Salty Flats

Getting up in time to be collected at 7.30am (read 8) was a tiny bit chilly, but nothing compared to what was to come during the next three days living above 4000m. I met my tour group in San Pedro and it was directly off to Chilean customs to get stamped out of the country so we could enter the Bolivian national park. I would be spending the next three days with Benjahmin, Estoban (twin brothers from Chile), Christian (Benjahmin´s buisness partner), Lucy (Brazilian) and Sophia (Korean). When I went to book my tour I had been told that I was the only native English speaker, and as all the others spoke Spanish we defered to this for the group language of preference. This meant I speant the few days being slightly less chatty than usual, although not for want of trying! Unfortunately the child friendly Spanish learnt in Paraguay, "¿Donde esta la pellota verde?" (where is the green ball?), wasn´t particualarly useful to begin with, but ever the creative adaptor I was soon able to pìck up a little bit of adult conversational Spanish. Language barrier aside (and some cultural differences- Sophia was horrified that the boys considered infidelity a suitable subject for jokes) we actually had a brilliant group and it was an incredible experience to spend a few days only talking Spanish, and being surrounded by people from cultures so different and varied from my own.

Beyond the sociological impact of my trip, the salt flats themselves were amazing and the pictures uploaded here scarce do them justice. For those not in the know the Bolivian Salt flats are a stretch of land peopled with lagoons in various colours, active volcanic lakes with bubbling lava, huge stretches of naturally crystalised salt stretching for miles and bending all perception, gorgeous mountainscapes, some of the hottest and coldest weather in the world, all at 4000m above sea level inhabited solely by llamas and flamingoes (as you can just see in the picture of me against the landscape). You can only explore this amazing natural phenomenon from the back of a 4x4, and it takes a minimum of three days to get from the Chilean border all the way through to the first Bolivian town of Uyuni. The entrance fee to the park cost a measly 15 pounds, and I think it might be some of the best cash I have ever parted with in my life outside of a Jack Wills store (ha ha).

Day one of our trip saw us visting beautiful natural mountainscapes and a series of vibrantly coloured lagoons, some of which were so cold you could walk on the ice at the edges of them, and others of which were so hot the steam rose into the air around them. Chewing coca leaves to help with the altitude sickness (much nicer than you´d think) we were all fine up high. We stopped off at one of the warmer lagoons for a quick swim against a background of imposing mountains and wild llamas roaming (awesome!!!!), and then piled back into the jeep to go and see a beautiful pink lagoon completely chock-a-block with wild flamingos. One of the most surreal views I have ever bourne witness to. At the end of day one we stopped at a small hamlet in the middle of the desert, and enjoyed buiscits and jam around the fire until the elctricity generator cut out around 9pm, we ran out of fire wood, and the temperature plummeted to a cosy -20 degrees celcius. No matter how many blankets and clothes you´re wearing (six blankets, two jumpers, two t shirts, a hat, gloves, scarf, trousers and two pairs of socks) its actually not possible to sleep properly at that temperature and altitude and the experience was much more akin to passing out than to any kind of slumber.

Day two and we saw more lagoons in every colour of the rainbow, from vivid greens to dark reds, we visited the stone tree (pictured above) which is a completely natural rock formation created by the unique environment, we saw bubbling volcanic lava lakes where the molton rock was actually jumping out of the ground around us. And in the greatest tradition of South American health and safety the guide's only words of warning were 'don't step in the lava, that would be bad' as we wondered through the boiling pools. That night we stopped off at a hostel made completely of salt, which I think would have had much more appeal if salt had better heat retaining qualities. None-the-less the structure was impressive, and the lighting here held out until nine, at which point we were able to sleep a little better as the temperature was a mere minus five.

Our final day on the salt flats and we actually got to see the salt for the first time; miles and miles of crystalised ground. A marvel to behold, and more importantly a wonderful opportunity to take crazy distance perception photos for hours and hours until our hands got so could we could no longer hold our cameras. We then went on to visit fish island (no idea about the name), an island in the middle of the flats devoid of salt and completely covered in cacti. Before heading to the train graveyard (for some unknown reason the Bolivians dragged all their old steam trains into the middle of the flats, and then someone graffitied scientific equations all over them. But after days of volcanoes, flamingoes and ice nothing really seemed that weird anymore.). Our tour guide dropped us off at the tiny hamlet town of Uyuni and Sophia, Lucy and myself started the wait for our bus to La Paz. Absolutely shattered, freezing cold, but having seen some of the most amazing sights any of us will ever behold. And we still had the trauma of the first Bolivian bus to go.... to think in just the last blog I was complaining about a lack of sandwiches... 12 hours of jolting, stinking, freezing, unpaved bus journey later and I've never been so pleased to see somewhere as I was La Paz on Thursday morning. What an epic few days of adventure.