Stephanie and Ryan: Bolivia, Salar de Uyuni

We woke up around 4:15 am in order to be picked up at 5 from our hostel in San Pedro for our tour. At 4:55 we were sitting in the lobby with out bags. We sitting there at 5...5:15...5:30...and 6 am! I was convinced they had somehow forgotten us or changed plans without notifying us. We decided to go back to bed and just go into the main office when they open in the morning. Still clothed, we get back in bed. You guessed it, in runs the driver at 6:10. I hear a few "Disculpe"'s and a "vamos!" and were we on the bus and ready headed out. I learned later that several road closures and far away pick-ups made him very late.

We took the only 2 seats left on this minibus and unfortunately they weren't together. We dozed off a while I think, and woke in time to see some beautiful scenery with the sunrise along the way to the border.

The Chilean border took a while. We were in like not really moving for a good 20 minutes and then things picked up. After everyone was through we drove about 200 meters to a concrete slab with a bouy-looking sign that said Chile on one side and Bolivia on the other.

Bolivia sign near border

At this spot many other buses were meeting jeeps (land rovers actually) to drop off passengers for tours. Breakfast was spread onto the cement (ham, cheese, jelly, bread, instant coffee or tea, hot water). We ate and dragged our packs over to Romer, our driver, and the jeep. There were two to choose from and I selected the one that at least 2 confirmed english speakers were standing at.

Romero put our large packs on the top of the jeep and wrapped them in plastic. We piled in and headed out to the town of San Juan. We learned that the 2 english speakers I'd spotted were 19-year-old girls from England. We stopped at a railroad track with a large mountain nearby for lunch.

near our lunch spot

Lunch was pretty good. We had cucumbers, tomatoes, avocado, rice with carrots, bananas, and tuna. As soon as I drank the coke my hands started to tingle. I think the carbonation in the pop combined with the carbonic anhydrase inhibitor we're taking for the altitude caused the tingling. It wasnt unpleasant, just noticeable.

After lunch we headed into the town of San Juan. A very very small town where we stayed at a Salt Hotel (I use "Hotel" loosely). The entire building was made of salt. Salt blocks for the walls, with a salt slurry kind of mortar, salt tables, chairs, bed frames. Loose salt made up the floor. Ryan said he could taste it in the air.

We walked around the town some and saw some alpaca roaming around. We saw a dust cyclone form and disappear from a distance which looked really cool. We also walked up the hill in the back of the hotel to see sound mountain views from the back. The whole area must have been an ocean millions of years ago. The rocks were clearly ancient coral. You could see the shapes of the coral and imagine it underwater water with fish swimming throughout the holes in the rocks.

Afternoon tea was taken in the common room on the salt tables. We showered just before dinner and we were ready for bed soon after. It was pretty freezing in our salty room. We double layered all of our clothing and brought our down jackets right into bed with us. Ryan was very chivalrous in letting me have the more comfortable of the twin beds. I took a melatonin to try to help me sleep, but still ended up sleeping poorly overall.

We woke up at 4 am a bit before the others and had time to view a beautiful view of a dark starry sky which we enjoyed to some funky music blarring from one of the jeeps. Soon the headlights were on and we were happy that we'd gotten up early to see the stars.

We drove out to the Salar to see the sunrise. It was absolutely freezing but really cool to see. The salt looked like ice and snow, and as the sun rose it made neat shadows all around.

After sunrise we headed to an island in the middle of the salt flat. It was covered in cacti and really neat-looking coral/rock formations. We ate breakfast here (bread with spreads, tea, coffee) and used the bathroom after hiking around a bit. We also about a small wooden flute keychain that I plan to turn into a magnet.

After breakfast before the others had come back to the jeep I showed Romer some of my Daddy Yankee songs on my ipod, and played snipets to see if he knew them. Most he knew. I did this because he had been playing a lot of Daddy Yankee songs in the jeep from his mp3 player. I thought this was the end of the music exchange. Then, as we are pulling away, he hands back the AUX cord for me to plug in my ipod! I played the songs I'd showed him and sat there excited and embarassed as my tunes played for the whole group. He turned it up at one point and that moment made it worth frittering my ipod battery with no charge in sight.

Soon we were in the middle of the Salar with nothing but salt all around us. Everyone started trying to take those famous perspective shots. We paired up with the english gals and tried to help eachother set up and take the pictures. It's harder than it looks. We came away with a few neat ones.

We stopped at another salt hotel on the actual flats, thank God we didn't stay there. I paid 5 Bolivianos to attempt to pee in their revolting bano. It was so bad that Ryan took a picture of one of the toilets.

We went on to a small town right on the edge of the flats that had some souvenirs and a few old broken down cars parked around. We ate a nice lunch here inside yet another salt hotel. This one had slightly better facilities. Lunch was roasted chicken, pasta, green apples, and some veggies with coke. I've had intermittent tingling in my hands ever since that first day, I think the coke started it all.

We went on to the town of Uyuni (where our driver lives) and visited a "Train cemetery". We took a bunch of pictures around all of the old rusty train cars before heading into the main part of town.

We were dropped and Romer told us he was going home, meet back in two hours. This is a long period of time if you've ever been to Uyuni. It's really small with hardly anything to see. We roamed around a bit, got some tea at a cafe that advertised wifi on a dign out front. Of course I barely got a signal and attempted to e-mail our parents. It just kept saying "sending..." and I had no idea if the email was actually going through. I tried to send my mom a facebook message. It looked like it worked, but I wasnt sure as it also took forever to send.

We continued to roam for a while as my bladder slowly filled. We passed a guy who was selling rings on the street. Upon closer inspection, the rings were actually pounded from coins. Ryan chose a Bolivian coin as his new wedding band. It's really neat, and I can't imagine a cooler ring.

Romer came back and I asked him if there was a bano near by. He said no and pointed to "Banos Publicos" across the street. Taking into consideration that we were downwind of public toilets a block or so away and lived to tell the tale, I passed.

Uyuni is a very dirty town. It's sad because it could be much nicer, but there is just garbage everywhere. I've heard Bolivia is the poorest country in South America, I don't think they are investing in promoting cleaning up small towns like this.

We headed onward and just when I was about to burst we pulled into another microtown called San Cristobal. I made a bee-line for the banos and I'm pleased to report that San Cristobal has some decent facilities.

We drove on to our lodging for the evening. Yay! Another private room! We settled in to our room (after walking past a window ledge with half an alpaca leg sitting on it - a little disturbing). Soon our tea was ready in an upstairs dining room. We drank some tea with the others in our party. We had nothing else to do so we just sat there until dinner.

Dinner was a bed of french fries covered in a slurry of veggies, hot dog pieces, possible more llama meat, and some hard boiled eggs. It was pretty good actually! We ad it with bread and some canned strawberries for dessert.

After dinner we tucked ourselves in for the night and slept til about 7 am.

to be continued....