Week 39: Salt flats, Sucre, La Paz, Bolivia

10/10

After getting up earlier, we packed up the rest of our things, made coffee, and hurried to finish anything else we needed to do.

The bus came and picked us up for our border crossing before leaving us with our 4×4 and our guide, Luis.we met our newest friends before finally leaving San Pedro de Atacama.

The border crossing was a longer process for us, Americans, then for everyone else and it also didn’t help that they wouldn’t take a slightly, and I mean slightly, torn bills. Fortunately for us, they let us pay in Bolivianos, but unfortunately for us, that meant we didn’t have money for the rest of the tour’s expenses. (It costs $160 USD for a ten year Bolivian Visa for Americans.)

We finally crossed the border after meeting our guide and having breakfast and started our way to Uyuni.

The first stop were the green and white lagoons. It was explained to us that the lagoons each have different minerals like Borax (used for cleaning materials) and salt. Both of them for being so close together were very unique in their colors!

We stopped by Dali’s Desert to see a very interesting landscape that reflected some of the work of the artist. 

Afterwards, we went to the Polques hot springs and enjoyed a nice dip in the warm pool! It was cold outside but the pool was really nice and we warmed up pretty quickly. 

After changing we headed to Geysers Sol de Mañana and spent just a few minutes there since it was smelly and most of us had seen the bigger set of geysers in Atacama. 

We loaded up and headed to the red colored Laguna Colorada which was even more amazing than the pictures show. It’s way larger than the pictures give it credit for and it was filled with flamingos! 

Our sight seeing day was pretty much over and we finally stopped by a little town and stayed in a small hostel. 

They gave us tea to warm us up and then after a while of hanging out we had a very nice dinner! We were all cold and the electricity was only on for 3 hours so we hung out a little bit longer and then went to sleep during the cold night. Unfortunately, many of us couldn’t sleep since it was so cold and dry that it hurt to breathe!

Fortunately the spectacular day overshadowed the bad sleep!

10/11

 The first stop we made was the tree rock. There were random boulders and rocks throughout the desert which was mainly from vocanic eruptions and glaciers. 

These rocks were worn down into interesting shapes and sizes and so we spent a little of the morning climbing on the rocks and taking pictures.

We drove through the Siloli Desert which we were told pretty much only got snow as moisture.

Our next stop were the Lagunas Altiplánicas where we could see 3 different types of flamingos. Almost all the girls had to go to the bathroom, but there was no where to hide or use the bathroom so we ended up making a bigger connection when we held up a scarf as shelter as we rotated using the restroom! 

After that incident we went to a small view of the Ollagüe Volcano. Since it was just a view we didn’t spend too much time there. We also stopped at a rock field that was many many miles wide. Our guide said it was caused by multiple volcanic eruptions. My favorite was the rock shaped like Sid the Sloth.

Our last views of the day was an extra little lagoon that was surrounded by more amazing rocks as well as the Chiguana Salt Flat.

That night we stayed at an amazing salt hostel. We hung out and watched people watch soccer. Luke wasn’t feeling well at all so he took a nap and then took his temperature. It was 101.2 so we only woke him up for the spectacular sunset and for dinner. 

We were going to shower but the girls had cold showers and you had to pay for them so we skipped out. 

Our guide gave us a bottle of wine that we all shared as we heard about the current animosity between Chileans and Bolivians. He also told us he wanted to leave by 4:30 so we quickly hurried to bed. 

This night of sleep was way better than the previous night’s!

10/12

Waking up at 3:50 was a little difficult but we made it on time to watch the sunrise on the salt flats of Uyuni. It was extremely cold so we watched the sun rise and then quickly went back to the car. Then we headed to the Inca Huasi Island that is essentially a mound of cacti in the middle of the salt flats. We spent about an hour wandering around and checking out the views before heading down for an amazing breakfast!

After another 50km drive we finally got to a place where we could take all the cool pictures. We spent a lot of time trying to get them perfect! 

It was another long drive before we saw the first salt hotel and so we stopped there to take some pictures. It was disappointing not to see the American flag in the mix of all the flags they had there.

Afterwards, we arrived in the small town of Colchani. They had a lot of souvenirs available and so we wandered around looking before having a nice lunch.

We packed up and left towards Uyuni, our final stop. We stopped a little at the Train Cemetary before he dropped us off at the agency.

We said our goodbyes to Luis, and the rest of our group went to find bus tickets to our next destinations. Once that was done, we found a place to all grab a beer and wifi before going our separate ways. We made plans to hopefully meet back together in La Paz.

Our newest German friend, Johanna, joined us for this part of the trip so we booked a room at the same hostel and took a bus to Potosí. It was hot, loud, and filled with screaming, singing, and crying children. It also had dogs on board.

This bus ride was definitely not a good first impression of the people here in Bolivia but we hoped to change our minds once we got some food, rest, and a warm bed.

Once we got to Potosi, we were dropped off on the side of the road. We had to cross the street to get to the bus terminal but it looked like everything was closed.

Unfortunately, by the time we got there, there were no busses left to go to Sucre. There were only random people yelling at us and offering their cars to Sucre. At first both Johanna and I were iffy but at the price of $50 Bolivianos we decided that the 3 of us were okay to go with one guy. 

He was nice enough to take us to a good restaurant and let us eat before we continued on our way to Sucre.

The road was very windy and I had a hard time not dozing. After a few hours, he finally dropped us off at our hostel and quickly went to bed!

10/13

We got to see Sucre at night, but it’s completely different in the morning! It really is a beautiful city and all the building are white! We had a measley breakfast and then were invited to go to the 7 waterfalls by another Brazilian girl named Cathleen. Luke and I were getting ready but had to have a little discussion before we were ready. 

We spent half the morning looking for transportation to the 7 waterfalls and after getting a price of $200 Bob we decided to see about going the next day.

Luke had heard about the Dinobus to the dinosaur footprints and museum in Sucre and fortunately we had perfect timing. 

The bus showed up a few minutes later and after checking the prices, grabbing some snacks, and waiting for the girls to stop by an ATM we were on our way to the dinosaur museum!

We were on the first floor of the bus and they played a BBC show about dinorsaurs which switched from Spanish to English every once in a while. It was great to get a ride there and back plus TV for only $30 BOB (less than $5 US). 

When we got there, Luke had to borrow shoes since he couldn’t wear flip-flops down to the footprints. We spent a wonderful time at this museum looking at fossils, sculptures, information, and one of the biggest reserves of dinosaur footprints on the planet. I felt like a kid again!

Afterwards, we decided to stop by a Chifa & Thai place that had a meal for only $19 Bob that included fried wontons, soup, a big meal of your choice, and a small dessert! It also helped that it was soooo delicious (the quinoa was excellent) and that it had the fastest wifi we’ve had in a long while. 

Afterwards, we were really exhausted and then started to feel awful. My head was splitting (worst headache I’ve had in years) and Luke wasn’t doing too hot either. 

We skipped the meeting with the girls to go watch the sunset to rest. We only left to get more water and some pizza. We ate a tiny bit and drank a lot of water, popped some pain meds, and went to sleep early. 

10/14

We woke up completely symptom free and very refreshed. We packed even more water since we were at such high elevation and left with the girls to see the waterfalls after yet another sad breakfast.  

We finally found a bus that would drop us off close to the 7 waterfalls, but we still had to walk down an unknown and slightly treacherous trail all the way down. One of our group fell and he hurt his feet pretty badly but we pushed forward. We finally get to the “river” and see that it’s pretty much empty! 

We decided to continue forward and finally found the refreshing pools and waterfalls.

Luke and the girls went to go swimming in another area up a ways while me and our Dutch friend stayed behind with a group of Bolivian students having a cookout.

We got free food! Unfortunately, Cathleen fell into the water with her entire bag and got everything wet! Once we all met up we decided to go back. One wew ere in the center of the city we split up and Luke and I had lunch at the same restaurant from before. We also bought bus tickets for that night to head to La Paz. We headed back to the hostel, hung out, and then headed to watch the sunset at the Mirador a few blocks away. 

It was a nice sunset. We grabbed burgers on our way back, grabbed a taxi, and finally loaded up on the full bed, all nighter bus to La Paz.

10/15

After a long night of bus rides through curvy roads, we finally get to La Paz around 7:30 (12 hours!). We decided to have breakfast at the station before heading to our newest hostel. After eating a lot, we finally get a taxi to our hostel.After waiting until around 10, we finally get checked in early to our 3 bed dorm.

After settling in and taking a small nap, we decided to go around the city a bit. After a bit of nagging, we stopped by the supermarket to pick up some much needed contact solution, pain medicine, personal hygiene supplies, etc. Then, we visited the market place, the witches’ market filled with dead llamas, and a few other streets. We also finally got both of our hair cut and Luke’s beard shaved for about $10 total. 

Luke bought me some earrings (super cute) and booked his tour to do Death Road by bike. Obviously, I would’ve died so we decided to split ways on Monday. 

We went back to the hostel and hung out for a little before heading to the market down the street to pick up groceries for dinner. 

We picked up fried chicken on the way back. I made homemade mac and cheese with the friend chicken. We hung out on the wifi before going to bed. Luke went to bed earlier than I did since I was loaded up on caffeine. I went to bed a few hours later.

10/16

This morning, we slept in just a little bit. We spent most of the morning alone. I did some reading and journaling and Luke did some research on the rest of our trip.

After lunch at a Chinese place where Luke finally got some searched out trout, we decided to stop by a market Luke had read about. 

It. Was. Massive.

You could find literally anything you needed there like car parts, clothes, food, cell phones, baby carriages, and more!

After wandering a few hours, we decided to go to a Lucha Libre show. It was really funny after I got used to the humour of the show and we spent the next few hours there!

It was reallllyy cold by the time we left so we hurried to the telerifico down to the center and walked back. 

We weren’t hungry when we got back so we decided to hang out just a little bit longer. I tried warming up my mac and cheese #fail. So afterwards, Luke wandered the city and I picked up some cheeseburgers. 

We ate our burgers and watched Nacho Libre and then soon went to bed since Luke had to be up early for his adventure!