Well, I’m back in Uyuni town, after what was a pretty amazing three-day experience in the Salar de Uyuni and surrounding desert. Today was another long day, and I’m exhausted, but it was definitely worth it!
Mornings are rough
I woke up this morning after a terrible sleep, tossing and turning all night. The thermometer said minus 7, but the air said even colder. Even with all the layers of sleeping bags and blankets, I couldn’t get warm. Sabine and Gerladine seemed to have trouble sleeping, too, so we were all tired today.
But, wouldn’t you know it, after forcing myself up into the freezing cold, and getting dressed and ready, I emerged to the kitchen area to discover two of my favourite things in the world: pancakes and coffee. Okay, so they were cold pancakes and instant coffee, but hey, there was dulce de leche for the pancakes, and the water for the coffee was piping hot. All was right with the world again.
We loaded up and headed out. But we didn’t even make it twenty minutes down the road before we had to stop. It seems the lead 4×4 was having engine trouble; smoke was coming out of the hood. The drivers seemed to consult for a while, and appeared to be attempting to cool the engine with water from the nearby stream. But, considering the temperature, the stream was frozen solid, so that wasn’t working much. Eventually they figured it out, with the help of some of our drinking water supply. And we were underway again.
Laguna not-so-verde
We drove south for a couple of hours, almost all the way to the Chilean border. Nope, we didn’t cross, though all of us had our passports handy just in case of an inadvertent detour. Finally, we reached our first stop of the morning, the last of the lagoons on our itineary. The Laguna Verde wasn’t looking too verde this morning; the green colour was more like a light white. Yeah, it’s winter here, and the lake was frozen.
Since I’ve seen a lot of frozen water back home, I wasn’t that impressed. There weren’t even any flamingos. There were, however, lots of black volcanic rocks nearby for us to climb on, take cheesy photos on pretending to be rocks, or — as a few people did — duck behind for a “nature stop”. (Word to the wise: If planning a trip to the Salar, pack toilet paper. Especially if you’re female. Just saying.)
A dip in the hot springs
We started the long drive back northeast from that point on. The first brief stop was at the Salvador Dali desert, a formation of a bunch of rocks on the side of the road that I don’t know much about, other than that the landscape supposedly inspired Dali’s art.
Then, we stopped off at one of the hot springs in the area. Since this landscape is all volcanic, there are natural thermal baths everywhere. This one had a couple of small pools that were over 90 degrees in temperature.
Now, you may think, okay, so it’s just above freezing outside, and at high altitude to boot. Who the heck in their right mind would go swimming? Well, me, for one. Actually, about half our group braved the elements to take a dip. And I must say, it was lovely. The hot springs had little changing rooms right by the pools, so we didn’t have to freeze for long. Besides, the sun was out by then, so the air temperature was actually not that cold. And it felt really good to take a soak. Like a hot bath.
There were a couple of other tours at the hot springs at the same time as us. I met a group of four Montrealers, and we got to chatting a bit. Small world, right? Also, there was some wildlife around, and we saw some guanacos come right up to the pools and say hello. The setting was about as unique as it gets; I will probably never get to swim (or, rather, soak) in a cooler place.
Due to the weather and altitude, you can’t stay in the hot springs for too long because there’s a risk of severe dehydration. They recommend thirty minutes, maximum. I lasted about ten minutes before I started to worry about sunburn, despite my usual thick layer of sunscreen. When I got out, even despite the short time I’d been in there, I actually felt quite dizzy and short of breath. High altitude; the gift that keeps on giving. However, luckily, the hot springs were also our lunch stop. So after I’d changed back into my clothes, I was able to sit for an hour, eat, drink, and regain my composure. A few of the others also suffered some hot spring side effects. We were all feeling better by the time we got back to Uyuni, though. So I’d say it was highly worth it.
The lost city
From there, we had about a four-hour drive back to Uyuni. To break it up, we stopped at a place called the “Lost City”.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but from the name I thought might be some sort of discovered Incan or ancient city discovered recently, like a mini-Machu Picchu or something. As it turns out, it was just a series of rocks, the shape of which semi-hide a clearing towards a lake. It was a pretty lake, and they were pretty rocks. But, compared to everything else we’d seen over the three days, it wasn’t earth-shattering or anything.
People on my tour did have fun climbing up on the rocks to take photos and take in the views. Plus, the short hike into the clearing was through a marshy area with lots of llamas. So, more llama photo ops. Because you can never have enough llama photos. I did find myself wishing we had an English-speaking guide who could give us some more information about the place, though. All I really know about it is that it’s a bunch of rocks.
Return to civilization
We hit the highway — a real road, with signs and everything — and made good time getting back to Uyuni, arriving just after six. And with that, our salt flats tour was over. We unloaded the 4x4s, picked up our big bags, and headed back into the hotel, where I took a luxurious and much-needed hot shower to wash out all the salt, sand, dust and dirt from the past two days. Ahhh, that’s better.
For dinner, Sam suggested heading out to a local pizza place (all restaurants in Bolivia bill themselves as pizza places, regardless of what they serve). A few of us had been recommended a specific pizzeria, though, which supposedly had really amazing pizza and Bolivian craft beer. So we opted to go there instead. Imagine our surprise when the rest of the group, along with Sam, showed up about fifteen minutes later — it turns out we were referring to the same pizza place, albeit by two different names. I can’t say whether it’s really the best pizza ever, or it just hit the spot after three days of sustenance eating. Either way, it was absolutely delicious. Hot shower. Pizza. Beer. I don’t need much to feel like I’m back in civilization.
After dinner, since we were all exhausted, we headed back to the hotel. I re-sorted my bags yet again, then I logged onto the internet for the first time in three days and sorted photos and started catching up on my blogging.
One of the first things I found out when I logged on after being offline for three days is that this site, Travelpod, which I’ve been using for my travel blogging for the past fifteen years or so, is shutting down in a few weeks. ****. I’ve been slowly trying to migrate and preserve this blog on my own hosted WordPress for a while now, for fear that this might happen. But I keep running into dead ends thanks to my limited technical abilities. I don’t make any money off this blog — it’s purely a personal project for friends and family — so I can’t afford to pay a professional. But I do have a lot emotionally invested in it, and I’d like to be able to preserve all these years of blog content, photos, map pins and comments. So if you’ve been reading and enjoying these blogs, and you’re even slightly WordPress-savvy and feel like lending me a hand once I’m back in Montreal, please let me know. I’ll take all the help I can get!
The home stretch
There are only a few days left of my trip now. Tomorrow we travel onto Potosi, and then from there, to Sucre for a few days before I head home from La Paz this weekend. Yep, it’s the home stretch now.
When I came on this trip, I had two big goals: Machu Picchu and the Salt Flats. Well, check and check. With both of those trip highlights behind me, from here on out things should be pretty relaxed. My plan is to spend the remainder of the week just enjoying being in Bolivia and on vacation, before I need to return to reality.