocks towards our lunch destination.

The view over the driver´s shoulder showing the "road" that we were following.

The driver must know the area very well. I´d need a map and a GPS to navigate in this terrain.

Finally we met life. A trickle of water through the rock had attracted a couple of dozen gulls. Goodness knows what they found to eat. Beyond them some low buildings came into view. They were built around three sides of a courtyard to provide some shelter from the wind.

I wonder if they have any function other than hosting high-altitude tourists. There was a rapid exchange of Spanish between our driver and the resident ladies. We were directed to one dormitory, then another. Then our companion jeep arrived and the merry-go-round started again because the French couple wanted a room to themselves and there weren´t any two-bedded rooms. Eventually they did get a room to themselves and Guillermo bunked in with us. The drivers disappeared to unknown quarters, where they turned the page of their job descriptions and cooked lunch.

The Cordillera Tours ´jeeps´ before the other company arrived.

Eventually another company arrived with two full jeeps, so the sleeping quarters ended up quite full. There was strangely little interaction between the tourists of the competing tour companies.

Our afternoon treat was a visit to Lago Colorado, a larger lake. This one is coloured red, due mainly to its occupants. These are red micro-organisms that flourishin the salty water and hundreds of flamingoes feasting on them.

First of all we were driven to a small hill that permitted a wide view over the entire lake. Over this lookout blew a wind that removed hats and threatened to freeze the innermost cells of your body.

We had an hour to explore the lake edge.

For Vincent and me this was an hour of attempted nature photography. Almost the entire world´s population of puna (James´s) flamingo breed on this lake and a good portion of them were enjoying the winter season amongst the ice sheets.

With my regulation camera I had to be content with groups that stalked earnestly over to drink the fresher water that arrived courtesy of a stream. Vincent was brandishing a camera with a massive telephoto lens. It must also have had a monster battery pack because he calculated that he had taken over 100 pictures that afternoon.

Even in the lee of the little hill the wind was more than noticeable. Even I, ardent naturalist that I am, surrendered the last few minutes of my hour for the shelter of the jeep. It was Vincent, oblivious of time, that kept us waiting.

Back to the lodge and French conversation until our driver/chef served dinner. It was hot and nourishing and accompanied by a bottle of wine, but not a patch on Mario´s offerings on the Salkantay Trek.

Heating for the tourists´ quarters was one tiny wood-burning stove with barely a handful of twigs for fuel. If this was a hint to stop nattering and retire early it was entirely successful. Most of us used sleeping bags under the blankets and prayed that we would not need to make a nocturnal trip across the bare concrete floor of the corridor to the bathroom.

The dormitory windows were caked with ice in the morning. Guillermo cheerfully told us that this was nothing compared to a trip some years age when it reached minus 25 during the night. It was quite enough thank you, Guillermo.

Thankfully the previous day´s wind had died down and it was really quite pleasant in the sun. Day 2 started off with another cross-country journey through other-worldly scenery.

Our first destination was the famous stone tree. This is not a fossil, but a weirdly eroded piece of rock that does make you think "tree".

The arbol de piedre.

In fact it is just one of a large number of strangely sculpted rocks. I took several photos of the less renowned examples. I will post them separately or email them to any funny-shaped-rocks fans. Send me an email or post a comment.

And on through desert valleys, some with sparse tussock grasses and some without.

An outcrop of layered rock took my attention. "Could we stop for a photo?" I asked. "Of course," answered our chauffer. The layers reminded me of the pancake rocks at Punakaiki, but these had been tilted at some stage of their history.

What I christened the "Pikelet Rocks". They are not marked on the itinerary because in this area they are not very remarkable. Vincent is in the centre photgraphing a ´living rock´ plant.

And once I got out, Vincent had to unship his sophisticated gear and take a dozen snaps or so.

This is another attempt to capture the range of colours that surrounded us as we drove across the Andes

To be continued in a separate post.

San Pedro de Atacama - now with Pictures

There were two reasons for coming to San Pedro, to start the salt desert tour in Chile and to see something of the region, which has been the subject of very positive reports from other travellers.

Wednesday morning was spent orienting myself and hunting down an ATM so that I should not become destitute of Chilean pesos. Most prices are quoted in thousands - the peso is a small unit.

The afternoon was a tour to Moon Valley and it was very disappointing. We saw some amazing rock formations but received little useful information about them. The guide was working from notes and clearly didn't understand what he was trying to tell us. He talked about volcanic activity when we were admiring the pictured formation of sedimentary rock. The light grey seams may well have been volcanic ash, but they were laid down in water because the layers above and below were all horizontal. And why were the rocks only 50 metres away tilted and folded? It was no use asking this guide. I learned later that he was only in his second day with the tour company, but that did not improve the tour.

In Moon Valley itself we saw none of the features depicted in the admission brochure and the sunset the tour was timed to enjoy was pretty darn ordinary. The previous day's sunset on the road from the Bolivian border had been more spectacular. However, I met a lively Irish couple who have visas to work in NZ, so I gave them my email address so that we can meet up when they arrive.

Thursday was altogether more interesting. The lagoons tour started at one of the lakes in the Atacama salt flat. Not only was the salt flat an intriguingly weird spectacle, but the flamingoes were flying around and feeding head down in the approved manner. It was a shame that so many of them were choosing to feed so far away from the spectator area, but the chilean and andean species were positively identified. TICK.

We also got close up to andean avocets and puna plovers with jaunty golden caps. AND we got a lot of accurate scientific information. Did you know that Chile produces two thirds of the world's lithium in the Atacama? No, nor did I.

The drive to the mountain lagoons took a while. We started off on tarmacadam, turned off on to good, graded gravel road and then the route got steadily worse as we got higher and the scenery got wilder. The lakes were worth the effort though, and the biting cold when we got there.

The big lake had a backdrop of snow dusted mountains and was partly iced over. Really scenic. The surrounding tussock was home to a family of vicunas. These are not (yet) rounded up and shorn of their valuable shoulder wool.

The smaller lake (sorry I've completely forgotten their names) was not to be approached as it is a nesting site of the threatened horned coot. Several of the football sized coots were busy wading and swimming in the near part of the tarn. I confess I am a lost cause. I did get excited about big black birds with strange growths (that don't look anything like a horn) on their beaks. *TICK*.

In the afternoon we had a good lunch and admired a couple of villages. One of them had a thatched church.

There were two NZ brothers on the tour, who are staying at the same hostel as I am. They are in Chile to take part in an ultra endurance event. This involves 150 miles (240km) over six stages self supported, ie you carry your food for the race days. Water is provided along the way. David is modestly walking and aiming merely to finish. Robert is running (with a 15kg pack) and has pretentions to a good place. They are, of course, quite mad but wish them luck anyway.

For the evening I secured the last place on a tour of the stars. The Atacama probably has the clearest skies on Earth. A huge radio telescope is being built in the area, but this was on a more modest scale. A French astronomer and his (Chilean?) wife take groups out to their property and in 2 hours pretty much cover Astronomy 101.

The apparent movement of the stars, and why they are visible for only part of the night or part of the year, and why some are visible only in the northern or southern hemisphere, was all explained very clearly. How to start learning the constellations and stars was taught, rather than trying to make us memorise lots of facts. The Southern Cross was clearly visible and we were shown how to use it to find the southern point of rotation. All this was done with fabulous laser pointers that zapped streaks of light into the sky.

Having given us a start on how to appreciate the visible sky, we were invited to gaze at some of the detail only revealed by telescopes. We were shown nebulae of various types, a double star, galaxies, what the milky way looks like (lots of individual stars), gas clouds, etc. We had been invited to bring cameras, and I have this lovely shot of Jupiter. Unfortunately the batteries died while Alain was trying to get me a better one.

The evening had the perfect finish with a mug of hot chocolate.

Today has been a lazy day, with gentle walks around the town to ease my back into its proper position. The farmacy has also helped the process by supplying anti inflammatory tablets.

Tomorrow (Saturday) I set off back into Bolivia and will arrive in Uyuni once again, at a civilised time I trust, on Monday afternoon. So there will be a bit of a break before the next post. Don't let that stop you leaving comments.