Hola All,
Day 1
What an amazing place! Headed out to the salt flats with Ricardo from Colque tours (colkee) our driver and two others Gaelle from France and Scott another Australian in a trusty old toyota 4wd with bald tyres. It was a bit of a race with all the other 4wds to the first stop. The train graveyard along the uyuni to argentina train line. Sooo many old rusty trains from the late 1800s. Not quite sure why they were there or why they hadn´t been taken away given the price of steel nowdays. Too bad about the grafetti from other tourists on the trains.
Next stop the illegal salt hotel. Quite interesting that it is completely made of salt!
Next stop at fish island. An island in the salt flats which apparently looks like a fish shape but i didnt see it myself. The island is old coral and covered with cactii up to about 900 yrs old. Just out of interest - the salt flat is 10m thick!
Stayed at the Colque lodge on the edge of the salt flats and watched the sun go down painting the previously unsighted snowcapped mountains in the distance pink. Breathtaking. Dinner was basic with the noise of a loud kung fu movie in spanish blaring in the corner of the room with the lodge staff watching. Later after dinner we played table tennis inside in poor light before the one and ball gave up the ghost. We actually had to hire the bats and ball for 5 bolivianos per hour and our time wasn´t up, we didn´t get a refund and I think the staff were happy enough the ball got broken so they could turn off the generator and go to bed.
Day 2 Wonderful day. Blue skies and a drive initially to an active volcano then onto a couple of lakes with beautiful pink flamingos then onto Lago (lake) Collerado which was a crimson red to stay for the night. Don´t forget that the altitude is well over 4000m at this point. The flamingos at lake collerado were a little wary of humans and would move away when we got within 100m of them. Suspect scientist abuse has contributed. The lake also had saltbergs but we didn´t have time to look at them as ¨we were not to be late for tea or we wouldn´t not get any¨. Tea was not good but we enjoyed the game of 500 afterwards then a chilly night with 3* blankets and thermals in our room.
Day 3 5am start for the geisers and mud pools. Very uncivilised. Geisers were at 5100m with one powering along like a burst water main. The mud mixed with early morning fog was quite mystical (?). One mud hole sounded like a washing machine.
Nothing could prepare us for the beaty of lago verde. A green lake which when we saw it was a mirror with patches of ice. Amazing.
Next was breakfast at the border. Spotted a fox but it seems they are not rare at the border. The usual chaos of border crossings. We were dropped off at the bolivian border then drove for about 45min to get to the chilean border. The road was paved all the way as if to make a point about the wealth difference in the countries.
Ok have to go now. Future plans...FYI currently at San Pedro de Atacama, Chile (mega tourist town) and heading to santiago tonight. Will be 3 hrs to connect with our bus then 23 hrs on a sleeper bus to get to santiago. Will be there on 11 Sep and then hope to arrange a flight up to galapogos island in ecuador for 7 day boat trip.
Adios,
David & Vanessa
