Uyuni

Uyuni has to be one of the most run down towns I´ve ever been to. But it´s where you set off on the 3 or 4 day jeep trips through the amazing solar de uyuni. Your travelers (that´s us) started this adventure with a 9 hour overnight bus ride from La Paz to Uyuni where we arrived at 7am. As soon as you step off the bus you are swarmed by a half dozen guias (guides) speaking in Spanish, English and it must have been either Aymara or Quechua as I have NO idea what that person was saying! Anyhow, we signed up for a trip which started that morning which in hindsight was not a good idea ( we shoulkd have given ourselves a bit more time to explore different options or at least rest from the buys ride) Day 1: Our trip consisted of 6 travelers a guide and a cook. The six were us, a French couple who are making a documentary about Cochabamba, a Finnish woman, Lilly, who lives in London (who we ran into in the next 3 cities) and Bruno, a Brazilian who just finnished the Brazilian military academy. As I am an accountant by training not a poet, I´m going to let the pictures do most of the talking. The day´s travels consisted of about 4 hours of driving around the actual Solar de Uyuni which is Bolivia´s largest salt flat and an active salt "mine". The mining takes place by scraping the top layer of salt off the ground, then drying it over a fire, crushing it, mixing it with some iodine and then selling it to the public. Not a hygenic process but nobody seems to care (this is not for export so don´t worry about this back home).

Then we drove to the Isla Pescado where we had our first meal of the trip on this little oasis in the middle of the solar. From there we drove to the place where we would spend the night. There were some freaky 1000 year old mummies about a 10 minute walk away from our lodging and there was one of the most amazing sunsets we´ve seen so far over the hills. If you didn´t know better, you might think you were in southwest Colorado or Utah based on the arridness of the mountains.

Day 2: We started the day with a few hours of driving to get to the famous lagunas and flamengos. The lagoons were stunning. Each one was a different color and the flamengos were everywhere. Back home when we see flamengos it´s in places like Miami or Orlando. Nope, these birds were a bit hardier. They live at over 4000m of elevation and live there year round. I wouldn´t even want to live there in the winter and I´ve got way more insulation than those little things.

We stopped by the Petrified tree or really a rock formation carved by wind (not as impressive) on our way to the laguna colorada and its stunning red color. Day 3: Rise and shine at wonderful 4am for the 4:30 start. We drove about an hour to get to the geysers which were at just under 5000m of elevation and the sun rose while we were there. It made the place look like the pictures we´ve all seen of the moon. Really cool! (I´ll add a pic later) From there we drove to the incredible Laguna Verde and then headed 6 hours to Uyuni.

Day 4 - Back in Beautiful Uyuni: We wanted to take the 10am bus out of this hole so we approached Diana tours (recommended by Lonley Planet) and asked the gentleman how many seats on the bus. He told us 27 so we knew it would be a smaller bus without a bathroom for our 6 hour trip. We also made an assumption (the mother of all fuckups!). We assumed that there was only one person to each seat. Well, we were in the last row which had 5 seats accross the back of the bus and when I got to my seat, there was a woman with 2 kids sitting next to me. This wouldn´t be a problem if she had the other three seats across the back but that wasn´t the case . She had only the middle seat and she put the little one on my lap. I was less than thrilled with the prospect of this for 6 hours. Oh, and I didn't mention the 5 people in the isle and the fact that many of the two seaters had 3 or more people. I did what most people who are accustomed to decent busses would do and got off the bus and demanded our money back. The guy working the desk and I didn´t see eye to eye. I wanted my money back and he didn´t want to give it. Our voices escallated as did our tempers (mine in particular). While this argument was occuring the bus started to pull away with our bags still strapped to the roof. This REALLY escallated things and I was ready to kill the guy. I ran out to stop the bus it didn´t immediately stop. Once it stopped I climbed onto the top of the bus to get our bags. As I did this the the guy working the desk supposedly called the cops. When I got inside with my bags he told me that he called the cops and that in order to get my money back I´d have to wait for them to arrive. Whether he called them or not I wasn´t about to stick around to find out. Bottom line, I paid for two tickets that we never used and I didn't get arrested. I was pissed off for quite some time though.