Bolivia bound (Salar de Uyuni tour, Bolivia)

The next leg of my journey through South America saw me heading off on an epic three day journey into Bolivia, crossing the spectacular Bolivian altiplano to reach Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt lake. This three day trip is a popular part of the backpacker trail in South America so as a result there are numerous companies in San Pedro de Atacama offering trips in to Bolivia, nearly all following the same route in a 4 wheel drive carrying up to seven travellers.

Our Land Cruiser to take us to Bolivia

Jake, Tom and Colin were all heading for Bolivia too so we signed up with a company in San Pedro together and were then joined in our 4 wheel drive by Glenn, from Australia, and Tom, from Ireland. Fortunately this meant we had a good group of like minded travellers with a shared first language which made the next three days crammed in to a Land Cruiser together a lot more enjoyable. After being ferried to the rather basic Bolivian border post, we met our Bolivian driver Nelson who would also act as our guide for the next few days. We quickly established that he didn't speak any English, but this at least gave me a chance to practice my Spanish and between the six of us we understood enough to get by and understand most of what Nelson was telling us about each place we visited on the tour.

Tom, Colin, Glenn, Tom and Jake

Bolivian border post

Although the tour is largely billed as being a visit to the salt flats, the first two days are actually spent driving across the Bolivian altiplano (high plain). While this was slightly unexpected, the scenery was absolutely stunning and we were all blown away by the spectacular surroundings. On the first day, we stopped at Laguna Verde, a large green tinged lake, before heading to a geyser field which though not quite as impressive as the El Tatio geysers in Chile were still great to visit. Although there was nothing to stop you getting right up close tothe geysers, we later heard that a member of another group that visited the geysers on the same morning ended up with some very nasty burns and an emergency trip to a doctor at a nearby mine after the ground next to a geyser cracked beneath him sending him in to the boiling water below - ouch.

At Laguna Verde

Laguna Verde

Close, but not too close, to a geyser

Desierto Salvador Dali

Later that morning we stopped at a thermal pool for a swim, where the water was even warmer than the pools at El Tatio. By now we had risen to over 5000m so the altitude was beginning to affect us all, particularly given we had been down at 2500m in San Pedro only a few hours before. The guide books all warned about the long bumpy roads and risk of drunk Bolivian drivers on these trips, but were all strangely quiet about the altitude which was to affect us far more during the course of the trip (Nelson was a great driver so the horror stories on that front provide unfounded). By mid afternoon we had reached our accommodation for the night, a rather ramshackle set of buildings that seemed to exist purely to host trips like ours.

After lunch, we headed to Laguna Colorado which for me was probably the highlight of the three days. This huge lake is a vibrant pink colour due to the red algae in the water and is populated by hundreds of flamingos (whose pink colour also comes from the algae), which along with the spectacular snow capped mountains around us made for an incredible sight.

Laguna Colorado

That night we had a rather bad night's sleep as we all struggled with the altitude and cold temperatures. It was hard to sleep peacefully with a raging headache and shortness of breath so it was with some relief that we awoke alive and well the next morning! The second day matched the first for spectacular scenery as visited several more huge lakes as well as the Piedra del Arbol, a large rock that resembles a tree.

Piedra del Arbol

Laguna Honda

Stone throwing competition while we waited for lunch on Day 2

Spectacular volcanic rock on Day 2

Our second night was spent in a small frontier town called Culpina where we had a slightly better night's sleep after losing some altitude on the second day and being able to have a shower for the first time in two days. A quick wander round town revealed little of interest so we got an early night as we were pretty tired after the restless night of the day before.

The third and final day of the tour saw us reach Uyuni and the eponymous salt lake. Before reaching the lake we stopped at an eery train 'graveyard' where several old steam engines have been left to rust in the desert following the closure of the train line to Chile some years ago.

Our group at the train graveyard

Train graveyard

After clambering around the the trains for a while, we then headed through Uyuni and on to the salt lake. After driving on to the lake it wasnt long before almost all you could see was white salt save for a few mountains on the horizon which appeared to be floating. The huge expanse of salt plays several such tricks on your eyes and alters your sense of perspective. We stopped at a museum made almost entirely on salt towards the centre of the lake and proceeded to take the obligatory comedy photos that all backpackers do when visiting the lake, playing around with the distorted horizon that the white salt gives you when taking pictures.

After lunch in the museum, we headed back to Uyuni where the tour finished. It had been a demanding and tiring tour in many ways, but thoroughly worth it for the amazing scenery and the incredible remoteness of the altiplano. We had originally planned to spend an evening in Uyuni but the town seemed to have little to offer other being a jumping off point for Salar de Uyuni tours so we decided to press on further in to Bolivia that evening. While we said goodbye to Tom as he headed for La Paz to meet some fellow Irishmen for St Patricks Day, the rest of us caught an evening bus to Potosi, a mining town set high in the mountains and supposedly the worlds highest city at 4090m. At one time Potosi was the largest city in all of the Americas thanks to the discovery of silver in 1545, but it is a long time since its 16th century heyday, so we just stayed one night before all heading on to Sucre the next morning, another large city around three hours away.

Waiting for a bus in Uyuni

With no bus tickets available until that evening, we decided to hire a couple of taxis to get us to Sucre which proved a bit of a challenge to arrange, but once sorted was a much more pleasant way of getting to Sucre. I sat in the front and passed the three hours by practising my Spanish on our driver Thomas. We got on well enough although I think my attempts to explain the hereditary monarchy and why we have a Queen but no King was rather lost on him!

We then spent the next couple of days exploring Sucre, a pleasant city with a UNESCO listed centre of white colonial buildings and an impressive array of churches and cathedrals. In reality most of our time was spent in Cafe Florin, a popular bar and restaurant where we spent many hours enjoying how much cheaper food and beer is in Bolivia compared to Chile. We also watched the climax of the Six Nations there, but the less said about that the better!

Sucre

We did venture out of Sucre to visit the nearby Parque Cretacico,  however, a visitor centre dedicated to dinosaurs thanks to the discovery of dinosaur footprints on a cliff face by the adjoining cement works twenty years ago. This is in fact the largest collection of dinosaur footprints ever found so although we couldn't get particularly close, it was a worthwhile visit. The visitor centre has done a good job of trying to bring the prints to life with a series of scale models of dinosaurs and an informative guided tour of the centre, but they seem less sure of how best to protect the prints themselves (a large section of them collapsed three years ago), particularly with the cement works allowed to continue working around them.

The cliff face of dinosaur footprints just outside Sucre

That evening I said goodbye to Tom, Jake, Colin and Glenn as they were heading south to Cochabamba to visit the Bolivian jungle while I was catching a flight to La Paz the next morning, where my adventures in Bolivia would continue.