outofoffice: Salar de Uyuni - Scenery like you have never seen

After a rather interesting flight (more on that later) from La Paz we arrived in the Central/Southern city of Uyuni

The town of Uyuni is a rather interesting one - it is a tiny little town that looks a little like it is from an old western movie and the only things that exist in town are travel agencies to book tours through the Salar de Uyuni, tiny stores that sell only Pringles, cookies and water and Pizzeria`s. I am pretty convinced that Bolivian people think that foreigners only eat Pizza since in every city we have been to in Bolivia there is a ridiculous amount of restaurants that are serving Pizza. Lucky for us the pizza(s) that we got in Uyuni were much better than what we had elsewhere.

We came to Uyuni so that we could a book a tour through the Salt Flats or Salar de Uyuni - which are the largest salt flats in the world. We had originally tried to booked the tour while we were in La Paz but were finding it hard to find a reliable tour company that offered 4 day tours with an English speaking guide. Alot of the tour company´s will say they have English speakers on the tour but it usually just the driver who knows a handful of english words - so we decided to wait until we got to Uyuni to find a better company. It turned out to be a great decision because once we arrived and walk through the strip of tour companies we got hooked up with Gonzoles (Bolivia Native but went to Uni in the US so fluent in English) as our guide, and Saule (lovingly nicknamed Saule Schumacher) as our driver/cook of Andes Salt Exhibitions and they were fantastic!

After meeting Gonzoles in the shop we decided to book the 4 day tour starting the next day and for a whopping 1050 Boliviano´s (or about 150$....soooo cheap there) we were all set for our tour. This price included the driver and guide, all our accommodation and food. Once we were all sorted out we decided to go back to the hostel for a little siesta (we are really getting used to those) and then hit up a bar for dinner call the Extreme Fun Pub since we really liked the highly original name. After a few beers and a pizza of course we hit our hostels again for some sleep before our tour the next day. This tour start time was breath of fresh air compared to the others we have been on since it started at a much more civilized hour of 10:30am instead of 5am which was great.

The next morning we met up with Gonzoles and Saule at our jeep - a maybbbbbbbe 1995 Toyota 4 Runner, that had no seatbelts (sorry parents) and no working speedometer. At this point we also met the 2 girls that would be joining us on the tour, one girl from Holland on a 2 week vaca solo in S. America and another Lovely Korean girl who works in Mexico. And then we were off! This tour was much more about the beutiful scenery so I will make this more of a photo blog so you can get an idea of just how amazing it was and give a little summary of what we saw each day.

Cedric hanging out in front of the tour company

Day 1:
After hitting the road with Saule Schumacher behind the wheel we made our first stop at the Train Cemetary. This is basically just a cool photo op spot now. At one time there were working trains that went through the area but in the early 1900´s they were just abandoned in this spot and were never taken away. It was pretty neat to see. After the train graveyard we headed into the actual Salar to see the Salt Flats. Given that this is rain season in Bolivia they are a bit flooded but that just makes it even more amazing because you basically get a mirror image of the sky off the salt. We stayed here for a few hours and had hour lunch here. We actually ate in the Salt Holtel which I was a bit on the fence about because the hotel in the Salar is actually there illegally because it pollutes the Salar so alot of places say you should boycott. If you have the opportunity you should. Our guides from the lunch and I didnt buy anything there or pay to use the washroom so I didnt really contribute anything to them so I felt a bit better. Ohh for lunch we also ate Llama meat for the first time..... I was a little sketched out at first but it wasnt all that bad. Basically tasted like a pork chop.

For those of you who have seen pics from the flats you know that is the perfect place to take really hilarious photo´s because the salt basically acts as a blank canvas......and so that is what we did for many hours. There is just a little sample below but we will get some more up on flicker and facebook when we get the chance. After we finished in the Salts we headed to the town of Villa Lota for our first nights sleep. There isnt too much to report on the town.... like much of Bolivia it looks like a deserted old western town but the sunset that night was amazing and everyone was trying to get a shoot of it. After the amazing sunset we sat down for our first nights dinner - Soup, then this French Fry thing covered in onions and eggs.....it wasnt too bad. And then tea and canned peaches for dessert. During dinner Gonzoles also gave us a bit of a history lesson which I though was pretty amazing.

Jonny in the Train Graveyard

Giant Jonny and Midget me experimenting in the Flats

This prop was courtesy of Gonzoles.... pic was also his idea

The token jumping shot

Jonny and I in the Flats..... it was VERY bright there

Sun setting over the empty square in Villa Lota

Day 2:

After some breaky around 8am we were on the road for day 2 which when we really started heading south and were getting back into the high altitude again. Unfortunately for us day 2 involved alot of rain. We still got to see some amazing moutain scenery, some time in the desert and beutiful lagoons but we called it a day pretty early since it was very cold and wet. Since the day 3 pics were alot better due to better weather I didnt include to many day 2 ones. One really cool thing on day 2 was our first view of the Bolivian Flamingo´s.... there are hundreds of them! And it is cold there...... these are not your standard Florida Flamingo´s

After seeing the days sights we headed to hostel number 2. Now the tour company had warned us that accomadations for night 2 are very basic.....they were not kidding. We all shared 1 room where each bed was a block of cement with a very small mattress on top and there was only electricity from 7pm to 9pm. We made the best of it though and broke out the cards for a wild game of Asshole where Jonny and I emerged as the power couple (J.J was not happy and we havent played asshole since lol). We also sampled our first bottle of Bolivian wine....after which we decided that we would not drink wine again until we got to Argentina because it was so bad. The off to bed for our 4am wake up call

The famous rock tree made from focilized coral that is all over this area

Day 3:
Day 3 started bright and early at 430am (on the road 5am) to catch the sunrise at our highest altitude 5000m. Typically we have hated this break of dawn wake up calls but given the cement beds that we were sleep one everyone was up and at it right on time. Now the salt flats themselves were really amazing but I don't think any of us were expected the beautiful scenes we saw on day 3. It started with a very very cold drive through snow.....YES snow, we thought we had left all that crap back in Canada, but even during the summer there is snow at this altitude, and we stopped to see the sunrise over the mountains and the Gesyers (def: A hot spring in which water intermittently boils, sending a tall column of water and steam into the air......or basically in this case boiling mud) and the sunrise was incredible. The rest of the drive in the morning remained this way and we kept making Saule stop so we could take the amazing moutain sunrise pics. But about 8am we were ready for breakfast, which was also the stop that included a dip in the hot springs....much needed after the snow in the morning.

After our swim we headed down the the Laguna Verde which is a gorgeous lagoon in the valley of 3 mountains on the border of Chili, Bolivia and Argentina, that when the sun hits it right it looks turquoise. As you can see by the photo's we were lucky that day. Word of warning.....don't step food in the laguna as it naturally contains Arsenic. After our stop at the Laguna we headed to the Chile border to drop of the other two girls we weren't coming back to Uyuni and then we started on our 5 hour drive back to Uyuni, which we actually made in 4.5 hours even with a stop for a flat tire based on Saule Schumachers extreme driving skills. We made it back just in time to grab some dinner (more Pizza) and then make it for our 8pm bus to Tupiza......which was a whole other adventure. More to come on that

OOO_Talia