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So we have finished our luxurious stage of our South American journey (Chile and Argentina) and now are heading into Bolivia. The plan - a three day trip across the volcanic landscape and largest salt flat in the world in South West Bolivia. After leaving the paved road behind in Chile we drove in 4 X 4 jeeps up to 4600 m to the Bolivian immigration control. After a dubious breakfast of bread, cheese and jam we continued with Juan our driver a couple from Belgium, a girl from Switzerland and another from Canada.

Plains of Salt, Mountains of Silver and Meals of Bacteria

James and Anne Walkington
2006-08-08 16:59:49

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The flamingos we very exciting but could only get close up pictures of them on the video camera. Here we also listened to the end of the world cup in which Italy thankfully won (although it was a shockingly bad signal).

Back to the hotel (hotel in the looses possible term) the room air temperature was already 6C. Dinner of spaghetti bolognese was followed by bed at 7.30 as it was too cold for idle chat. Thankfully due to the invention of goose down sleeping bags Anne and I were warm despite the air temperature dropping below 0C. Comfortable however, James was not; on a mattress which sank to the floor in the middle.

The morning dawned blue skies and more rough dirt roads to drive along. Our aim was to reach the Salt Plain of Uyuni to a hotel made entirely of salt before nightfall. Juan our driver insisted on taking the roughest route, also at a speed suitable only for paved roads. We stopped at an odd rock formation in the middle of no-where for a few photos, followed by more rapid driving to our lunch stop by more flamingo filled lakes. These we were able to get closer to but still not close enough. James who was desperate to get a good photo was forced to concede after nearly falling through a thin mud crust into the lake.

The afternoon was taken up by driving solidly including the worse bit of road which we would travel along. Just to say that you wouldn't bring your new Toyota along it is enough. Virtually only passable to very high clearance 4x4 - thankfully ours did and even Juan drove slowly and seemingly cautiously. After several more hours of driving we arrived at the salt hotel - it was a s**t hole. Fortunately it was full and we had to drive about 20 mins further to another salt hotel which was much nicer - even had table cloths and hot showers. Everything was made from salt including the tables and mattresses. Only the showers weren´t - for obvious reasons!!

Chicken and chips and a get to know you ...

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