Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Monday 8th October
This morning we had to catch a coach at around 5am, which wasnt the best thing in the world as I had a hangover from the night before and felt rough as s***!!!! To make matters worse we had no money to pay for our stay at the hostel. We tried to sneak out with the intention of emailing them when we arrived in Bolivia but they called us back. We got the taxi driver to take us to an ATM and back to hostel to pay then onto the coach station with only a few minutes to spare. The coach journey was 7 hours so as you can imagine boring, but even worse as I felt ill the whole way there. We then had to get through boarder control which took another 20-30 mins. We arrived at Villazone and took a taxi to the train station to get us to Tupiza, however the train station decided to be closed today so we were forced to travel by bus (which didnt much resemble one these days!!). We bought the tickets off of a scabby looking lady with a tissue sticking out of her nose. I think she was the nobility of the area!! lol We had 2 hours to waste so decided to eat in a classy eatery. We all had a chicken leg, rice and noodles and for desert we had an old trampy lady come begging for our food. She kept touching us. YUCK!!!!!! We then got on the bus and waited for it to leave. As the bus started to fill up we realised it was full of local (smelly) people so as Nikki was sitting on her own she decided to buy a ticket for Matilda (Lisa´s teddy) so she didnt have to sit next to anyone. (it was one pound seventy five well spent says Nikki)!!! I have to agree!!! The three hour journey was to me like a living nightmare!! We travelled off road on the bumpiest road ever, everything on the bus shook, the people smelt and to make matters worse I saw a 5 year old girl pass food from her mouth to her fathers as she didnt like what she was eating. (Waste not want not as my Nan would say!) . Women breast feeding their kids and filling the petrol up from the inside whilst travelling along still. We finally arrived in Tupiza to be greated by Milton our guide for the salt lake tour and taken to our hotel. Joining us was an Irish dude called Mike who also decided to come on our four day salt lake tour. This was our first experience with altitude and walking up a flight of stairs was hard going! We then went to Internet cafe, had a meal then off to bed for our early start of the salt lakes.
Tuesday 9th October
Today was the first day of the salt lake tour. We set off early after waiting for the only bank to open (which never did) so we had no money to pay for the trip, our hotel or anything else for the next four days! Travelling in our jeep we had me, Lisa, Nikki, Mike (the irish guy) and Arry (not Harry) an American guy who was travelling alone. We set off up the steapest winding (narrow) roads, which were actually quite scarey as you were so close to the edge. We stopped off at the top (about 4,000 feet) for a great view of the valley below which millions of years ago was underwater. The rock was iron and had created huge needle like peaks thousands of feet tall, it was quite awesome to see. After we drove a hell of a long way through the mountains of the Andes (which was to become the same scenery for the next 4 days!!!) to arrive at our lunch destination, which basically was a plain in the middle of no where full of Llamas and sheep!!! Lunch was prepared in the back of the jeep as we tried our luck at getting close to Llama's, and Lisa had to squat behind a bush for a pee!!!!! The guys just whipped it out and pee'd behind the Llama's!!! Lunch consisted of ham rolls and Llama's testicles (which was basically Llama meat in round balls of corn!!!!) called charques. Onwards we went, driving through mining villages (only a few mud huts) and the dark city (a rock formation which looks like a city), and spotting sand tornados, one of which swept over our jeep as we were driving!!! We finally arrived at a small village 4660m up in the andes, where we were staying the night. It was basically a mud hut with beds and no showers, but it did have a toilet!!! As dinner was being prepared we went down to the basketball/football pitch (combined use!) to watch the local kids running around at altitude playing both games. We found it hard just walking back to our mud hut!!!! That night was very cold, we all had 4 Llama blankets each and slept in lots of layers of our clothes. We managed to get a few hours sleep in between the dogs having a gang bang and the c*** crowing at silly o clock in the morning!!!!
Wednesday 10th October
After an early wake up and a good breakfast we headed off in our jeep again. Our first stop was a haunted deserted mining village, which apparently the men in the village married a new women every 2 weeks!!!!! They moved village because of the ghosts, so i (lisa) didnt get out the jeep and let tom get out to take pics!!!! Next we went to a pretty cool white lagoon, and saw our first flamingos. Flamingos are cool, but there poo stinks the lagoons out!!!! We passed a range of volcanoes along the way, the tallest being 6,008m high. They were all dormant though and have been for about 10 million years!!! Lunch was at the hot springs, which was a natural hot thermal bath in the rocks next to another amazing white lagoon full of flamingos. It was our first chance to bathe after not having showers, so we put on our bikinis and speedos and took a well deserved dip in the thermal springs before lunch. After we headed off to the famous green lagoon, which we learnt was green because of the arsenic in the water (so no skinny dipping in there!!). The lagoon was in front of a huge volcano, and as we stepped out of the jeep the wind storm really hit us (apparently it is always windy there!!).. The green lagoon was pretty awesome, one of the best on the trip (we saw many lagoons!). After we headed past another volcano which had awesome patterns over the top where the sulphur and iron met and swirled around with reds, whites, cream and orange colours. Next was the Dali dessert, a dessert made from volcano sand and had lots of odd shaped volcano rocks scattered around. Apparently it looks the same as the famous dali painting, even though he never visited Bolivia. Next was our favourite part of the day, the stinking smelly geisers!!! They were awesome craters of bubbling mud which was splating around everywhere at about 180 degrees. We walked all around them, taking in the lovely smell of eggs, but the sights were so amazing we didnt care. Although we did care when we got back in the jeep with mud splattered over us and stinking of eggs!!!! Finally we made it to the red lake (laguna Colarada) and headed over to see it. As Milton turned round to give us an explanation of the red lake the jeep crashed down a big hole, sending us all flying!!!! but the jeep survived and we made it to the lake in one piece. The lake was red because of the algae, and was full to the brim with flamingos, was pretty cool! We stayed in a larger mud hut that night, near the red lake, and as it was much bigger with more groups of people, and sold beer and wine, we thought we'd have a more comfortable night... oh how wrong we were. After a late night listening to some girl play the guitar who couldnt play much, and tom learning to play a greenday song on her guitar, we wrapped up in lots of layers and got under our 4 Llama blankets. It was -10 degrees, ice cold, and i have never been so cold in my life. Sleep was not an option, we laid awake most of the night :o(
p.s. I would like to add (Tom) that at night the sky was amazing. I have never seen such a clear sky with sooooo many stars out. In the space of about 30 secs I saw two shooting stars!
Thursday 11th October
Todays trip wasnt as busy as the previous days so we spent a lot more time in the jeep! (Great!!) Our first stop was simular to the Dali like desert but we got to walk amongst the rocks this time. They were huge volcanic rocks and one famous rock that resembled a tree. Well it was supposed too but it didn´t look like it much to us. We then headed off and saw many more lagoons, one of which we managed to get very very close to the flamingos. Which as you can guess really stank..... the toilets available to us smelt pretty much the same and we had to pay for the pleasure (if thats what you can call it!!). We now headed off to have lunch, which had a great view of a smoking volcano which stood 5865m tall called V.Ollague. After lunch we drove for hours and hours to our digs for the night which was a salt hotel. As you can guess the entire hotel (beds, tables the lot) were made from salt blocks. We all treated ourselves to our first shower in three days, which was soooooo nice after stinking of sweat, eggs and flamingo doo doo!! To toms shock he found some insect sitting on his jumper in his room so he went to find Milton to ask him what it was and if it was dangerous. He killed it for me and informed me it was not poisonous! He later told me it was so I made him move us to another room! Well you never know if mummy and daddy were close in the old room! We watched how to lose a guy in ten days on Nikkis laptop, and then had dinner (Llama meat, which Nikki refused to eat). Some local kids entertained us for 10 mins with panpipe music and local dancing. We then headed off to bed for the best nights sleep in a long time!
Friday 12th October
Today was a very early start as we wanted to head out to the salt lakes for sunrise. One of the group (I dont like to name names.) made us a little late as he was faffing around getting ready! It was cool in the end as we managed to catch the end of the sunrise over the salt lakes which was pretty amazing. Next we headed off to a coral island in the middle of the salt lakes, which was infested with Cactus´s. We were told that it took a 100years for the cactus to grow 1 meter. There was one catus that measured 12 meters tall!!!! From the top of the cactus island we got a fantastic panoramic view of the salt lakes. The Island itself was once upon a time (long ago) was submerged under water. Breakfast was at the bottom of the island were we had fried egg sandwiches and oreo cake. (we forgot to mention that Milton was a pretty good cook). Milton sent us on a walk around the island as they packed the jeep up, but we spent most of the time round the island p1ssing around making silly pictures. Dont worry guys we have LOTS of pictures to show you all. Our final destination was the middle of the salt lakes were we took so many cool pictures again of us all being rather silly sausages. There is no perspective in the middle of the salt lakes as everywhere you look is just white, white and guess what...... more white. This enabled you to take some pretty awesome pictures. (see my (toms) facebook piccy)!! We stopped off at a little town where we had lunch, peed in a hole and bought some pressies for you guys back home. The jeep then took us to Uyuni where we dropped of Mike and Arry, but we (Tom, Lisa & Nikki) continued on in the jeep to Potosi as we didnt fancy much sharing another bus with the common folk and flying chickens. We paid a little extra for the luxury (dont ask how much please), which turned out to maybe have been a bad idea. about 15 mins away from Potosi the front wheel of our jeep decided to break off. Not just come off or burst open.... it actually broke off! After causing a pile up on the usually the quietest road in the world we waited (2 hours) whilst Milton and the driver fixed the wheel back to the jeep. When I say fixed I dont mean properly I mean it was bodge jobbed back on well enough for us to travel about 10mph into Potosi! Whilst waiting for the jeep to be fixed we took some photos (mean aint we) and played a game tom had invented. About 20 feet away was a group of rocks piled on top of each other and we had to try and knock it off. After the girls missing every time and tom knocking then all off Tom decided to rebuild the rocks and knock them all off again without missing once. At the time it was quite an achievement but I spose a little childish looking back :o) Oh yeah Lisa and Nikki amused themselves with singing and dancing to the McDonalds song (you know the one... dont pretend not too)! We finally arrrived at our 5 star hotel that we had treated ourselves to, later that night.
- comments