Bolivia used to be known as ‘High Peru’ and seeing as how Peru is not exactly without it’s mountains that should tell you something. We also added a few records to our tally. We spent time in the highest capital city in the world – La Paz, avoided the highest city in the world and achieved a personal best for high altitude sleeping at 4378m.
La Paz is in a spectacular setting for a city, sprawling down a valley with views of snow capped mountains that top 6000m in the background. The city itself was apparently one giant market. There are the specific markets like the black market, or the witches market but every road is filled with stalls and sellers. The witches market was a little creepy as the shops were adorned with dried llama fetuses, and some that looked like dried llamas as they were a lot bigger and covered with fur. We enjoyed stolling through the shoe market, the clothes market, the sewing market and of course the tourist market. Knowing we were heading up from there we invested in some alpaca beanies and jumpers. They weren’t enough however. From La Paz we jumped on an overnight bus to Uyuni and even though we were supplied blankets and wearing every item of clothing possible we still froze. It’s the one time we’ve arrived at a destination and no one has got off the bus. It was still dark at 6:30am when we arrived and you knew as cold as you were it would be colder off the bus and without the provided blanket. Around 7:00am as the street was starting to get light we decided to brave it. Our only impression of Uyuni was that it was cold and after speaking to several travel agents about doing a tour through the Salt flats to Tupiza we decided it just wasn’t worth paying double the price to get there. So frustrated and cold we found a tour leaving that day willing to take us and were on our way.
Our tour to the salt flats was in a jeep which normally would seat five, but they stuck an extra row of seats in the back and we set off with 3 Brits, 1 American, us, the driver, the cook and the goat. Initially we were a little perplexed at why there was a goat. Our consternation grew when we couldn’t see the goat following the first lunch of some unspecified fried meat. A couple of hours of worry were relieved by a cute little ‘baa’ and a brown, black and white head popping into view. He was only 2 weeks old and gave us much amusement on the long drives between sites. It’s also been quite amusing talking to people who were on different tours who tell us about this other tour who had a goat – we smile and say yes that was us. As for the actual tour we were, in all honesty, slightly disappointed. This tour is the icon of Bolivia the must do, can’t be missed. The scenery was spectacular but the amount of driving between the sights and the freezing cold temperatures (make that -20C) with basic accommodation – dorm rooms, no heating, no showers, not even toilet paper provided – were not necessarily worth it in our opinion. If you were traveling between San Pedro (Chile) and Uyuni it would be fabulous and must do, but as a round trip from Uyuni I think the one day trip to the salt flats would be a better option. We were quite disappointed by how little time we got on the actual salt flats. The first stop was the salt hotel and the surrounding area was flattened and slightly grey by all the cars and tourists, we drove through pristine white salt with a curious geometric pattern on the way to the lunch stop. An island with cactuses. And that was it. Not one stop in the middle of all that pristine salt as far as the eye could see. Now I don’t want you to think it wasn’t spectacular because it was, but if you go do the one day tour and ask for a stop in the middle where it is truly mind boggling.
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