Uyuni salt flats (part 1)

Leaving La Paz to a small town called Oruro (which was a bit of a dive), we spent one night there and were happy to leave. Having only been on one train previously, it was a bit of novelty to not be on a bus. 

 

The only thing of note in Oruro was a South American classic.....a statue on a hill.

 

 

 

Apparently they do hold a way kick ass festival there, but not when we were there, so Oruro remains (at least in my eyes) a bit poo.

 

So off we set on our train, and a patriotic one at that.

 

 

 

So patriotic that they played these awful music videos of Bolivian superstars of the 70s. Was pretty painful to sit there through that for a few hours.

 

 

 

But at least we got to peer out the window and see loads of flamingoes. Jen tried for ages to get a good shot, then I took the camera and took one shot, the one that we used here.

 

 

Arriving in Uyuni we were greeted by some bizarre statue thingy, some kind of human but not sure what's really going on here.

 

 

After looking at a few tour companies we picked one and stayed a night in a hostel, and met an Irish girl called Sarah. We spoke to her for a bit but wouldn't become friends until later on, when we met her again later.

 

Anyway, onto our tour the next morning, which had a German couple from Munich and also an Italian couple but were that close to the German border that their first language was German, which would become annoying as they decided to just speak to each other in German the whole 3 day trip, even though they could all fluently speak English. So me and Jen just chatted to each other!

 

Off we set in our 4x4 first stopping at a train graveyard, where all the old trains went to retire and see out their days, only for locals to graffiti them, and tourists to climb all over them. We obviously joined the bandwagon.

 

 

Sexy, no?

 

 

Jen in the driver bit

 

 

You get the idea by now....

 

 

Enthusiasm died out a bit for the trains so off we set to the salt flats, first coming across salt minors where the salt first began. They would come and pile up salt, so that the water could drain through it and out to the floor which creates the shiny surface below.

Time for some more posing

Back onto the jeep and to our next stop, a building made entirely of salt blocks, apart from the roof of course.

 

 

People had left their countries flags on poles here, sadly I didn't have an England flag, or even a Leicester shirt anymore to drape up there.

 

 

 

Inside the salt building was a little museum, with sculptures which I probably wasn't supposed to do this to.

 

 

 

Definately not this!

 

Oh well, made for a good photo and off we set again to be surprised to see these crazies biking the whole thing! No idea how long it is but it was a 3 day jeep ride. Good luck fellas.

 

 

 

After relaxing in the comfort of our 4x4 we rocked up to a bit of rock, called fish island because supposedly it looks like the body of a fish (which it doesn't in anyway, it's just their crazy imaginations again). But it was a cool island to see, not only as it was in the middle of the salt flats and had no salt on it itself, but also because it could sustain cacti on it. It was such a bizarre contrast in the landscape.

 

 

Exploring the island we found a cool little cave and the seat of stone, modelled by Jen here. The story goes that this whole area was once under water and the salt is what is remaining of the sea which once covered it. And the cave and this seat where formed under water.

 

 

Done with the island and back onto the salt flats and time to have some fun with some perspective shots.....

 

 

A bit of sky diving with Woody and Buzz (use your imagination people)

 

 

And an attempt of eating Jen almost lined up.

 

 

Time for another stop and this time a well weird cave thing with some bizarre rock formations.

 

 

Looked almost like an alien cave, or the home of mutant spiders.

 

 

 

The view from the cave as the sun set.

After a long day, we turned up at our hotel for the night, also made entirely out of salt and me and Jen drew the short straw getting the two single beds with the other two couples getting double beds. Not that it was much of an issue, but it was cold out here and sharing body heat was the way forward, but not for us tonight.

However, we did have a tipple of whiskey with the German guys after the Italians turned in for an early night, and then I cracked out the Singani, the Bolivian national drink.

 

Uyuni salt flats (part 2)

It turned out to be an alright nights sleep, not getting too cold, so we were in good spirits going into the next day on our salt flat tour. And this is pretty much where the salt flats ended. We were now entering a completely different terrain, mainly or rock and dirt, but it was still cool with Jen sitting amongst some funky rocks.

 

 

 

A similar rock next to it with me in the top, you can just about make me out up there.

 

 

 

Back in the jeep and off to another rocky area but completely different at the same time. This area was more like lots of mini stalagmites sticking jaggedly upwards. We even stopped for a picture with the others in the group when they could be bothered to speak in English for about 30 seconds.

 

 

 

This is the whole area with these rock formations popping up all over the place.

 

 

 

Back in the jeep again and off to some more rock formations, but this one the most impressive of all, the stone tree which is carved out simply by the wind over millions of years. This rock would have started as wide at the bottom as at the top, if not wider but due to low winds, we see this rock today. When we were there it was pretty dam windy, hence the hoodies.

 

 

 

As exciting as rocks are, geysers are more impressive and although not spitting out water, they kicked out a load of steam, perhaps they would have erupted had we stayed about.

 

 

This was as close as I dared get, as its that hot they can give you third degree burns and they also come out of holes in the ground, and you can fall down them so don't want to get to intimate with them.

 

 

 

Off we set again passing what Jen described as sweetcorn and peas on our way, yet another chance in landscape. Its hard to imagine that weeds and shrubs can survive out here but they find a way.

 

 

We came across a train track which is always worth a picture and a train even came by whilst we were there. I wanted a picture of me lying on the track whilst the train was coming but Jen refused to take it (poor form on her behalf) so the German guy stole my idea and he got a photo instead much to the disgust of the train driver who was tooting his horn at us even though he was well out the way by the time we moved.

 

 

We got to see our first rhea too, which is basically an ostrich.

 

 

 

With the landscape changing again we took another snap.

 

That was about it for today and off we set to our home for the night, the slightly less luxurious room that we see here. It was freezing and by freezing I meant freezing. We waited up for our dinner which took ages, munched that and then me and the German chap went outside to try and find some liquor to warm us up but the shops were closed so we jumped into bed to keep warm. No, not me and the German, we went into our separate beds to keep warm. Not that we could manage that, the temperature that night dropped to -12 degrees, I've never felt anything like it, I thought my feet were about to drop off.

 

 

After an awful nights sleep, trying to make it through the cold night, we got up really early as we had a long drive ahead of us, and we jumped into the jeep without any heating, this picture says it all really....it was just THAT cold!

 

 

But after a few hours of numbing pain in the feet, the sun finally started to come out and we thawed out a bit. Our spirits were lifted by thousands and thousands of flamingos. It was here that we bumped into Sarah from the hostel in Uyuni and had a catch up and realised we were both going to our next destination the following day so arranged to meet up then.

 

 

 

Leaving the lake where the flamingo where we went up a bit higher and got a view of another lake.

Which had some other wildlife pottering about....

 

.....as well as more flamingo.

 

 

 

 

 

Here we got out and had lunch by the jeep and went for a little stroll taking in the views.

 

 

 

And of course....more flamingo.

 

 

 

What trip to the salt flats would be complete without some natural hot springs?! It was so cold that you could see the heat coming off the water. Bit of a body shock with the air temperature being in the minus numbers and the water being 37 degrees! People didn't stay in there for long.

 

 

 

 

Pretty much done with the salt flats and what better way to finish it all off with some more rocks.

 

 

 

Pretty impressive rocks though.

 

 

 

A mammoth 8 hour journey back which should have took 6 but our driver was the slowest driver ever. He had a 4x4 and he was going slower than our driver back from Rurrenabaque in a people carrier on worse roads. O well, better that than some stories of drunken drivers on the salt flats we had heard of, with some travellers telling us that their driver was so drunk that the people on the tour had to drive back!





La paz part 2, adrenaline junkies are us

Back in La Paz and the same hostel mainly for the free beer a night, we were keen to do something other than shop, as that's pretty much all we'd done here previously. With death road on offer and me keen to take it on, Jen wasn't overly confident with that idea given her recent bike rides in South America so we opted for some quad biking instead.

 

Getting a taxi there as part of the ticket price (but left to fend for yourself to get back!) we turned up at the quad centre a bit out of La Paz, where we were met by its British co owner, who wasn't only British but was from Dartford, about 5 minutes away from Jen's home. Small world.

 

We got suited up looking the part...

 

 

 

And with me missing my Leicester shirt I just parted with, I was overjoyed (probably not that happy) to see that I had the foxes on my gloves.

 

 

 

With a few practice laps of a quiet road next to the offices, we thought we would be taken in a car or something to the dirt track but they had other ideas. We had to drive our quads up the busy roads and get there ourselves. With Jen feeling massively unconfident, we set off with our guide on a motorbike in front, Jen next with another guide on the back of her quad, and me at the back on my tod. Jen was going about 20kpm with me dropping back just so that I could speed up every once in a while cos she was painfully slow!

 

Anyway, we got there in the end and with the guide leaving Jen to it, we followed the guide on the bike around a dirt track high above the city. Didn't stop her from driving straight into a mud wall though which was hilarious, unfortunately I wasn't expecting it so no photo.

 

 

 

It was pretty cool, not just for the fun of the quad biking, but for the view you could get from up here. And the non English guide speaking was determined to get a photo of us standing on our quads for some reason. He won though.

 

 

Told you the view was pretty decent......

More views as we nervously walked out onto the small path you can see on the right there.

 

 

Here we are on that path, posing for a picture, trying not to look down to a certain fall to our deaths. Get the photo and get outta there was Jen's game.

 

 

Coming back down we stopped at the lake you can see from the picture above to see a wedding taking place nearby and they had got the wedding party out on the lake in a boat.

 

 

 

That will do for an adrenaline rush.......for Jen anyway! Back to La Paz and it's time to up the ante. Remember that 50ft wall I told you about in the first La Paz blog? Well it was time for me to be one of those nutters and don the spiderman outfit....

 

.....clever Jack has to go and put it on backwards though so time to redress.

 

 

Now I look like spiderman!

 

 

Had to have a bit of a practice indoors on a tiny wall, as they gave me their advice on how to operate the rope and I was all set. It was then that I regretted wearing my primark £3 plimmies which offered next to no grip whatsoever.

 

 

But we have to live with our decisions so it was time to strap up and face the music.

 

 

 

All that strapping you can see above is obviously for safety, you have a break which you can operate yourself, there is a guy at the top operating a safety break and a guy at the bottom who also has a safety break. But there was a problem, the guy at the bottom was still at top. I was kitted up with a rope and a safety rope, this guy only had his rope, and the nutter without hesitating leapt out the window and took all of about 4 seconds to descend to the bottom.

 

 

 

I peered out and realised it was going to take me somewhat longer! Its pretty un-nerving when you peer out for the first time and realise you immediately regret your decision, Ron Burgandy style.

 

 

But being a man, we cannot back down and I slowly lowered myself over the edge, with a little poo trying to make an appearance but luckily I managed to hold it in, you can probably make out the clenching there.

 

 

In the training indoors on the miniwall we were told to try and keep straight, as soon as you get out there, you forget all that and you're just going for it. The nervous feelings disappeared and adrenaline kicked in.

 

 

Now this may look like I'm a pro and I'm running down the wall, but all it actually is, is me slipping off the wall in my £3 primark plimmies, trying to regain my horizontal position miserably.

 

 

Finally getting back on the wall I kinda got in the groove and made my way down until the best bit comes around, the 20ft free fall (which you can opt out of it you don't fancy it). Letting go of your rope, leaving the breaks in the hands of the instructors, I pushed away from the wall and they let go off the breaks, sending me plummeting to the floor, which was an awesome rush, I'm guessing only equalled by bungee jumping or sky diving. Either way it was wicked and I'm really glad I did it.

 

 

With our last night in La Paz and with me feeling like we should treat ourselves after successfully scaling a 50ft wall, we went out to a steakhouse. Given that we had both eaten dinner and had a drink for the total cost of a pound previously it was a bit extravagant splashing out 30 quid on this meal for two, but it was so super worth it.

 

We got a shot of tequila to start with (but they ran out so we had a shot of rum which we mixed with coke) along with a bowl of cheesy nachos, followed by a massive meat platter consisting of a huge burger, pork ribs, jack daniels glazed steak, and a kebab with chicken, alpaca, blood sausage and normal sausage, all complimented by chips, a bottle of wine and a free unlimited salad bar. You'd happily pay more than that in England and the standard here was top.

 

 

It was however, way to much and we had to take home about a quarter of it in a doggy bag, which still filled this box up.

One more night in the hostel and, finishing of the steakhouse leftovers for lunch the next day, we jumped on a bus to Oruro, where we would get a train to our next location, Uyuni, home to the world renowned salt flats.