Bolivia & Chile
Salar de Uyuni and San Pedro de Atacama
02.10.2008
After the trip in the jungle we headed back to La Paz to take a bus South to Uyuni. This 11 hour night bus was the most bumpy and uncomforable ride of my life. We arrived early in the morning and from Uyuni we took a 3 day tour into the dazzling white Salar de Uyuni which is the world´s biggest salt flat (see if you can spot the car on the photo below).
It was formed some 40.000 years ago when a massive lake dried out and created this major salt desert which contains about 10 billion tons of salt...This is one of the great Bolivian trips and we had been looking forward to this. Driving through it was a fantastic experience.
The blue skies contrasts with the blinding white salt crust and allows for great pictures playing with the perspective.
There were multicoloured lakes, massive volcanos, flamingos, rock formations with 7 different colours and much more...
We slept in a hotel made out of salt. During the day the weather was perfect but at night it gets bitterly cold with temperature dropping to -20C. We brought a bottle of whisky and Jim Beam became a very good friend. A lot of photos this time but this time it is easier to show it on a picture then to talk about it.
We were not planning on going to Chile but it turned out to be the easiest way to get to Argentina from Boliva. What they didn´t tell us was that there would be no bus going from Chile to Bolivia for the next 3 days... First we were a bit dissappointed but we soon found out that this border town, called San Pedro, was great fun. Beautifull weather, a relaxed atmosphere and a spectacular landscape of desolate plains and volcanoes. The next day we rented mountainbikes and sandboards and headed for a gaint sand dune.
Sandboarding wasn´t easy and I spend most of my time eating sand. Andrew got the hang of it much faster and raced down the sanddunes but he crashed a few times and still had sand coming out of his ears four days later.... It is a lot of fun to do but very tiring as you have to walk back up the hill... There is no such luxury as a sandboarding lift....
Well, as you can read we are still enjoying every day of travelling and will send you soon our stories from Argentina.
Ciao
Posted by woutermooi 13:11
Hé wootypooty!
Echt gave dingen doe je daar!
Wat is trouwens nu je mailadres? En je gsm?
Nog leuke chica's gevonden daar? Ik bedoel, heb je nog een ongecensureerde versie voor ons?
Hier was de bruiloft van Plons gaaf. En tzt borrelen met Van Waveren.
Zie uit naar je volgende verhaal.
Cheers,
Sander
04.10.2008 by swvdlaan79