Salar de Uyuni and the Atacama Desert

Throughout our travels we had been hearing from other travellers about a 4x4 trip through the salt flats of southern Bolivia and into the Atacama Desert. The stories had varied from person to person and many were quite eventful. It seems the trip is entirely dependent on the driver you get and some are not very good. We heard about drivers falling asleep at the wheel, giving all the food away to their families, selling the gas and then running out in the middle of nowhere, and lots of flats and breakdowns. Surprisingly, despite all these tales of misfourtune, everyone said we should go. Katie, who believes vacations should be about beaches and relaxing, was a little hesitant about going, but I talked her into it. We booked with a company in La Paz, which was supposed to be pretty good, and set out for Uyuni via bus and train. There was an awesome movie on the bus, Boa vs. Python, about a giant snake (not sure where it came from) that escapes so the FBI gets a snake guy and some hot girl (not sure what her role was other than she could hold her breath for a long time) to breed another giant snake, equipped with a built in head-cam, which they release into the sewers to kill the other snake. Meanwhile, the original snake owner hires a muscle car driver, a couple of duck hunters, a cowboy and an indian to go and kill the first snake. Anyway, I digress, but it was a hilarious movie even though it was dubbed in Spanish.

The train ride was very nice, as we were in the executive car ($10 a seat.) It started out by crossing a seasonal lake that had thousands of flamingos. We arrived in Uyuni, late that night, and crashed at a local hotel near the station. The next day we met with the local tour operator who took us to the truck that would be our ride for the next three days. The vehicle was a toyota landcruiser, perhaps a couple years old, and looked to be in good shape and well cared for. We would be travelling with the driver, his wife and son and two other couples. They all seemed friendly, which was an encouraging start to our journey. It was a little crammed, with nine people in the car, and we would end up rotating through the back seat, as it was the most cramped.

Our first stop was a train graveyard just outside the city. Uyuni was once the train center of Bolivia due to booming mining industry in the surrounding hills. As the mines began to dry up, the trains were left to rust in the desert, making for a very interesting junkyard.

After the graveyard we went to a nearby town on the edge of the salt flats to see how the locals processed the salt. It was interesting to see, and they had all sorts of souviners made of salt that you could buy. We left the town and entered the salt flats. Since it was the begining of the wet season, the salt flat was covered by up to a foot of water in places, but we just drove right on through. I hate to think what all that salt does to the poor trucks. The flats were blinding white and as expected, perfectly flat. It was a little surreal, driving for miles and miles across an unchanging landscape. In the middle of the flats is a hotel that is built entirely from salt. It is made up of blocks of compressed salt and has furniture carved out of chunks of salt. We also took advantage of the completely white landscape to take some trick photos.

After that we piled back into the truck and head for Isla Incahuasi, a chunk of volcanic rock and coral in the middle of the flats. The entire salar was once an inland sea, and so this island had an extensive petrified reef. It was now inhabitated by giant cati and a surprising number of birds. We went for a short hike over the island, which at 3800meters and 30 degree heat, was quite a challenge. After lunch, it was back into the truck again for a long drive across to the far edge of the salar. Here we taken to a comfortable little hotel, again built from salt blocks, nestled in the cati covered hills at the edge of the salt flats. After a great dinner, we went to bed early as we were getting up early to see the sunrise over the salt flats.

The sunrise was very nice, although it was rather difficult to get up that early. Post breakfest, it was back into the truck for a long drive across several more salt flats before we began to climb up into the surrounding hills. Our first stop of the day was in a rocky area that looked very much like the American Southwest. There were a network of canyons carved into the sandstone bedrock, and rock formations of all sorts of shapes. It would have made for some good climbing but the rock was pretty friable and kept coming apart in my hands. There was a large volcano, Ollague Volcano, nearby that was midly active and steam plumes could be seen eminating from the summit. We barely had time to strech our legs before we were back in the truck heading off through the desert again.
The next leg of our journey took us by an array of different coloured lakes. The surrounding hills are very rich in minerals and different salts which accumulate in the lakes giving them very interesting colours and textures. We stopped for lunch at the Laguna de los Flamingos, which definately lived up to its name. There were three different types of flamingos: andean, Chilean and James, although they were all fairly similar looking. There were also foxes and vicuna (the wild relative of the llama) hanging around the laguna. After lunch, we passed several more lakes of different shades of green and red, with many more flamingos before we started to climb up into the high desert of the Atacama. By now it was really looking like the desert, with nothing but sand and rocks streching as far as the eye could see. We continued to climb up and the air got colder until we reached a broad, high pass at over 4800 meters. Definetly the highest I have ever driven to. We got out to pose for a picture but the air was bitterly cold and the wind was relentless so we quickly piled back into the truck and set off again.
Our next stop was group of wind sculpted rock monoliths. They were particularly stricking as they were all by themselves in the middle of a a great sand field. They were carved into the most unbelievable shapes, some sitting on little pilars that looked as if they were about to fall over. The amount of bouldering here was amazing, I wish I had brought my climbing shoes and a crash mat with me. Again, the rock wasn´t the best, but there were still some good routes that avoided the bad rock.
We continued on to our last stop of the day, a small refugee where we would spend the night. It was just inside the national reserve Eduardo Avaroa, on the edge of Laguna Colorada. This laguna was a bright red, with sections of white salt flats, set against a backdrop of volcanoes. The lake was fed by a series of hot springs that welled up along the edge, and was again, full of flamingos. It was also incredibly windy, which we did not really notice until we were heading back to the refugee, walking into the wind. We had to tuck our arms behind our backs, pull our toques down over our faces, and lean into the wind in order to not be blown off into the Atacama Desert.
After dinner we went to bed early, as we would be getting up very early the following day to get to the geysers by sunrise. We awoke to a very cold and dark morning. The sun had not yet begun to light the sky and the stars were absolutly amazing. We were still at 4300 meters above sea level so it was very cold. Our guide said that it had dropped to -16C over night. We all piled back into the landcruiser and proceeded to race the sun all the way to the geysers, making it there just in time. It was pretty cool to see them at sunrise, but I wasn´t sure if it was worth the 4am wake up. All the other geysers I have seen were in Yellowstone, and it is all very regulated. There are boardwalks and you can´t get to close to the geysers. Here in Bolivia, you can wander right up to them and peek inside. Apparently every once in a while the crust breaks and someone plummets into them and is instantly steam cooked. This has only promted the Bolivian Park officals to put up a few signs that simply say ¡Peligro! but don´t specify any more than that. Luckily, no one fell in that day.

After the geysers we drove to Laguna Blanco, which had a small hotspring and a little pool built where we could have a dip. The air was still very cold and the laguna surrounding the hot spring was still frozen solid. The flamingos actually get frozen in place each night, I don´t know why they haven´t figured out that they could spend the night in the hot springs. We had a great breakfest at the edge of the hotsprings, which was much needed considering we had been up for about four hours at that point. After breakfest we went for a short hike across the desert to Laguna Verde, while our guide cleaned up. The laguna is located right at the base of the perfectly shaped Lincancabur Volcano, making for some great reflection shots. The laguna is also full of sodium bicarbonate, which is left in odd looking deposits along the lakeshore, and the green colour is from dissolved copper minerals.
From there it was about an 40 minute drive to the Chilean border which consisted of a couple buildings and a gate, sitting by themselves in the middle of the desert. Here we parted ways with our guide and the others and boarded a bus to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. I am glad we did not have to do the marathon drive (960km through the desert) back to Uyuni. Soon the bus was driving down a paved road (the first in three days) towards civilization. The road itself would be awesome for longboarding. It drops 2000 meters in about 30 or so kilometers. The only problem was the pavement was so hot, I´m sure you´d burn through your urethane in no time.

Overall, it was an amazing adventure. We were lucky and got a great driver, who was very friendly and didn´t steal our food (we had great meals everyday.) We didn´t have any flats or breakdowns or get stuck in a mud puddle in the middle of nowhere. Even Katie had to admit that she enjoyed it for the most part, although she was really looking forward to having a shower in San Pedro.

More photos here:
Album 1
Album 2

Blog Catch Up!

You may have noticed that we recently added a bunch of posts. Sorry, to do it all at once but we are trying to catch up. Currently, we are in northern Chile, having just completed a 3 day 4x4 trip through the Atacama Desert from Bolivia (blog entry coming shortly, hopefully.) It is very expensive here so we are heading to Argentia as soon as possible.

Stay tuned for our adventures in the desert!

La Paz and surrounding area

We arrived at the edge of La Paz, running into the usual chaos of South American cities. La Paz, although it is the world´s highest capital, is built in a crater. It is also one of latin america´s fastest growing cities, and the sprawl is spilling over the edges, like adobe lava, out of a volcano. The fact that it is in a crater also means that you almost always have to walk up a hill to get somewhere, which at 3660m, is a work out. We stayed at the hostal Loki, which is a good place to party but not to sleep. I can not say that La Paz is very high on my list of favorite South American cities, but we found some good coffee, which was much needed after a prolonged stint of Nescafe. We took advantage of the cheap prices in the markets and did lots of shopping for presents. One intersting area was the Witches´ market, where you could buy dried llama fetuses (Peter, guess what your Christmas present is!) and other unidentifable items. There was also a large balck market but we were unable to find anything remotely illegal. I think we just didn´t go down the right alleys.
We needed to relax a bit so we went to see a movie at the cinemas. In La Paz you are actually assigned a seat in the theatre but no one seems to pay any attention to this system and sits where ever they want. We saw Lions for Lambs, the only movie playing that was not dubbed. We had not idea what it was going to be about, but ended up enjoying it for the most part. I felt like it was trying to make a point, but the director wasn´t quite sure what that poinst was.
After the movie, we witnessed a fender bender, where one taxi driver cut off another. With the way South American´s drive, I am surprised I haven´t seen more crashes. I was curious to see what would happen next and how this sort of thing was resolved. The resolution process involved both drivers duking it out in the middle of the road. The driver who had cut off the other had a signigicant size advantage and quickly took out the little guy. I guess in La Paz, Might is Right.
We also went to the Contemporary Art Museum, which had some really interesting art. There was a very interesting exibition on, but I will have to get back to you on the artist´s name.


Disclaimer: Roxana should not read any further than this.

Just outside of La Paz is the World´s Most Dangerous Road (you can google it to get some pictures.) It has become a major mountain biking destination, I had beeen considering riding down it since we set out on our trip. I felt rather conflicted about biking down a road, that the locals had to use and claimed so many lives. Upon arrival in Bolivia, however, I learned that a new road had been opened last year, and the World´s Most Dangerous Road (WMDR) was now almost solely used for biking. This was the deciding factor for me, as I felt a bit morally better knowning that I would not be creating unneeded traffic on an already dangerous road. I decided to go with Gravity Assited Biking, the original company to start touring the road, which was more expenisve but also the only company reccomended by the Lonely Planet. Once out on the road, I was definetly glad I had not gone with one of the copy cats, as they looked like quite sketchy operations.
The ride starts out a 4800 meters, at a high pass 45 mins outside of La Paz. We were given our gear (pants, jackets, helemts, gloves and gogles) and a new full suspension Kona mountain bike. I took it for a few laps around the parking lot, and jumped it off a few drops, only to be left gasping for breath. At 4800 meters, downhill is the only direction to ride a bike. The first section is along a paved road, still in use by traffic. It would be a crazy longboarding road, as it is full of hairpins and winding s-turns. We also passed through a drug checkpoint, designed to look for materials used for making cocaine. It was the beginning of the rainy season, so we quickly dropped into a cloud and the visibiliy was awful. Personally, I thought this was the most dangerous part, as passing large trucks on a wet, cloudy, windy road is a little scary. Technically, however, this is not the WMDR. The WMDR started about an hour down the road, splitting off the main road onto a narrow gravel road. We were given another saftey talk and headed off down the road. As a mountain biker, I actaully found the road pretty tame, although with traffic I would say it would be much scarier. I would say the road itself is about equivalent to a logging road on Vancouver Island. Not particularly bad, but you don´t want to go over the edge. I think the road claimed so many lives mainly due to the driving habits of South American drivers, which is really something that needs to be witnessed to understand. Everyone drives around corners as if they know they are the only car on the road. The other reasons that so many people have died is that it has become a large attraction for people who really don´t know how to ride a bike that well. Really, it is not hard to keep your bike on a road a car and half wide, yet people still ride off the edge, the last one being in March. The fact that most companies do not give good bikes (failing brakes, etc) and are not prepared for any sort of crash, does not help. On the day I went, a rider in another group managed to hit one of the five signs on the whole 40km road and went over the edge. He was lucky enough to land in a tree, otherwise he would have been the latest life claimed by the road. We only had one crash in our group, just a simple front wheel washout resulting in some scraped up arms. Our company had the training and equipment to clean the scrapes (or deal with something worse), something others did not.
After dropping down 3000 meters we arrived in a small animal rescue center in the Bolivian jungle. We had hot showers and a buffet lunch, while other groups were left at small shacks along the road to buy something that didn´t smell too goodlook that edible. After that we boarded the bus for the 3 hour drive along the new road (which is a year old and already falling off the mountain) back to La Paz. Overall, I would have to say that I did the ride simply to say to rode the World´s Most Dangerous Road. It was not nearly the most dangerous ride, or even the most memorable ride I have ever been on. As Damon, our guide said, it is the most boring ride they offer (they have a two-day downhill single track ride!) All in all, it was still a lot of fun and I got a free t-shirt. They just need to build a few kickers to make it more interesting!

Note: I only shot a couple photos on the ride as it proceeded to get very wet and muddy. I have some pictures that were shot by the guides that I will upload shortly.

Lake Titicaca

We decided to send a bit extra on the bus trip to Puno from Cuzco, so we took the Inca Express. The Inca Express is a tourist bus that stops at a couple locations between the two cities and includes a lunch buffet. It was very touristy, and made us realize how those with money explore South America. I prefer our way, although the lunch buffet was nice (next time we will remember to bring some tupperware.)

Our first stop was at an old church called San Pedro. It was built on Inca foundations and had a lot of really old paintings. It was interesting to see how they had incorporated Inca beliefs into the Christian paintings in order to help convert the Inca. Apparently, the restoration was being funded entirely by the tours going through the church.

The second stop was at an Inca ruin called Raqchi. Although we had seen many ruins, this was still somewhat interesting as it had a 12meter adobe and stone wall that used to support the temple roof. They also had 156 round store rooms, of which a couple had been fully restored. An intersting site, although we were hurried through fairly quickly. Another reason I am not a fan of these package tour sort of things.

Our next stop was at the top of the pass between Cuzco and Puno at an elevation of 4300 meters. We piled out for the obiligatory shot in front of the sign (with llamas!) and the all piled back in the bus.

The third stop was at a museum at Pucra. It contained artifacts from a nearby excavation of a pre-inca city and temple. This was a little disapointing as I thought we´d be going to the actual site, not just the museum. A museum can be anywhere in the world but there is only one excavation site. Nonetheless, it did have some cool stone statues and examples of the Inca Cross, which pre-dated Christ.

After that it was non-stop to Puno through the altiplano. The scenery was very beautiful, and as we pulled into Puno, we got our first views of Lake Titicaca.

Puno, itself was not very impressive, kind of just a dirty border town that once a year has some crazy festivalsin Feburary. We, however, were there to see the floating reed islands, which we set out to see the next day. These islands are entirely made of torta reeds that grow in the lake and are world famous. Too famous actually, as they have turned into something of a floating tourist trap. The islanders originally started living on these island to avoid conflict with the Inca and other hostile tribes. We were there in the low season, yet there were still at least 30 or so boats making trips out to the islands. There were at least a hundred more boats moored that were all used during the peak season. Apparently, there are still some reed islands that have escaped the hordes of tourists, and I hope they stay that way. I make it sound like it was all bad, but it was cool experience and not something you can do anywhere else in the world. It was interesting to see how they had been living for hundereds of years as well as the modern adaptions they had made (note the solar panel next to the reed house.)

We had had enough of Puno so the early the next morning we caught a bus to Copacabana, Bolivia. Much to our surprise, the two names on the registar above ours were Luke Pretty and Laura Lambert. They happened to be making a trip down to Bolivia before their hike on the Inca Trail, and had decided to go to the same town as us.

After a little confusion at the border we were across into Bolivia. I am glad that I am travelling under my Canadian passport as the border gaurds had decided to charge all Americans $100 for a visa. Other Americans, who came into Bolivia a different way said they didn´t have to pay but it may have been a new tax. Their were a few Americans on our bus who were surprised by this and ended up being held and the bus went on without them. Not a fun situation for them.

The town Copacabana was nice, especially after Puno. It is fairly small and is nestled in between some hills right on the lake shore. We checked into our hotel (90 bolivianos a night which is only $12!), explored the markets and hiked up one of the nearby hills. All along the trail are crosses that pilgrams place rocks at the bottom as they hike up. At the top are a bunch more crosses, an amazing view and a bunch of vendors selling miniture items. It is traditon to buy these small items (eg. toy cars) and have them blessed in the hopes that you will receive a real life one in the following year. An interesting tradition that has done wonders for the toy trade.

The next day we caught a boat out to Isla del Sol, a small island that is believed to be the birth place of the first inca, Manco Inca, and the sun itself. We had been recommend a small family run hostel just outside the main town which turned out to be an amazing little place. The family was very friendly and a night´s stay, dinner and breakfest was only 120 bolivianos($16!!) for both Katie and I. I had the most amazing rainbow trout, which the stock apparently originated from Canada. The four of us also went on a 14km trek around the islands, which was very tiring as the elevation ranged from 3815m (lakeshore) to over 4000m. Along the hike we were met by many local children who all wanted our cookies. Katie, being a sucker for small children, gave them our precious cookies and bought some candies to hand out. We visited a couple more ruins including them Temple of the Sun, which had an amazing view of lake. We also found, with the help of an Argentian women, the Rock of the Puma, which is were Manco Inca and the Sun were born. The views along the hike were breath taking, I can understand why the Inca believed that this was such a special place.
The next day we boated back to the mainland, said goodbye to Luke and Laura, who were heading to Cuzco and boarded a bus to La Paz.

I have some more photos posted here:

Inca Express

Lake Titicaca

Day 3 of the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu

Day three began early, and we crawled out of our tents to sunshine although we were still drying out. After breakfest we began to immediately to climb up to the second pass on the trail. The clouds were lifting a little bit and we were able to get a glimpse of the surronding mountains. Before reaching the summit of the second pass we stopped at the first ruin of the day, Runkurakay, which means basket shaped ruin in Quechua. This small outpost was believed to be reststop or perhaps a watchtower as it had a commanding view of the valley below. We continued up, past a few small lakes and down the other side. The next ruin we came across was called Sayaqmarka. This was one of my favorite ruins on the trail, as we were able to see some of the clever inventions the Incas created. These included... doorhinges carved into the rock, a water level used to level their floors and terraces, steps integrated into the retaining walls and an amazing network or fountains running through the site.

This ruin also had an amazing view of the river valley below and the a smaller ruin, believed to be a store house, below it. After a tour of the ruins we continued on to lunch. By this time we had descended into the cloud forest and the vegetation had changed dramaticlly from the high grasslands. The trees were now of considerable size and covered in moss. In many places the trail was simply a tunnel through the vegetation. After lunch we continued on up to the third pass. The cloud forest lived up to its name, so we did not get to see any amazing views but the trail continued to provided enough to see. The work that the Inca put into the trail was amazing and it was all still in excellent shape. In some section they had cleared away the vegetation so that you could see the foundations of the trail, which in some places went down over 6 meters. They also created several tunnels through natural fissures in the rock, where it would have been difficult to build around the outside of the cliff. The views at the top of the third pass were supposed to be amazing but we only got glimpses through the clouds but we still got a peak at the mountain Macchu Picchu. From the thrid pass the trail drops, almost vertically in sections, down 1000 meters to the final camp. Along the way we went through Phuyupatamarka, an Inca temple with some amazing stone work. From here on the steps got even steep and in places were cut right into the bed rock. Before the last camp, the trail split into two, one heading directly to camp, the other through Intiputa. Katie, lured by the promise of hot showers, went down to camp and I continued on to Intiputa. This site was composed of a huge number of terraces over looking the Urabamba River was believed to be an agricultural site for suppling Machu Picchu with food.

After a snack, our assistant guide, Ceaser, took a a small group of us to see one last ruin, Winay Wayna. I was glad I dedided to see this last extra one as it was by far one of my favorites. It had a room known as the temple of the Rainbow, as it had seven windows, one for each colour of the rainbow, looking out over the Urabamba valley. Supposedly there are often rainbows there and the Inca believed that by worshiping them, it would bring good rain for there crops. There were also a series of fountains, that were still working, that ran through the site. Our guide told us that traditionally, pilgrams on there way to Machu Picchu would stop here to cleanse their souls by placing their head in the fountain before continuing to Machu Picchu, so we all cleansed our souls before heading back to camp.

The next day started early, 3:30 am early. This was partly to get to the sungate at sunrise and to give our porters enough time to make it down the mountain in one peice to catch their train back to Cuzco. There is a gate at the campsite and no one is allowed to leave for the sun gate before 5:20 am so a large line builds up and everyone goes charging off at once. We were warned of people running and pushing and shoving but were lucky to avoid any of that. We arrived at the Intipunku, the sun gate an hour later, right when the sun is supposed to shine through the gate and onto Machu Picchu... or at least that is what would have happened if we could have seen anything through the clouds. It was a little dissapointing, but we posed for a group photo and continued on. As we descended into the lost city, the clouds began to lift and we were rewarded with an amazing view of the city. After posing for a few classic photos, we began a tour of the city. The scale and gradeur of ruins is impossible to explain in words and pictures do not do it justice. It is something that you simply need to experience. Washington gave us an excellent tour, explaining the history of the city, its discovery by Hiram Brigham and the archelogical work that has happened since. We toured through the Temple of the Sun, Temple of the Three Windows(very original name), the main plaza, and Intihuatana, the Hitching Post of the Sun. Although this has been mistakenly called a sun dial, a calender would be a more accurate description as the Inca used it to figure out the solstices and equanoixes, not the time of day. After the tour we said goodbye and thanks to our two awesome guides, and were let loose to explore the ruins on our own. I decided to climb Wayian Picchu, but Katie, tired from the hike chose to wander around the ruins some more. Wayan Picchu towers over 300 meters above the ruins, so I stuffed a wad of coca leaves into my mouth and set off at a good pace to the top. Thirty mintues later I was standing above the Lost City of the Incas, having climbed a trail that seem merely carved into the edge of the cliff. The view was amazing. I could see the Urabamba River snaking its way around both sides of the city, the mountain Machu Picchu towering behind the ruins and snow capped peaks behind. Well worth the climb. Since Katie was waiting below, I snapped a few pictures and started down the mountain at what some would call a frightening pace. The steps leading through the ruins at the top were nearly vertical and only large enough for about half of my foot. Twenty minutes later I was back in the main ruins. Apparently the record is seven minutes to the top, but I find that hard to believe. Katie informed me that she had been witness to some rather naughty llama behavior that caused quite a stir among the tourists. What is a trip to Machu Picchu without some llama lovin' ? By this time the crowds of tourist groups from the train were beginging to fill the ruins so we decided to head back down to the town of Agua Calineties for some lunch and wait for our train back to Cuzco. We met the rest of our group at a resturant for a well earned celebratory beer. ( one liter of beer for only $2!!)
The train ride back along the Urabamba River snaked along the canyon floor and past more ruins. It was almost ten by the time we arrived back in Cuzco, too tired to do anything but fall asleep. It seemed that we had passed a major milestone in our trip, and the second half of our trip waiting ahead of us.

I have posted more photos here:

The Inca Trail

Machu Picchu