Around the World in 180 Days: Salt Flats Trip

We arrived in Tupiza around midnight on Friday. Naively, we believed the man in the bus office who told us we arrived at 9. When we stopped for a break around 7, we were laughing because we couldn't imagine why we had to stop for dinner when we would be in Tupiza in 2 hours. But we were not laughing 5 hours later when we were still on the bus. Got to the hotel without water and were offered the kitchen tap, somehow an improvement over the bathroom's tap.
Next morning, got up and packed and went down to breakfast, which was dry bread and coffee. Glad we had our cheese and butter. Got in the 4X4 with Jōao, a man from Portugal, our driver/guide, Felipe, and our cook who couldn't stop talking, Lucia. We drove a couple blocks away to a market area and stocked up for the trip -- not us though because we couldn't find what we really wanted, chocolate or peanuts.
The first day was long and dry and not that interesting until we got stuck in the mud. Our driver apparently did not have the car in 4 wheel drive when he went through the mud fairly slowly and following precisely the tracks of the car before us and quickly got stuck. The mud was up to the axle on one of the tires and it took an hour and a half to get out. So even though we secretly reviled the driver for getting stuck, he certainly paid for it. Stripped off his shoes and down to shorts and covered with mud before it was over. Afterwards, we saw some vicunas and an ostrich.
It was a really southwestern US landscape. We ended up stopping early because of snow in the mountains ahead of us and the guide didn't want to drive at night in the snow. Our hostel was really OK, with a toilet that flushed, a dorm room we shared with Jōao, and a cozy comedor. It turned out that there was electricity, but we had none in our room

The next day was a nonstop visual experience. It's only this evening (taking notes) and I can't remember what we've seen. We started off in the freezing snow and drove to a spot above the clouds, where a cloud filled a lagoon and snow was on the mountains beyond and there were amazing colored mountains (different from the snowy ones). As we drove, we saw vicunas, llamas and their babies, andean geese, another ostrich, a bird called kiwi in quechuan, which interestingly enough is a fairly flightless bird. The entire drive today was filled with wonders but the second amazing thing was seeing a blue lagoon with the reflection of a brown mountain that became a brown lagoon as we neared it, due to the mountain looming over it--all of its color came from its reflection. Laguna Hedionda. In the lagoon were several flocks of pink flamingos. An amazing sight. The variation in color among the birds was a surprise, and we think we saw several immature that we're almost completely white, with black markings.

We passed a lagoon that is filled with a natural detergent that is being marketing in the country and in Chile, Laguna Kollpa and a small lagoon from which borax is mined.

At the entrance to Salar de Chalviri, we were told we had to pay a new entrance fee, 150 Bs per tourist. We got it down to 150 per car. Not far from this entrance was a pale blue and white lagoon that stretched as far as you could see. Had a nice lunch of a bit of salad.

Drove a while further to reach the Laguna Verde, which is brown. A bit disappointing because it was once, apparently, a vivid green but due to a lot of rain and maybe also global warming it is now a red-brown color. So windy here we felt like we could be blown over.

Back to the place where we had lunch to pick up Lucia, who had been washing dishes, then to the geysers. There were dozens of steaming holes in the ground and pots of bubbling mud and crevasses releasing steam. Also really windy here--my parents held on to me when I stood on the edge of some of them.

After the geysers we drove to another lagoon with flamingoes. There was a hotel there, and a whole lot of birds. I stood with my camera on focused on a couple for a few minutes trying to get them to pose but all that happened was that my camera died. Here there was a sign which we could quite figure out. How effective is a sign telling the flamingoes not to fly?

A few more hours to get to our salt hotel. We stopped in a small town at a store, and hoped for cheese to supplement our proteinless and rather foul meals, but without gratification. Lucia sat in the way back, so though she talked constantly to Felipe it now meant that she shouted across all of us.

From the outside the hotel was disappointing, but on the inside it was made with salt blocks (I know, I licked one) with salt grains on the floor. As white and sparkly as we had anticipated. Dinner was an improvement that night, lasagna.

Once we were settled we drove back the way we came for about 10 minutes to reach a giant salt geode called something like the 'Galaxy Cave'. We walked around in side, but I didn't stay long because claustrophobia was kicking in.

At dinner Felipe opened a wine bottle with a shoe.

In the morning we woke up at 4 to get an early start to see the sunrise. THis was really frustrating because, though the passengers of our jeep was ready, it was time to go (4.30) and Lucia has none of her stuff packed up and starts ordering us to carry things back to the car then come back for more. Despite leaving 15 minutes late we were the first jeep out, but made up for this by driving 20 kilometers an hour across the dead-flat salar. Felipe wanted to take us around the back of one of the salt islands so that we could climb to the top and watch the sunrise--not as if we'd have had a better view, the salt flats were flat--but the sun was already coming up so we stopped and watched. It was a little cloudy, but spectacular.

We then walked to the back of the island for breakfast. There were chunks of salt on the 'beach' around the island, and they were formed in perfect pyramids and squares.

Spent maybe an hour and a half walking around the island before setting off in the jeep again. When we reached a place farther from the island we stopped to take silly pictures. The whiteness and flatness really messes with your depth perception, so we appeared alternately tiny and giants. However, as my camera had died the day before and was barely resuscitated for sunrise pictures so

Jōao promised to send them to us.

A little farther on was another salt hotel with a bunch of flags out front. Our companions (Jōao and our friends from the jeep that had been traveling with us) signed their names on their home flags, but naturally there was no US one.

Still a little farther there was a salt mining factory, where people raked salt up into pyramids, let it dry, then sold it. Eventually this will be harmful to the flats, but they only do it in a tiny area. The salt flats themselves were once part of an inland sea that probably connected to Lake Titicaca, but the water evaporated leaving 12000 square kilometers of salt going down 120 meters in three layers: salt, water, and mud then repeat. Probably there are some huge prehistoric fish pickled in the flats.

Stopped in a town about 20 minutes from Uyuni--our final destination--at an artisan market. Then on to Uyuni where we had a particularly unappetizing meal.

Uyuni was a really ugly town, and we were glad that we chose to continue on to Tupiza rather than spend the night. After lunch we drove a few minutes to the train graveyard, but this was just some trains left to rust a minute or two out of town, rather disappointing (we were expecting a lot of trains in the middle of the desert). Then we said goodbye to Jōao who was talking the night-bus to La Paz, picked up a passenger going to Tupiza, and left.

A few hours into the drive we stopped at a tiny town for fuel, but they didn't have any. Our only choice was to go to Tupiza on a nearly empty tank, but we made it.

Two hours later I remembered the existent of the iPod, and preserved my sanity by trying to decipher the lyrics of 'It's the end of the world as we know it' and tuning out Lucia's constant chatter and the 4 songs which Felipe chose to play over and over and over of a CD.

Arrived in Tupiza a little after 7 and checked back into the hotel we had stayed in before we left. We had hoped to meet up with our companions from the second jeep, but they had gone straight to the border, though after leaving their contact information at the desk.

A Mexican restaurant called the Alamo was open, and as it was supposed to be th best restaurant in the town we went to it. Then to an internet cafe to confirm our reservations for Salta, then bed.