Salt, Flamingos, Vicuna and a lot of hot air

 

Salar de Uyuni

Another overnight bus brought us to the salty, desert town of Uyuni in south west Bolivia. The gateway to the largest salt flats in the world. After a bleary eyed breakfast and a rather tetchy discussion with a tour operator regarding a fairly key change by them to our long pre booked arrangements (boring details deleted but we got a partial refund.... never take me on when I'm tired), we met our fellow travellers with whom we were to share a jeep, and some incredible experiences over the next three days.

Alessandro and Paulo, a vivacious well travelled Italian couple with a great sense of humour; Shannon, a kind hearted, interesting and interested, very well travelled teacher from Perth and Isnei, a deep philosophical soul in a Brazilian's 30 year old body. We have met a number of interesting and likeable fellow travellers on our journey so far but these four merit a particular mention as their company and our conversations, and laughs, really did hugely enhance the next three days. We sincerely hope we get to meet them all again somehow and somewhere.

A few facts and then I will let the photos speak for themselves.

The Uyuni salt flat is about 10,000 square kilometres from which a small fraction of the estimated 10 billion tonnes of salt is mined each year.

It is thought that 7% of the world's lithium stores are also located here. Surely the mining of that now valuable resource would have a positive impact on Bolivia's economy.... unless like the rubber plantations, tin and silver mines, of previous generations, they are bought and exploited by overseas private companies and the generated wealth never reaches the population. I wonder what difference that will make to the landscape and the local ecosystem. Perhaps there is no completely cost free carbon alternative.

You can build houses, beds and bedside tables from salt......who knew.

You can get some great shots for the Gram.....we all knew.

Oh and there is a random train graveyard.

The photos don't really do it justice but we tried......and this is the very much slimmed down compilation.

Further into the Bolivian High Altiplano and the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve

After a surprisingly comfortable night in our salt hostel and a 6am breakfast we set off in the jeep once again. This time leaving the salt flat behind us and entering a different but equally breath taking landscape. This mountainous desert provided an other worldly backdrop to our day's, mostly off road, jeep explorations. We were all enthralled and quite surprised to discover at the end of the day that we had been on the go for 11 hours. Flamingo filled, gloriously coloured lakes, flanked by volcanoes active and dormant; weird Gaudi like rocks, whose sculptors were these very volcanoes; miles and miles of humbling emptiness; photo shy vicuna (or at least when Alessandra was behind the lens....forgive me an in joke); rainbow mountains; llama and more llama (the eating to viewing coefficient is at a more acceptable level now) and altitudinous geysers in their natural form, with no attempt to invoke any health or safety barriers.

Bolivia's only active volcano photo credit Paulo, worth a follow on Instagram @paolomaragliulo

The day ended at our next hostel with a soak in some thermal pools.....where we met a young man who knows and has worked with Cal....it really is a very small world. This hostel was again basic but having secured a private room (as a result of the aforementioned tetchiness) we were very comfortable. To the Italians horror we were served what was described as spaghetti and salsa......"that's not pasta". They made a valiant attempt to rescue it. To us non connoisseurs it did the job and filled a hole.

The following morning we all admitted to a poorer night's sleep, probably due to the altitude of 4600m. We did manage to get up to watch sunrise across the thermal pools and the lake. It seems the llama, vicuna and flamingo all had the same idea.

Today was the day we parted from our new friends. They were returning to Uyuni, we were headed on to cross the border into Chile and the Atacama desert. We realised as we left them and hopped on a minibus to cross the border.with a group of young Americans how very lucky we had been with our travelling companions over the last few days. It was the strangest border crossing we have ever done, with the two country's check points being several km apart in the desert. We were told that no plant goods, food or animal products could be taken into Chile. I did wonder how they stopped actual animals and plant seeds crossing the border themselves but it turned out what they actually meant were just coca leaves!

Photo credits:

Richard Price 

@paolomaragliulo

@nomad_travel_mood

@isneijunior

@shannon.helbig.33

and me