Entering the minivan at 7:30 am several tiered faces that would accompany us the next three days greeted us.
The Party companions: Pyria, Jen, Lisa, Gigi, Tom, me and of course of lovely guide and driver.
Great guy, always in good mood, with a little knowledge of English, and a save and most important sober driver.
First stop: Police station San Pedro for the emigration stamp from Chile.
Second stop: At already 4000 m for the immigration stamp to Bolivia and finally breakfast. By that time Gigi our Italian companion was already starting to feel sick.
At the border to Bolivia we realized that we were definitely not the only ones going on this trip. Citation Tom: „Must be good, when so many people go there.“
Third stop: Laguna Blanca and Verde. Their colour is determined by different salts and shows up when the wind disrupts the mirroring surface.
I think based on the color that this is Laguna Verde (I was quite confused after five lakes on one day.).
Fourth stop: Dieserto Dali looking like one if Dali’s pictures and thereby getting this name.
Fifth stop: Agua termales a small hot pool set in the beautiful landscape of a salt lake.
This time I refused to get undressed, but Tom had a good time …
… while I couldn’t stop taking pictures of this amazing colors.
Sixth stop: Geyser Sol de Mañana getting its name from the colored ground surrounding the grey mud pools.
Okay, Tom always cheats with his polarisation filter, but the colors are impressive.
They don’t drive a single meter any more but make for a really good motive. Dead trains on their cemetery.
Seventh stop: Lunch finally at 3 pm.
Eighth stop: Laguna Colorada a salt lake colored like the polish flag. White from the borax salts and red from the algae growing in the flat water, sprinkled with hundreds of pink flamingos.
I am not quit sure, whether I got the English/Spanish right, but I think the color is supposed to come from the red algae growing in the lake.
And there were lots of them and we took dozens of pictures so you have to cope a least with the three here.
Hmm, wonder what the green one had to eat?
In between our tight schedule we were driving through a landscape formed of sand and white, yellow and red salt. By the end of the day I had to consult our schedule to remember what we all did. We settled down for the night at 4300 m and slowly the altitude was hitting in. Gigi that didn’t felt well all day were suffering the most not even able to drink a sip of coke no talking of eating or breathing. But no one could really fall a sleep, so we spent hours listening music, watching TopGear and going to the toilet. No wonder everybody was a bit destroyed the next day.
The morning was cold and despite the rainy season beautiful. So off we went to our safari through more desert and salt.
What a beautiful morning! just took a little effort to walk the 100 m to take the picture :).
First stop: funny stones washed out by time that everybody was keen to climb except the holly one.
The little mermaid in the desert.
Second stop: more stones that represent the habitat of some ancient plants looking like moos but being hard like stone.
Don’t really know why the form this knobs. Maybe the wind.
Third to fifth stop: salt lagunes of different size and color all coming with a bunch of flamingos.
You just get the picture of one here.
Sixth stop: an active Vulcan, by now 60% of the Group were already to tired to get out of the Jeep to take pictures.
And then around the corner it showed up. The biggest salt lake of the world: Salar de Uyuni. The view was impressive and we only got a tiny glimpse of it. Thank to the sunny weather we were able to drive through the salt lake to our final destination: a hostel made of salt. Driving through the endlessness of salt gave us a first taste of what was to come the next day: water like illusions all over the horizon gave a feeling of riding over the sea.
The first glimpse of the salar: not a lake, but a sea of salt.
Found new friends during our shopping break.
The dinning room in our salt hotel. Even the deco was mad of this corrosive material. And i found the stuff between my toes after dinner.
The next morning after a good nights sleep we entered the jeep at 5 am for our first stop sunrise at the isla de pescada home of hundreds kakti. Unfortunately we missed the sunrise but the scenery was anyway paying of for that.
An almost sunrise over the salt sea.
A kind of special location for a breakfast.
And than the illusions began first in the whiteness of the salt and than on the thin watery surface on some part of the salt lake. I have never seen something like that.
Only time in my life, that I am taller and stronger than Tom :).
Maybe we should have baptised the blog „with apple travelling the trains and busses of the world“.
An here the whole team. Some really are skilled jumpers for pictures.
The most popular salt hotel had be to turned into museum due to sanitation issues. Guess it{s not easy to build a sewer into salt.
If you don’t have some obstacles …
… you can’t determine where sky stops.
By the way, some of the salt is indeed used form nutritional and cosmetic purposes. Here it’s build into hills to dry before harvesting.
A perfect lunch and a few old trains later we arrived in Uyuni, relaxing with beer and pizza before our bus left for Sucre.
The dead trains close to Uyuni.
Tom couldn’t resist climbing them.