From Uyuni we went to Potosi which is know as one of the richest cities in the world when the Spanish first descovered it as it has a huge hill known as Cerro Rico (Rixh Hill) which was full of silver and funded the Spanish for many years. The town has silver mines still but the silver has run out so its mainly poor miners digging with handtools in unbelievably bad conditions still using dynamite etc. We wanted to go down into the mines which you can but I got hit by a bad case of sickness, which had me bed ridden for a day with a constantly bubbling stomach, a bit shaky and in need of a toilet about every 20minutes; and so a 5 hour tour underground in the dark didnt sound so good...
We did however go for a wander to the tower observatory and from there spotted a silver refinary (i tihnk) and so walked down to see what it was like. We looked over the wall and took a few snaps. One of the workers spotted us and called out. He said we could go in and look around if we wanted in exchange for a few coca leaves (which the miners chew nonstop) so we went in. It was a tad scary as they told us how toxic raw silver is while swishing their hands through the crushed rocks as it was being sprayed with water. Inside we wandered about pools where the silver was filtered and then let back into the river (!). We had no coca to pay with but left the 5 men with about 5 pounds for their quick tour and their faces lit up... a fiver buys a lot of coca leaves in Bolivia!
After Potosi we headed for Sucre where we ´accidently´ booked into a really comfortable hotel in an old colonial building. We immediately liked the place despite the traffic cruches at certain corners and the buses spewing out black plumes of exhaust fumes. The food was good and we settled into a more comfortable life instead of the freeeezing cold of Potosi.
We took a taxi out to the dinosaur prints that were found at a cement factory on the edge of town. The cars here tend to switch sides of the road depending on the pot holes. It´s actually more dangerous to stay in your lane! The footprints are of loads of different types of dino, some walking in pairs, some running and one of a veloceraptor jumping (presumably to eat another dino). The park also had cheesey life size plastic replicas which made noises.. nice. After this we went back into town to find a wicked museum of Festival masks from all over Boliva -they are amazing - some of weird manga-esque women, some of devils with boggle eyes and many many others... wait for the pics...
From Sucre we travelled up to Cochabamba and found ourselves at 1am being driven by a worrying bloke to a hotel in the worst neighbourhood. The hotel was actually fine but we had bad first impressions of Cochabamba - it was manically busy with markets everywhere. Once we actually explored and got to the center of town it changed miraculously into a sophisticated cafe area and the nothern part was posh with high rise buildings and pretty churches. We had some good Turkish food in a nice resturant, rank cocktails in a really cool bar and I even got a hair cut by a woman who first used a blowtorch to clean the blades of the shaver and a cutthroat razor to trim my neck.
From Cochabamba we took a tour out to Torotoro to see more Dinoprints (this time on the ground and not upright like a wall) and to go caving and walking in the canyon. We took a bus that was more like a monster truck which played kung-fu movies at full blast to try and drown out the noise of the engine and failed. We spent about 6 hours listening to the noisiest music we owned with sunglasses and caps on to shade our eyes from the light of the blarring TV, driving over roads that were rugged and had occasssional waterfalls or streams crossing them. When we finally got to the hotel we were beddraggled.
The tour guide the next day was a lad of 17 called William who had been a guide at the National Park for 8 years and that day was training up a lad of about7 and a girl of 11 or so. He took us to see the prints and hiking in the canyon. We saw green macaws swooping around the edges. Day 2 we went caving in a vast network of caverns in the National Park. "Your supposed to have helmets but we dont have any so be careful" said William as we entered. The surrounding hills were amazing! The caves were incredible and we clambered, ducked, army crawlled and pulled ourselves up waterfalls and past stalagtites with a gang of Cochabambinos who were living in Virginia USA.
Back in Cochabamba we headed towards the Bolivian capital of La Paz...
Wednesday 22 April 2009
Friday 10 April 2009
Salar de Uyuni Tour
So we set off for Uyuni from Tupiza after waiting in a que at the bank for ages only to find my card didnt work and there was no other way of getting cash...
((Im doing this from memory so theres loads ill forget right now but...))
We got on well with the Aussie couple who were very much the beautiful people with perfect lives who loved to ski etc... much like us obviously. The scenery was amazing and the route went through valley and deserts, villages and hills, we saw wild vicuna (like skinny llamas) and llamas with pink ear tassles (to shows which farmer owned which).
For lunch we stopped on a hillside and munched humitas which are cornballs with spicy meat inside wrapped in a leaf, supplied by our cook Julie. Mid day we paused in a tiny mud vialle with crumbling buildings, later we stopped over night at a small village on a hillside at which there was very little exept a church, basketball court and lots of small indigenous kids trying to sell us the odd llama hat or glove. If you accidentally got them in a picture they wanted to be paid, but most of them hid or scampered away the minute you looked at them. There was a grave on a hilltop and the sunset was incredible - like a sort of dawn-of-time dinosaur movie with lush valleys and snowcapped mountains and a sweeping sun. Dinner was soup and it was freezing! There were 2 or 3 thick felt blankets on all the beds and we needed them!
The photos are the best source for what the place was like but day 2 we got up about 6 and nipped off in the jeep, driving past giant moutains and lakes with crazy sulphourous edges and really bright pastels shades in the desert sands and rocks eveywhere. Laguna verde was toxic with chemicals and we saw flamingoes some of the lakes. A thermal pool was at the spot for lunch and we dipped our feet in amongst the gang of travellers and stared out at the amazing landscape. The bubbling mud and thermal pools was next and reminded us of Rotorua in New Zealand but the landscape in South America is absolutely MASSIVE. One was bright red, and looked like a huge bubbling bowl of tomato soup.
Next morning we got up in the freezing conditions and headed for some ruins which were built by the Inca and haunted by devils and phantoms - the local villages make sacrifices to keep them away from their doors at night..! After this we zipped off through more unbelivable scenery and mountians, lakes etc, to see Borax miners set up in the Salar and the huge lakes of flamingoes and crusty white shores we stopped at Laguna Colorada and braved the icy wind the wander the hills a bit before buying some much needed bottles or red wine from a small door in the village and playing the obligatory travellers cards. Eventually the electricy was cut and we went to bed!
Laguna Colorada was the most amazing place!! The refelctions of the clouds in the salty water was incredible and lines of pink flamingoes walked about over the views. The most dramatic scenes since farewell spit in New Zealand. We visited the desert of Dali rock formations where I did my celebratory forward roll. We crossed the second biggest salar in Bolivia then arrived at our stop for the night at San Juan, where we attempted to get to the hills to see the burial mounds but were defeated by a mightly sandstorm that came out of nowhere and hammered the village with sand for a few hours. Our guide stayed outside the whole time trying to fix our jeep!
Next morning we got up about 5am and shot out to the salar to see the sunrise. The salar if you were wondering is a gigantic salt lake that you can see from space, the biggest in the world and is the remains of a giant lake that once filled the whole of the Alti planos (high plains) of the andes. Now it is a vast white crusty desolate desert of white salt, which we skimmed across in our jeep as morning broke. (You can see it in my pofile pic on Facebook). The whiteness goes on forever, but in the middle is fish island a fossilized marine hill where huge cacti now grow. We drove out over the salar and broke open small holes to put our hands under the crust and find salt water salt crystals that were huge and perfectly square- like sharp edged cubes!! After this we saw salt sulptures in one of the salt hotels that used to be here and spotted farmers piling up and takig away salt for porcessing. That night we stopped in Uyuni which isnt the prettiest place, but has interesting markets and squadrons of military who jog about chanting ihn the morning...
((Im doing this from memory so theres loads ill forget right now but...))
We got on well with the Aussie couple who were very much the beautiful people with perfect lives who loved to ski etc... much like us obviously. The scenery was amazing and the route went through valley and deserts, villages and hills, we saw wild vicuna (like skinny llamas) and llamas with pink ear tassles (to shows which farmer owned which).
For lunch we stopped on a hillside and munched humitas which are cornballs with spicy meat inside wrapped in a leaf, supplied by our cook Julie. Mid day we paused in a tiny mud vialle with crumbling buildings, later we stopped over night at a small village on a hillside at which there was very little exept a church, basketball court and lots of small indigenous kids trying to sell us the odd llama hat or glove. If you accidentally got them in a picture they wanted to be paid, but most of them hid or scampered away the minute you looked at them. There was a grave on a hilltop and the sunset was incredible - like a sort of dawn-of-time dinosaur movie with lush valleys and snowcapped mountains and a sweeping sun. Dinner was soup and it was freezing! There were 2 or 3 thick felt blankets on all the beds and we needed them!
The photos are the best source for what the place was like but day 2 we got up about 6 and nipped off in the jeep, driving past giant moutains and lakes with crazy sulphourous edges and really bright pastels shades in the desert sands and rocks eveywhere. Laguna verde was toxic with chemicals and we saw flamingoes some of the lakes. A thermal pool was at the spot for lunch and we dipped our feet in amongst the gang of travellers and stared out at the amazing landscape. The bubbling mud and thermal pools was next and reminded us of Rotorua in New Zealand but the landscape in South America is absolutely MASSIVE. One was bright red, and looked like a huge bubbling bowl of tomato soup.
Next morning we got up in the freezing conditions and headed for some ruins which were built by the Inca and haunted by devils and phantoms - the local villages make sacrifices to keep them away from their doors at night..! After this we zipped off through more unbelivable scenery and mountians, lakes etc, to see Borax miners set up in the Salar and the huge lakes of flamingoes and crusty white shores we stopped at Laguna Colorada and braved the icy wind the wander the hills a bit before buying some much needed bottles or red wine from a small door in the village and playing the obligatory travellers cards. Eventually the electricy was cut and we went to bed!
Laguna Colorada was the most amazing place!! The refelctions of the clouds in the salty water was incredible and lines of pink flamingoes walked about over the views. The most dramatic scenes since farewell spit in New Zealand. We visited the desert of Dali rock formations where I did my celebratory forward roll. We crossed the second biggest salar in Bolivia then arrived at our stop for the night at San Juan, where we attempted to get to the hills to see the burial mounds but were defeated by a mightly sandstorm that came out of nowhere and hammered the village with sand for a few hours. Our guide stayed outside the whole time trying to fix our jeep!
Next morning we got up about 5am and shot out to the salar to see the sunrise. The salar if you were wondering is a gigantic salt lake that you can see from space, the biggest in the world and is the remains of a giant lake that once filled the whole of the Alti planos (high plains) of the andes. Now it is a vast white crusty desolate desert of white salt, which we skimmed across in our jeep as morning broke. (You can see it in my pofile pic on Facebook). The whiteness goes on forever, but in the middle is fish island a fossilized marine hill where huge cacti now grow. We drove out over the salar and broke open small holes to put our hands under the crust and find salt water salt crystals that were huge and perfectly square- like sharp edged cubes!! After this we saw salt sulptures in one of the salt hotels that used to be here and spotted farmers piling up and takig away salt for porcessing. That night we stopped in Uyuni which isnt the prettiest place, but has interesting markets and squadrons of military who jog about chanting ihn the morning...
Tupiza, Bolivia
Tupiza was pleasant and relaxed, we passed through some dramatic scenery on the way on thetrain and got nabbed by 2 women at the station as we looked for accomodation. We ended up in a reasonable hotel with inquisitive kids. Tupiza is set in the middle of a series of reddy / silver hills and there were good views out over the surrounding area from a Jesus statue mounted on a nearby hill. We watched kids doing the long jump at school from up high. The markets here are amazing and theres more fruit, electronics, pants, socks and weird things like llama feotus that you can buy. If you want good luck bury a llama feotus under your house. The mandarins here are the best I ever tasted and I never really liked them before...
Billy the Kid & Butch cassidy got shot here in a nearby village but the site is supposed to be pretty dull so never bothered to venture out there, we did go horse-riding though up through the Cabrada where we could see odd rock formations in bright red towering over us - the Devil´s door is one and the valley of the Penis´another - named because the rocks all look like Rod Stewert (not really... use your imagination - or look at my pics on facebook if I ever find a PC able to upload at a reasonable speed). We went across desert up to a crevace waterfall type area and we left our guide to go explore. Sophie still has a scar on her hand from where he tried to teach us how to "trot" and she dug her feet in a bit too hard and the horse went for it! She was hanging on for dear life!
We decided that we deserved a night out and went to the promisingly named "DnB" night club which was behind a corrugated steel door and decorated like Doctor Who´s tardis with tinfoil trim and felt walls. The seats prettyt much touched the floor they were so saggy and we drank cocktails that were pretty much tripples for a couple of quid. Inside was a weird mix of middle age couples who looked like they´d just come for a quiet drink (although the South American beats were soooo loud and cleverly seamlessly mixed on a DVD player..??), younder couples and random travellers. We spoke to (yelled at) a Welsh couple who were possitively hammered. The girl managed to knock not 1 but 2 drinks over me, but they were friendly and the guy kind of reminded me a lot of Grizz. Anyway they said Bolivian food was rubbish and they were rude and that we should go see the landscapes and head quickly for Peru.
Next day we both had super-hangovers and by the point we left the hotel to eat were still prtty wobbly. I ordered a pizza and soph took one look at it, sank into the sofa and went green. We put it in a box and ate it in bed.
We booked up our tour for the Uyuni slat flats and clambered abord a jeep with an Aussie couple (who seemed positiviely loaded - with money that is) and headed out on a 4 night/3 day trek across the desert.
Billy the Kid & Butch cassidy got shot here in a nearby village but the site is supposed to be pretty dull so never bothered to venture out there, we did go horse-riding though up through the Cabrada where we could see odd rock formations in bright red towering over us - the Devil´s door is one and the valley of the Penis´another - named because the rocks all look like Rod Stewert (not really... use your imagination - or look at my pics on facebook if I ever find a PC able to upload at a reasonable speed). We went across desert up to a crevace waterfall type area and we left our guide to go explore. Sophie still has a scar on her hand from where he tried to teach us how to "trot" and she dug her feet in a bit too hard and the horse went for it! She was hanging on for dear life!
We decided that we deserved a night out and went to the promisingly named "DnB" night club which was behind a corrugated steel door and decorated like Doctor Who´s tardis with tinfoil trim and felt walls. The seats prettyt much touched the floor they were so saggy and we drank cocktails that were pretty much tripples for a couple of quid. Inside was a weird mix of middle age couples who looked like they´d just come for a quiet drink (although the South American beats were soooo loud and cleverly seamlessly mixed on a DVD player..??), younder couples and random travellers. We spoke to (yelled at) a Welsh couple who were possitively hammered. The girl managed to knock not 1 but 2 drinks over me, but they were friendly and the guy kind of reminded me a lot of Grizz. Anyway they said Bolivian food was rubbish and they were rude and that we should go see the landscapes and head quickly for Peru.
Next day we both had super-hangovers and by the point we left the hotel to eat were still prtty wobbly. I ordered a pizza and soph took one look at it, sank into the sofa and went green. We put it in a box and ate it in bed.
We booked up our tour for the Uyuni slat flats and clambered abord a jeep with an Aussie couple (who seemed positiviely loaded - with money that is) and headed out on a 4 night/3 day trek across the desert.
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