Bolivia is a land-locked country. Thanks to Chile – they took Bolivia’s coastal region away in the Pacific wars last century. Consequently there are no diplomatic relations between Chile and Bolivia, and the border between the countries lies at altitudes of 4500m plus in the middle of the Andes! So we were surprised to say the least that this border crossing was arguably the friendliest we’d ever seen. OK, the air was a bit thin and cold, but the border guards were frankly pleasant – which we know by this point is not normal!
So after being dropped at the edge of Bolivia by minibus and passing the pleasant immigration, we were picked up by a large shiny sliver 4 by 4 jeep. The Bolivian Altiplano is a spectacular place – beautiful and remote. So remote that I can honestly say we didn’t see a single tarmacked road in our 4 days in Bolivia, and that most of the time we travelled by dirt tracks. Luckily we and the four other blokes who shared our jeep were driven around by a very friendly Bolivian guy called Valerio who knew his way through the twisted tracks perfectly. Three of us were from the UK (Gary, myself and Nick, an English tour guide), there were two Aussies (Ben and James), and one Spanish bloke (Nachos – who with his good English became the perfect translator!).
We spent the first day high up in the Altiplano, reaching nearly 5000m above sea level at one point. The Bolivian side of the Andes is a vibrant place, even the barren volcanic mountains are every shade from black through purple, green, blue, red and yellow. Better still were the colourful lagoons. We passed the Lagoona Blanca with its white water, stunning mountain reflections and flocks of flamingos, but this was soon eclipsed by our next stop, the Lagoona Verde. The ‘Green Lagoon’ doesn’t have any flamingos – not surprising as the colour of the water is apparently due to a high concentration of arsenic… But the most fascinating thing about this lagoon was its colour, or rather its colours. When we arrived the still deep green water reflected the surrounding volcanoes beautifully, but 10 minutes later a pale opaque matt green had spread from one side of the lagoon to the other, completely stopping all reflections. It was incredible – we’ve no idea what caused the water to change but we have never seen anything like it.
Then it was onwards past twisted rock formations to a lagoon with patches of salt floating on the water and yet more flamingos, to bathe in a geothermally heated hot-pool on the shore. A warm bath with a wonderful view! Next we stopped briefly at the colourful Geyser Sol De Manana geothermal field (no true geysers here – but plenty of vigorously boiling mud pools and fumaroles… and a good whiff of sulphur!), before stopping for the night at the Lagoona Colorada (Red Lagoon). Here we hit the first snag of the trip – the hostel we were meant to stay in n the banks of the Lagoon was full, and none of us really fancied a night in the jeep in freezing cold… Fortunately the resourceful Valerio managed to negotiate us a bed in another hostel a little further on, but it did make us wonder why the company we booked the trip with hadn’t made reservations!
In a way we were lucky – we actually preferred the second hostel. OK, it was pretty basic accommodation. With no running water the toilets weren‘t somewhere to linger, and some heating would have been nice as the temperature at night was well below zero at 4500m! But on the plus side the location of the place on the banks of the red-pink boron-tinted Lagoona Colorada was incredible – just a short walk away from hundreds of flamingos, herds of llamas, salt deposits like icebergs… We spent the evening shivering along with a cluster of other backpackers, eating cookies and watching the brilliant moon rise over the volcanoes into a sky filled with the brightest stars we’ve ever seen.
The next day we passed the stone tree (a weird rock that looks, strangely enough, exactly like a tree…) to drive on past more beautiful lagoons in shades of white, blue, and even yellow! Complete with even more flocks of flamingos, brilliant white surrounding salt flats and overlooked by active volcanoes of course. This region of Bolivia is truly incredible. We spent the second night in a basic hotel in a small village with little more comfort – i.e. we had running water this time so managed a (freezing) shower! But although the lagoons and volcanoes we had so far seen were truly beautiful, they were completely eclipsed by the sights of our third morning.
The Salar De Uyuni is the largest Salt flat in the world. It is a massive expanse of perfectly flat brilliant white salt precipitate – so that as you drive across it you barely seem to be moving. We got up at 4am to watch the sun rise from the centre of the salt flat. It was spectacular – as the sky changed colour with the approaching dawn the true expanse of the salt flat was slowly revealed to us. It is huge! Snow-white salt forming a complex mosaic expanse stretching for over 25km into the distance in each direction. I hope the pictures below give some sort of idea of the scale and beauty of the place, but this is really somewhere everyone should visit if they get the chance. The salt flat (salar) is so perfectly flat and vast that virtually all sense of distance is distorted, leading to some very interesting perspective photographic opportunities! Have a look at me balancing on the apple or Gary climbing out of the rucksack below…
The Salar De Uyuni isn’t a perfect stretch of salt however – it has a few small rocky islands in its midst which only serve to enhance it. We visited the Isla De Los Pescadores (Fisherman’s Island), a rocky outcrop covered with hundreds of giant cacti! These monster spiky plants only grow a couple of millimetres a year, but the tallest were over 4m high. Then it was on to the exact centre of the salt flat to play with more perspective photographs (jumping over the jeep for instance…) before passing a hotel made entirely of salt on the way to the edge of the Salar and the small town of Uyuni. It was an amazing few days – OK, the long return slog back to the Chilean border near San Pedro De Atacama wasn’t so much fun, but our venture into Bolivia was certainly one of the highlights of our year so far. And that is saying something after climbing the Great Wall of China, swimming with sharks, wandering around the Taj Mahal, winning £2 in Macau, cycling to the Easter Island Maoi, driving to Milford Sound, being interviewed for Japanese TV at Toyako Onsen, and so on... Not a bad year!
So after being dropped at the edge of Bolivia by minibus and passing the pleasant immigration, we were picked up by a large shiny sliver 4 by 4 jeep. The Bolivian Altiplano is a spectacular place – beautiful and remote. So remote that I can honestly say we didn’t see a single tarmacked road in our 4 days in Bolivia, and that most of the time we travelled by dirt tracks. Luckily we and the four other blokes who shared our jeep were driven around by a very friendly Bolivian guy called Valerio who knew his way through the twisted tracks perfectly. Three of us were from the UK (Gary, myself and Nick, an English tour guide), there were two Aussies (Ben and James), and one Spanish bloke (Nachos – who with his good English became the perfect translator!).
We spent the first day high up in the Altiplano, reaching nearly 5000m above sea level at one point. The Bolivian side of the Andes is a vibrant place, even the barren volcanic mountains are every shade from black through purple, green, blue, red and yellow. Better still were the colourful lagoons. We passed the Lagoona Blanca with its white water, stunning mountain reflections and flocks of flamingos, but this was soon eclipsed by our next stop, the Lagoona Verde. The ‘Green Lagoon’ doesn’t have any flamingos – not surprising as the colour of the water is apparently due to a high concentration of arsenic… But the most fascinating thing about this lagoon was its colour, or rather its colours. When we arrived the still deep green water reflected the surrounding volcanoes beautifully, but 10 minutes later a pale opaque matt green had spread from one side of the lagoon to the other, completely stopping all reflections. It was incredible – we’ve no idea what caused the water to change but we have never seen anything like it.
Then it was onwards past twisted rock formations to a lagoon with patches of salt floating on the water and yet more flamingos, to bathe in a geothermally heated hot-pool on the shore. A warm bath with a wonderful view! Next we stopped briefly at the colourful Geyser Sol De Manana geothermal field (no true geysers here – but plenty of vigorously boiling mud pools and fumaroles… and a good whiff of sulphur!), before stopping for the night at the Lagoona Colorada (Red Lagoon). Here we hit the first snag of the trip – the hostel we were meant to stay in n the banks of the Lagoon was full, and none of us really fancied a night in the jeep in freezing cold… Fortunately the resourceful Valerio managed to negotiate us a bed in another hostel a little further on, but it did make us wonder why the company we booked the trip with hadn’t made reservations!
In a way we were lucky – we actually preferred the second hostel. OK, it was pretty basic accommodation. With no running water the toilets weren‘t somewhere to linger, and some heating would have been nice as the temperature at night was well below zero at 4500m! But on the plus side the location of the place on the banks of the red-pink boron-tinted Lagoona Colorada was incredible – just a short walk away from hundreds of flamingos, herds of llamas, salt deposits like icebergs… We spent the evening shivering along with a cluster of other backpackers, eating cookies and watching the brilliant moon rise over the volcanoes into a sky filled with the brightest stars we’ve ever seen.
The next day we passed the stone tree (a weird rock that looks, strangely enough, exactly like a tree…) to drive on past more beautiful lagoons in shades of white, blue, and even yellow! Complete with even more flocks of flamingos, brilliant white surrounding salt flats and overlooked by active volcanoes of course. This region of Bolivia is truly incredible. We spent the second night in a basic hotel in a small village with little more comfort – i.e. we had running water this time so managed a (freezing) shower! But although the lagoons and volcanoes we had so far seen were truly beautiful, they were completely eclipsed by the sights of our third morning.
The Salar De Uyuni is the largest Salt flat in the world. It is a massive expanse of perfectly flat brilliant white salt precipitate – so that as you drive across it you barely seem to be moving. We got up at 4am to watch the sun rise from the centre of the salt flat. It was spectacular – as the sky changed colour with the approaching dawn the true expanse of the salt flat was slowly revealed to us. It is huge! Snow-white salt forming a complex mosaic expanse stretching for over 25km into the distance in each direction. I hope the pictures below give some sort of idea of the scale and beauty of the place, but this is really somewhere everyone should visit if they get the chance. The salt flat (salar) is so perfectly flat and vast that virtually all sense of distance is distorted, leading to some very interesting perspective photographic opportunities! Have a look at me balancing on the apple or Gary climbing out of the rucksack below…
The Salar De Uyuni isn’t a perfect stretch of salt however – it has a few small rocky islands in its midst which only serve to enhance it. We visited the Isla De Los Pescadores (Fisherman’s Island), a rocky outcrop covered with hundreds of giant cacti! These monster spiky plants only grow a couple of millimetres a year, but the tallest were over 4m high. Then it was on to the exact centre of the salt flat to play with more perspective photographs (jumping over the jeep for instance…) before passing a hotel made entirely of salt on the way to the edge of the Salar and the small town of Uyuni. It was an amazing few days – OK, the long return slog back to the Chilean border near San Pedro De Atacama wasn’t so much fun, but our venture into Bolivia was certainly one of the highlights of our year so far. And that is saying something after climbing the Great Wall of China, swimming with sharks, wandering around the Taj Mahal, winning £2 in Macau, cycling to the Easter Island Maoi, driving to Milford Sound, being interviewed for Japanese TV at Toyako Onsen, and so on... Not a bad year!
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