Hola Chicos,
So I took the overnight bus from Salta, Argentina to the border, where I met 7 other various travellers in the cold 7am air walking towards the border to cross into Villazon, Bolvia. There was no problem crossing the border, but by the time we caught a cab none of us could feel our toes. I was supposed to head to Uyuni and book a tour there, but we had a good group so instead I headed to Tupiza for a night before booking a 4-day tour through the Andes and to the Salt Flats. The crew: Romilly, Siobhan, and Charlie from England, Chris and Kallon from Australia, Micah from Toronto, and Jonathon from Israel.
The tour was amazing! Cold mornings stopping at lagoons filled with flamingos, hot afternoons at crazy high heights viewing geysers, a thermal pool in a desert surrounded by mountains, llamas with tassels in their ears, mostly banos natural (aka little rocks and bushes and bare butts) and finally the salt flats. The largest in the world, a salt lake where the water has dried up and all that's left is miles and miles of hexagon-shaped salt.
After the tour I continued traveling with Romilly, Siobhan and Kallon to Potosi (highest city in the world at 4060m) and then Sucre (the official capitol full of white-washed buildings and near the largest number of dinosaur footprints in the world). The altitude has been quite a challenge, leaving you winded after a short walk and breathing deeply even when lying in bed (not sure how I'll manage the Inca Trail!). There are lots of photos from my tour below (I took about 800 in the 4 days!) so I will post photos of Potosi and Sucre in the next blog.
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| Ghost town - 4690m |
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| We drove the drove through this! And many other waterways. |
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| Detergent used for washing hair - yes I tried it! |
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| Geysers - 4855m |
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| Charlie, Romilly, Siobhan and me with flamingos! |
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| Driver fixing our jeep - we had a flat tire and broke down a lot! |
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| Me at a heart-shaped lake |
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| Salt hotel where we spent last night - walls and floor are salt! |
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| Fish Island on salt flats - watched sunrise here |
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| The mountains looked like they were floating! |
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| Me climbing a converse - because of the way the salt is you can get fun distance pics! |
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| Our bad attempt at spelling UYUNI |
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| Everyone with the 2 drivers and cook |
Wow! this looks interesting. So glad you have so many friends to travel with you. Thanks again for the pics.
ReplyDeleteIt's Jake in case you wondered. So we're there other Canadians? Where are the others from? Europe? That looks so fun. You are selling this trip to me with so much diversity and way cheaper than Europe.
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