There are three tried and tested ways of entering Bolivia from Chile. One is following the Peruvian border along the road from Arica in the very North of the country, another is to cross at San Pedro de Atacama, where we had already been to do a visa run, and the third is the lesser trod route from Calama to the city of Uyuni. There were two bus companies that provided for this route, and I got us tickets for the morning journey on the day of the 17th April.
We were extremely glad to leave behind the awful food and rude people we had met in Chile (with a few exceptions), and looked forward to the trip across the high plains of the Atacama desert and it’s salt flats. One downfall was the rise in elevation we would have to experience – from 2260 meters in Chile, to over 3700 meters above sea level in Bolivia! Unfortunately, I was not ready for this body shock, and as the journey rolled on, hour after ungodly hour, I got progressively worse.
Acute Mountain Sickness can be a serious condition which can cause severe damage to a human body, including death. Health and fitness is no indicator of who will be affected, and I got hit pretty bad with a range of symptoms that included migraine, nausea, muscle spasms, cramps and sharp aching pains in my bones. Nice, huh?
It took forever to complete the journey, not only because the road was so bad (Bolivian buses are workhorses that drive over bumps and holes, and through wet sand and thick mud that even the sturdiest 4X4 would grimace at) but also because we had to change buses at the border, which took an absolute age.
By the time we got to our destination I was in no shape to do much, and so we checked into a cheap hospedaje, which was probably only two steps above a flophouse. This dump became our home for the next 3 or 4 days as I became accustomed to the new ridiculous altitude I found myself at. After a while, and the discovery of some excellent altitude pills (paracetamol and caffeine), we managed to get ourselves to the local museum, which mostly contained the remains of long-dead pre-Hispanic people, cranially deformed in life, and mummified in death. The so-called San Pedro peoples (so little is known about the culture that they are named for the place in which the evidence was found) were extremely keen on mummification. In fact it was practiced in the surrounding regions before the Egyptians were even doing it. The Atacama desert is so dry and windless that the environment produces a kind of natural mummification process all on it’s own. Some of the skulls in the museum also showed signs of deformation caused by wrapping the head in tight cloth to force it to grow into strange shapes. Current thinking is that this was reserved for important classes of people only, but I believe it was a repugnant tradition that was probably used to subjugate women.
Built as a trading post, Uyuni still functions as the gateway of goods between Bolivia and Chile (Bolivia has no coast of it’s own to export goods, so they rent the usage of Chile’s ports). Nowadays, although they do still have a large street and municipal market, the city’s main economy is tourism as it is the destination for over 60,000 visitors per year who come to see the nearby salt flats.
The largest salt flat in the world, El Salar de Uyuni is so big it can be seen from space. It is reputedly a favorite spot for technicians to use when calibrating their satellites navigational systems because they need something large and flat. Apparently Buzz Aldrin saw the Salar on returning from a space mission and decided that he must visit it, because of it’s beauty.
There are a million tour agencies in Uyuni, all offering similar 3 day trips to the salt flat and the altiplano of the desert, and so we ended up over-researching so much that we fell into a kind of analysis-paralysis. We found out that it totally depends on what driver/guide you get, as to how good your experience will be. I think the drivers work on a rotational basis, probably with several different agencies; so a good driver working for company A one day, might be with company B the next. Likewise for a bad driver - which pretty much makes the online reviews of the companies useless, as the drivers are the ones who really need to be rated as good or not, not the companies.
Why is this important? The simple answer to that is the poor standard of Bolivian driving, and the tendency of many drivers to liven up the proceedings by getting blind drunk. There were many stories of tourists having to take over the driving as their driver was too drunk or too tired to do it himself. That might make for a good story back home, but many trips did not end so happily. Drunk and dangerous drivers in Uyuni are responsible for many deaths in road traffic accidents including one 2008 two-month period when 17 people were killed. One driver got angry when asked to slow down by a tourist, and swerved violently across the road to scare the passenger. He lost control rolling the car several times. Three passengers and the driver all died at the scene, leaving only a few passengers alive – the ones with working seatbelts - to tell the tale.
After much to and fro, we finally settled on a company called Expediciones Empexa which I found to be an efficient and friendly little outfit. No-one there speaks any English and all of the Uyuni guides are Spanish-speaking only, so dust off your linguistic skills before you pay them a visit. Luckily, our driver was much better than the horror stories had led us to believe, and but for a few unnecessary risks he took whilst driving (we had to ask him to slow down a few times), he scored pretty high. As you cannot choose your driver – who would you choose anyway? – it really was potluck who we got. Our guy always got our food ready, explained to us where we were going, what we were doing, and for how long. The other people who came on the tour with us seemed friendly enough too, including an elderly Israeli couple who told us they had seen a Jaguar in Peru, and so we were pretty excited about going there too!
We left in the morning of the 22nd April after some breakfast, and headed off for our adventure. Our first stop was the railway graveyard that is now the final resting place of the British-built trains that brought minerals from the high planes of the Andes (the altiplano) to the sea ports on the coast of Chile. Apart from the ubiquitous trash found in all of South America, it was a really cool and surreal place.
The next stop was the village of Colchani, only 7km outside of town, which sat on the edge of the Salar and was the location of a salt mining and refining area, and a small museum which had some pretty interesting salt animals carved in it.
We travelled to the salt flat itself to get some nice pictures, but the salt was pretty gritty and dirty. After a few pictures, we headed back over the salt to get deeper into the flats themselves. After an hour or two of driving we came to a remote salt hotel. Buildings are not allowed on the salt flat, but somehow the owners got away with building this one, but it was pretty empty and derelict when we arrived there, probably because no-one wants to use the polluting facilities. I was even quite concerned about how our vehicle’s tracks across the salt flat joined hundreds of others and sullied the views and the environment of the salt. Nothing to be done about that now though! We decided to wander around whilst our driver made us all some nice lunch.
Our next stop was even further across the vast white salt flat to the famous Isla de los Pescados, which is an ancient coral reef covered in cacti that are centuries old. We paid a small charge to get onto the island and then we tacked onto a small tour of the local ritual museum where a guide talked about the traditional indigenous religious beliefs of Pachamama – basically the Incan worship of Mother Earth which is still celebrated and revered today. Bolivians use a load of coca leaves, a white llama (which is almost always sacrificed), incense, and critically, a shedload of 96% alcohol for various rituals ranging from the solstice to other more regional cleansing ceremonies. Alcohol is a big problem amongst many indigenous communities in the world, and the country of Bolivia is no exception, with most ceremonies seeing extremely drunk men tip a small amount of alcohol on the floor ‘for Pachamama’ and then take huge gulps of heady strong drink.
The museum building was made from cactus, unsurprisingly, as there were so many on the island. We hiked around – right to the top of the island – which I found hard due to the altitude. Francesca pointed out some excellent examples of the coral reef fossils located there, and we snapped some great views of the salt desert. It was a bit strange to see so many 4x4 jeeps parked at the island which gave the realization that we were firmly once again on the tourist trail!
A little while later and we were all set to leave. We sped off to our first overnight stop, a salt hotel outside of the salt flat in Atulcha village. The rooms were all given Bolivian names, and ours was called Pachamama, funnily enough! We plugged our ridiculous camera battery charger in, had dinner and then went to sleep on a bed made of salt (everything was made of salt).
The next day was Francesca’s birthday – we were in the middle of nowhere so her present was a promise to get one present in every Bolivian city we visited. We stopped at the train tracks and watched as a train slowly lumbered by and then off towards Chile with it’s cargo of potatoes, maize or precious metals. It was at this point that our driver worryingly started tinkering with the bottom of the jeep. We had heard the vehicles were not that great on the Uyuni tour, because they do take quite a beating from the desert and the altitude (and the way most Bolivians drive), but it started again, and we zoomed off once more.
The scenery is fantastic around the salt flats. We headed South toward the border with Chile, a harsh environment that is extremely sun-baked, yet bone-chillingly cold due to the altitude. Surrounded by mineral-rich mountains with snow-capped peaks and smoking volcanoes, it all makes for a beautiful journey.
An hour later we stopped for a short break at a volcanic set of shallow canyons. The red rocks were beautiful contrasting the deep blue sky. There were some strange green brain-like plants and even a big viscacha, which is basically a big rabbit with kangaroo legs. It was a shame to see that the area was also a popular place for tourists to litter in. We saw toilet paper and tampons everywhere – whoever does that kind of thing should be ashamed of themselves, and fined the cost of the tour again.
We continued on, passing colorful volcanoes, nervous guanacos, and always rising in altitude as the Andean high planes continued upwards. The salt flat had been located at 3653 meters above sea level, but we quickly rose that next day to over 4100 meters as we reached a flamingo-filled lagoon called Laguna Hedionda. We saw lots of different birds there, and we had to be careful not to get too muddy.
Another lagoon we saw was a yellow lagoon filled with sulfur. There were a few flamingoes around, and we even saw a small mouse which fled pretty quick when we came too close! After seeing the mouse we then saw a less timid red fox come running over to our jeep. It even posed for some photos.
After passing by several other lagoons, we drove on, ever higher, and came to a kind of yellowish/green alley between high mountains on both sides in which we saw some huge tornadoes! At least a dozen formed and dissipated in front of our very eyes, sometimes for several minutes. It took hours to drive through this region, until we eventually arrived at some awesome rock formations, including one that was called the Stone Tree. We walked around the red rocks for awhile – they had been formed mostly by wind erosion over many millennia.
The third morning, we left extremely early, before sunrise to visit the Solar de Manaña geysers which were at the ridiculous heights of 4850 meters above sea level. I really felt this altitude – breathing difficulties, drowsiness and light headedness – not great in a place which has hundreds of holes in the ground leading down to boiling hot sulfur, mud and water! The geysers were really blowing off some steam too!
After an hour or so of taking some cool photos, we all jumped in the jeep again an headed down 400 meters to the Termas de Polques hot springs. The rest of the group decided not to make use of the springs, but Francesca and I jumped straight in – and they were awesome! There was a little hidden cost here, as I was not made aware we had to pay for the usage of the hot springs, but it was well worth it! The little pool everyone was in was actually connected to a much larger lake, but that was boiling water and not recommended to get into!
We dried off in the freezing temperatures outside the lovely little hot thermals, and again zoomed off, deeper into the altiplano, towards the Chilean border where we had gotten our visas renewed some weeks before. Rearing up in the distance was the huge Vulcán Lincacabur, standing at 5960 meters above sea level. We got to our destination and could see loads of volcanic material all around. The lagoon, laguna verde, was supposed to be green in color due to the elements and minerals in the rocks, including arsenic and lead, but we were told it only happens when it is windy (which sounds ridiculously untrue to me!). An adjacent lagoon was also supposed to be white, and looked more promising, as it was apparently filled with Borax. This compound is a toxic substance which has been blamed for the decline of the three different species of flamingoes found in the Andes, and when we were there, we saw flamingoes feeding in the white waters.
This was our final day on the tour, and so we headed back on the long and bumpy journey Northwards back towards Uyuni. We stopped at a small village called Villa Mar, named after the small stream there. We spotted some geese and ate a nice lunch amongst many groups of other tourists and continued onwards.
A small valley of strangely shaped rocks was our next stop, and we were able to roam freely around trying to find some of the weirdest shapes made by the wind erosion. I went off looking for signs of a puma, but came up empty-handed as usual.
Back to civilization (somewhat), and a last stop at a town called San Cristobal where there was a 350 year old church with a beautiful silver alter! Or so we are told – the church was firmly locked, so we could only take pictures from outside. Francesca found out that the silver in the church had actually been stolen by some unscrupulous locals which is why we could not get access.
The tour was awesome and we felt like we had totally chosen the right company, and luckily been given the right driver. The salt flat of Uyuni is a must see destination when coming to South America, just make sure you bring plenty of sun screen, water, and your camera charger!
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