Southern Bolivia

After crossing the border we had to trek around for a while to find a way of getting hold of some local currency, but we eventually managed to get our grubby little hands on some Bolivianos, and booked the bus for Tupiza.

We bumped along the dusty road through the mountainous scenery, peering over the steep drops nervously. Both the roads and the transport had taken a rapid drop in quality, and with it the comfort levels had also plummeted, however this was only a short 5 hour journey, and we soon rocked up to the tiny town.

By this point Mel was starting to feel ill with another cold, which was probably exasperated by the altitude. We had climbed up to 3500m above sea level, and were just starting to feel the effects. Whilst Mel had a rest, I explored the town - and was back within half an hour though, as Tupiza is really quite small. I had also started to develop a chronic headache, due to the altitude, so decide to have a rest also.

It was during dinner that we bumped into three English people we'd met at the border. They too were planning on going north to Uyuni and doing a Salt Flats tour. Thought it would be a good idea to travel up together so that we could present ourselves as an almost complete group of 6 (maybe giving more bargaining power). Also joining us was an Aussie girl called Deb from their hostel, which made us complete.

Our three days in Tupiza were very relaxing and we didn't do much apart from wander around the town and generally relax, in an attempt to aclimatize to the altitide. We had read about the effects one can experince when at great altitudes but there really is nothing you can do to prepare yourself for the headaches, digestive problems, bad night sleep and shortness of breath, as is it something that only occurs when you are at altitudes of approx 3000m plus. After three days we departed Tupiza, with our newly made friends, and headed to Uyuni. The bus journey was 8 hours and the scenery along the way was pretty spectaular, winding our way around the Andes with the snow capped peaks on the horizon.

Upon our arrival in Uyuni we were accosted by a number of touts trying to sell us tours for the Salt Flats. We opted for a fellow called Luis as he was offering a good tour at a reasonable price and was offering a free nights accomodation. We were due to embark at 10am the following morning.

The tour started a little late the next morning, but that was a combination of our slow breakfast and our jeep needing a valet. We eventually got going at 10.45am, and the first stop was the Train Graveyard!

Our friend Ian, who was in our group, was particulary excited about this part of the tour, and he really was in his element when we got there. The Train Graveyard is exactly as it sounds, a place where trains go to die. All the trains in the graveyard had been dumped there due to them being supersceded by new technology. They had been there for approx 50 years and the bolivian people had no intention of moving them!

Our next stop was the Salar, which we were all very excited about. We drove for about 20 minutes onto the Salar, across the seemingly neverending desert of salt until all we could see in every direction was white salt being met by the snow capped mountains on the horizon. The sight was truely astonishing and incredibly beautiful. Armed with several props (e.g. a toy dinosaur called Trevor, a bottle of Jonnie Walker, etc.) we got to work on composing some of the most bizarre photos we could think of, which was a great laugh.

We left the salar all covered in dodgy white patches from lying and rolling around on the damp, salty ground and headed to a place called Fish Island. It is known for it especially large giant cacti that completely infested this tiny island, which is marooned in the middle of the salt desert. We stopped here for a couple of hours taking a walk around and having a great lunch.

After a 2.5 hour drive across part of the Salar we arrived at our accomodation for the first night, a Salt Hotel. As the name suggests the hotel was built entirely out of salt, which looked amazing, and it was in the perfect position for us to go and watch the sunset over the mountains. That evening, after watching the sun set, we were served up a fantanstic meal and we spent the evening laughing and drinking before going to sleep on our salt bed.

The second day of the tour was an early start, we left the hotel at 6am for our journey further South down the Salar. We started the day by visiting a couple of local caves. The first cave was very small but very impressive, it felt like we were on an alien planet, as the rock formations were very unusual. The second cave was called the Devils Cave and had been used as a tomb by the Incas, which had once been filled with mummies, but unfortunately they had all now been removed.

After leaving the caves we traveled for approx 3 hours to visit a series of stunning mountain lakes approximately 4300m asl., all of which were inhabited by wild flamingos (including one species calles "James"). We stopped here for yet another delicious lunch before making the long journey to Laguna Colorado. Before we reach the Laguna we visited "The Rock Tree", which is a wonderful rock sculpture created by the extreme weather conditions it has been subjected to. It is located in what can only be described as a sand desert about 4500m asl. on a plateau in the mountains. Here it is extremely cold and the wind is fierce. The stop at the rock tree was swift as for the previous hour we had been watching a huge cloud slowly decend upon us and snow had started to fall.

By the time we reached Laguna Colorado the snow had began to fall in earnest and the temprature was dropping rapidly. We couldn't even see where the lake was as the cloud and snow was so think. We all piled into our hostel, which had no heating of any kind and was built in a pretty rudimentary manner, so the brickwork had huge holes, the windows were single glazed and the roofs leaked. We knew we were going to be in for a cold night so we popped to a tiny store next door to the hotel and purchased a couple of bottles of red wine. Forunately the meal we had was again delicious and we were given another bottle of wine, which gave us three to finish between 5 of us, as our friend Deb was feeling the effects of the altitide and had gone to bed early. We spent the night finishing the wine, playing Uno and shivering. Fortunately Mel and I had taken our sub zero sleeping bags so the night was pretty comfortable for us.

On our last morning we awoke to find all the surrounding mountains and terrain covered in a thick blanket of snow. We jumped into our jeep and made our way to the Geysers for sunrise. Neither Mel or I had seen a geyser before so the prospect was pretty exciting. The geysers were at our highest point yet, 5000m asl, even higher than the summit of Montt Blanc, so the headaches came back again for most of us! The whole area was a mass of steam from the boiling water within the geysers and this was exacerbated by the freezing temperatures. It was very beautiful there, and when the sun began to rise it lit up the snow covered mountains around us for a truely stunning sight.

When we could no longer feel our feet we left the geysers and headed to the hot springs for a thaw out. When we arrived we all found it pretty difficult to get our kit off in the freezing cold, but once we realised how warm the water was we all soon jumped in. The sun had just come up and with all the surrounding mountains covered in snow it was pretty satisfying sitting in the lovely warm water in such lovely surroundings and with snow on the ground.

After the hot springs we had breakfast and headed off the to climax of our three days, Laguna Verde and Laguna Blanco. The route to the laguna was stunning and again it was made even more beautiful by all the snow that had fallen the previous night. The Lagunas did not disappoint, Verde being the most stunning, mainly due to its constrast against the completely white mountians behind it. After taking a few pictures at the lake a couple of other groups turned up and we proceeded to have a snowball fight, which is bloody hard work at 4500m above sea level - the lungs started to burn after 10 minutes. We departed Laguna Verde and made the short journey to the Chilean frontier as three of our friend, Ian, Emma and Hilary, were making their way into Chile. We said our goodbyes at the border and started our 8 hour drive back to Uyuni.

The three of us left in the jeep thought, "Great! We can stretch out on the way back and catch up with a bit of sleep". Our driver, however, had other plans. He managed to pick up four Bolivians and squeeze them into the space, leaving us feeling pretty cramped. We were not too happy about this, and eventually he agreed to find alternative transportation for one of them.

Halfway through our journey back to Uyuni I noticed our driver was starting to get a little weary and kept nodding off to sleep. As soon as I noticed I began to talk very loudly to everyone in the jeep in the hope it would keep him awake. This worked for a while but we ran out of conversation after a couple of hours and his eyes started to roll again. Mel also tried to engage in Spanish conversation with him, but it was pretty limited due to the communication barrier. We thought enough was enough so we told him to pull over to get a 10 minute break. During the break I decide that I would offer to drive for a while, which he took me up on, so I jumped in the drivers seat and off we went. I was only driving for 10 minutes before a demented llama decided it would run out in the road infront of me. Fortunately due to my great driving skills and lightning quick reactions I managed to avoid the crazed llama. I drove for about 40 minutes in total before stopping to let out driver take over again.

We were only about 30 minutes from Uyuni when our driver stopped the jeep, put his head out of the window and sighed. Yes, the inevitable had happened and one of our tyres had blown out. Fortunately another jeep was passing and they helped our driver replace the tyre. Before we knew it we were back on the road and in no time back in Uyuni. We were pretty tired so we went out for some food and a couple of drinks and got our heads down for the night, as the following morning we were off the the highest city in the world.

We arose the following morning and I was on a misson to say the least. Liverpool were playing Man United, and I had to watch it. I managed to find a hotel with ESPN and settled down for the match while Mel and Deb went to get some supplies for the journey. It was a great match and the mighty reds demolished the feeble United 4-1. I was on a real high! Shortly after we jumped on the bus bound for Potosi, which would take us 4 hours north.

When we arrived we were really pleasantly suprised. Potosi was much more of a colonial town than any of the other Bolivian towns we had visited, so it was full of beautiful buildings and lots of narrow winding streets lined with wonderful buildings. It was really quaint and we fell in love with it straight away and decided to stay a couple of extra days.

We spent the first day just exploring the city and wandering around its labyrinth of tiny streets. The city is the highest in the world at 4050m and is very hilly, so walking around it is pretty challenging and it doesn't take long to lose your breath. When we returned to the hotel we found out that the local football team, Real Potosi, were playing the following day in town so we decided we would take in the match.

The following morning we visited La Casa De Moneda, a muesuem in Potosi, which has the reputation of being the best museum in Bolivia. It had great exhibits of Bolivian minting machinery and religious art. After a couple of hours at the museum and a few hours walking the the town we made our way down to the football stadium. We got into the ground quite early as we wanted to soak up the atmosphere and watch the ground gradually fill. It was approx 20,000 capacity, and soon started to fill. We were really interested to see how energetic the players would be when they got on the pitch due to the extreme height they were playing at. The Bolivian national team are well know for being hard to beat on home soil as other teams really struggle to keep the same pace due to the thin air. The players were as energetic as any other game we have seen, but the quality of footy was slightly lacking - it was like watching Man U playing Everton. The crowd were not as crazy as we expected, except for one small segment at the opposite end of the stadium, but it was nice going to the match with the locals. After the match finished we made our way up to the lookout tower on the edge of town to watch the sunset while having a few beers.

The following day I had opted to go on a mine tour. Mel decided against, as she had a cold and going down a dusty mine was certainly wasn't the best thing. The silver mine in Potosi was once the biggest silver producing mine in the world, making Potosi one of the riches city in the world.

We entered the mine at an altitude of 4300m, so the combination of the thick dust and the thin air made it extremely difficult to breath, and the further we went into the mine the more difficult it got. The mine is divided up into 5 different levels, the fifth being over 250m deep into the mountain. The guides only take visitors down to the third level as it is too hard for tourists, who are not used to the conditions, to breath. We ventured down to the third level and came across a number of miners working. It was quite shocking the conditions under which they work, it is very primitive and very tough. Everything they do is by hand, they shovel by hand, they chisel the holes into the rock to plant the dynamite by hand, they pull the rail cart by hand etc etc.

After 3 hours in the mine we had all had enough and could not wait to get out. How the workers do 10 hour shift after 10 hour shift is really quite amazing. When we emerged out of the mine our guides gave us a demonstration of dynamite explosions. They also added some amonium nitrate to the dynamite to make it more powerful. We all joked about the health and safety risks with doing the demostration, and how it would never happen in the UK, US or another country that was bound by the all the red tape that restricts us from doing anything fun! The explosions were huge and made us all jump out of our skins.

After that it was back to the hostel to get a much needed shower before hopping on our overnight bus to La Paz.