San Pedro de Atacama

San Pedro is a Hippy desert town in Northern Chile and it was just what we needed after the long and freezing off-road trip of the Salar. We found a great hostel called Eden Atacameña with awesome courtyards and a bonfire area complete with a giant wood pile for anyone to use. We stayed there with our new South African friends Sean and Tanja along with two more friends we made on the Salar trip, Lawrence and Julie. The six of us had great pot-luck and pizza dinners around the bonfire with bottles of excellent and cheap wine. Chile is much more expensive than anywhere we have been yet but the wine is a STEAL!

Empanada time!

The next night we went out for a popular San Pedro activity, star gazing. The altitude, the desert air and the lack of clouds (by this point I don't think Emily or I have seen a cloud for about a month) make San Pedro a hotspot for astronomy. The tour agency "space" is run by a French Astronomer who has about 8 telescopes set up for viewing, plus a quick lesson in Southern Hemisphere constellations and then a short lecture on astrophysics by the Frenchman himself while enjoying a cup of hot cocoa. Well worth the time and money and a refreshing chance to learn something while travelling.

Valle de la Luna

Our last day in San Pedro we rented bikes with Lawrence and Julie and rode to the Valle de la Luna about 15km outside of town. It was an excellent bike ride both for the lack of car trafic and the incredible landscapes. I'll end here with some pictures. Our next stop was Valparaiso which required our longest busride yet...24 hours straight! Well worth it though.

Bombing the hill!


Biker Hippy

Salar de Uyuni

On the morning of Wednesday July 8th we woke up early in Tupiza and loaded our things on top of a Toyota Land Cruiser bound for a 4 day off-road trip through the Bolivian mountain desert. Together with our driver, Lazaro, the cook, Luisa, and our two new friends Tanja and Sean from South Africa we took off into the dry, freezing and strange countryside. Luckily our team (from La Torre Tours) was great. Luisa kept us well fed and Lazaro, though he used words sparingly, used them very efficiently and kept us on a great schedule. Most importantly he kept his Land Cruiser (the only type of vehicle used for this trip) in excellent shape. The result was 4 days without a crisis, leaving us free to shiver and enjoy the amazing scenery.

Emily's friend the cactus

Taking the trip to the Salar de Uyuni (huge salt flats) from Tupiza is becoming more and more popular because the quality of the tour companies and thus the experience is much more reliable. The alternative is to leave from Uyuni where many (not all) tour companies are notorious for break downs, bad equipment, and even accidents which have caused several deaths in recent years. Because Tupiza is east of many of the key destinations of the tour it means that the tour is a little longer and a little more expensive than tours from Uyuni, but it also saves the Salar itself for the very end which is a nice finale. The first day we went high up into the mountains above Tupiza and started heading west toward the Eduardo Avaroa National Reserve. On the way to our first night`s accomodation we passed through a giant Llama ranch where Luisa provided us with a lunch of dried Llama meat to go with the setting. Llama meat is not great. That night we stayed at a very basic hostel in a tiny mountain village. The setting was beautiful; the cold was bone chilling.

Sunrise

On day two we woke up at 4:30 am and were on the road by 5:30. We had to get an early start because there was alot of driving to do and, as Lazaro told us, we would be passing over the most challenging roads. Sometime just before dawn we passed through a massive ghost town that was once a Spanish mining city. We could still barely see but could make out countless ruined buildings stretching in every direction there in the middle of nowhere. As the sun rose and thawed out our numb extremities we plodded on, breaking through thick layers of ice that had formed on river crossings. Just before noon we enterred into the Eduardo Alvaroa National Reserve. Shortly after we were at the hot springs for lunch. This was a definite highlight and because Lazaro got us up so early we were the only ones there, besides a few wild vicuña walking through the steam in front of us. Relaxed and completely thawed out, we went down to the Laguna Verde and then to our hostel for the night...again, freezing.

Thermal Baths

Laguna Verde

On day three we woke up early and thanks again to Lazaro we were the first ones at Laguna Colorado to see the Llamas taking a thermal bath and flamengos eating brine shrimp; this was another highlight for us. In the summer there are thousands of flamengos here, we saw 50 or so, but they were obviously the toughest flamengos of the group. The rest of that day we passed several more lakes and finally arrived at the Salt Hotel. Yes, it is made almost entirely of salt but I couldn't bring myself to lick the walls.

Llama bath with Flamengos in the background

Pigeons

The last day was dedicated entirely to the Salar de Uyuni. We woke up before dawn and watched the sunrise from a random point in the middle of the salt flat. Next, we walked around "Fish Island" which is covered in gigantic cacti, some of which are around one thousand years old. Being on the Salar is amazing and the type of experience that is hard to describe in too much detail because it is so vast. You can't really say much about what you see, its more about how it makes you feel. The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat on Earth and even from the middle of it, it is impossible to imagine how large it is.

Land Cruiser at Dawn

Sunrise

My Lovin' Spoonful

Giant Cactus on Fish Island

That afternoon we got to Uyuni just in time for the World Cup Final (not a coincidence) which was a pretty disappointing game but at least we enjoyed the Huari beer. That night we had to get back into Land Cruisers to get back down to the Chilean border. When I said we were at the Lago Verde on day 3 we were actually right at the border but we still had to see the Salar which required the backtracking. The next day around 1:00 we were on a bus crossing over from a dirt road onto a paved highway, the transition from Bolivia into Chile.

Us

Tarija and Tupiza

Main Plaza, Tarija, Bolivia

With the altitude, cold, and harrowing mine tour in Potosi (which I wasn't even able to complete, so I don't know why I'm complaining), we were in need of some R&R in the form of a tiny taste of home in Bolivia. This led us to Tarija, a city in the far south of the country, almost at the Argentinian border. Tarija is known for its pleasant climate and wine so we felt right at home, especially after we decided to splurge on a hotel suite with a kitchenette and balcony with views. This meant we got to cook a lot which was such a treat, and something we are trying to do much more now that we are moving into the expensive countries, Chile and Argentina. So, we enjoyed fine accommodation at a low price, delicious pastas, sandwiches, and salads, and of course, the local vino which was mas o menos, although better than anything we'd tried in Ecuador and Peru.

Vineyards and Montains

We took a tour to some of the local bodegas (wineries). The scenery was beautiful and some of the wines were too, specifically at the first place we visited, Potro. However in terms of wine quality I have to say it went downhill from there- most of the other wines we tasted were gaggingly sweet, and the tasting at the last bodega (Casa Vieja), where they poured single glasses of said sweet wine and had us pass them around between seven people, was underwhelming to say the least. The highlight of that place were the uvas borrachas (grapes preserved in Singani, a grape liquor similar to grapa) and the resident Kirby look-alike.

Cute, but no substitute for the real thing!

The 4th of July happened to be the day the city of Tarija was founded, so we actually got to enjoy some fireworks and celebratory atmosphere. To help us get more into the spirit we made hot dogs and potato salad for dinner. USA! USA!

Oh and have I mentioned we had been planning most of our travels around the World Cup at this point?

Anyway, we left Tarija via yet another night bus to Tupiza. Tupiza was really cool. We went there because it was our jumping off point for our trip to the Salar de Uyuni, but the town itself is worth a visit- mellow, not too cold, and it's got a great wild west atmosphere. Tupiza's claim to fame is that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their demise not far outside of the town. In this spirit, we took an easy horseback ride out into the countryside and found beautiful red rocks and sand, dramatic canyons, and lots of cacti. Our horses were a little old and tired, but we did get to gallop once or twice.

Yee-haw!

Hoe Down in the Valley

Wild Western Dogs

We watched Holland beat Uruguay and Spain beat Germany, and then geared up for our Salar trip! And we highly recommend La Torre hostel and tour company if you find yourself in Tupiza.