Lively La Paz
After more than 48 hrs of travel from Kutno to Kraków to Paris to Miami to Lima to La Paz in Bolivia, I finally got some proper sleep, started acclimatising to the higher altitude of 3600m (asl) and met up with my long lost physio pals, Alisa, Amy, Emma, Leanne and Mairead. Day 1 we hit the markets with traditional music complementing the amazing colours bursting from every shop front. I literally fell in love with everything there - the leather bags, beanies, gloves, socks, purses and everything in between made with that traditional South American brightly coloured striped pattern that you just HAVE to buy!!
Day 2 - my first experience horse riding!! And I couldn't think of a better place to learn this exhilarating sport than amongst the strange but incredible scenery in the Bolivian mountains. I was treated to surreal views of La Paz, with the little terracotta, pink, yellow and generally earthy coloured houses dubiously built into the edge of the mountain - the whole city looked like a basin or the inside of a massive volcano. I felt like I was in a mid west movie riding like a cowboy through rugged terrain and strikingly large canyons, at 3900m asl. Our wild and crazy guide Walter allowed us to try galloping - not something I imagine you're supposed to attempt on your first day of horse riding - with barely any instructions other than hold on and give it a go...it was so full on I really thought I was going to fall off!! And let's not forget the fact that I recently discovered that I am not actually covered by my insurance above 3000m!!
Day 3 - Overnight bus to Uyuni for our 3 day salt flats trip. Started well, timely departure, the 6 of us delighted with our big comfy chairs that reclined almost flat and super warm furry blankets. Everyone scared me with how cold it was going to be and that I'd need all my thermals but in fact it was soooo warm with the heater on, they were clearly just being worry warts. All giggly and excited to be starting our journey, we watched the gorgeous city lights out the window, chatted and started to doze. After a few hours, one girl attempted to go to the toilet on the bus, only to find that it was locked and the bus driver said (we thought, based on limited Spanish) it will be open at 2am but we will be stopping (soon) at 10pm. We were all a bit confused by this but hey, what can you do? So hours passed and I must have dozed a bit and next minute the same girl was forcing the bus driver to open the door and let her out to pee on the side of the road because clearly we weren't stopping anywhere and it had become apparent the toilet on the bus was out of order!! I was pretty busting but - on the side of the road?? - yep!! That's what it had to be, so about 1O girls, white bums flashing as cars passed on the highway, did their business! Ok, now for a good night's sleep... Or not... Some time later we stopped on the side of the road for a really long time in my sleepy state, I started hearing loud voices followed by some banging at the back of the bus! Some passengers started saying that we had a flat tyre and the driver was attempting to change it himself. After a while, we drove on a little bit but soon stopped again. Meanwhile, when the bus stops, we lose heating so it started getting pretty freezing and I had to start layering - another pair of socks, another polar fleece, beanie (sexy new Bolivian one with the plaits hanging down the sides) and yet still I was cold :(... The girls were right after all! I also found it hard to sleep because since I wasn't covered by my insurance at the moment, I started imagining the bus rolling off the edge of a cliff and I am sent to ICU in Bolivia but then they run out of medical equipment to save my life so I'm sent somewhere else in South America by helicopter and mum and dad have to fork out their life savings to pay for it all!!!
... And suddenly its a new day, sun has risen, I need to pee again and we're still standing still, in the same spot on the side of the road. Out the foggy window I can see a few run down little shops selling lollies and chocolates that were probably out of date 10 years ago, barren flat plains to one side, grand brown earthy coloured mountains ahead of us, a few stray dogs, a few women and children, a tractor and some minibuses hovering around a tin roof shelter. Ok so this is rural Bolivia. Half the bus was still trying to sleep but the couple behind informed me that the last word from bus driver was that another bus is coming to pick us up in an hour. ... Which was about an 2 hours ago! I went for a wander outside and found 2 American girls having a cup of tea at one of the little stores, jumped on board with so much excitement it was Iike I'd never seen tea before. And ... they had a toilet! It was as if all my Christmases had come at once! Back at the bus there was news that now a mechanic was coming to fix the bus because the problem was in fact to do with the engine! To kill time, we took a few token photos in woop woop Bolivia, bought some snacks from the store, and brushed our teeth on the side of the road, which truly did wonders.
Next minute, word spreads that a new bus is coming from a nearby town in 15 minutes. The time passes. No bus. Nearby, a lady starts cooking eggs in oil and putting them in bread rolls! Bam, did we get on that in a flash or what!! And then, we couldn't believe it, egg roll in hand, the new bus actually arrived!!!!
Sensational Salt Flats
Despite being 6.5 hours late, our tour company wanted us to leave straight away - frazzled, un-showered, having not eaten anything decent all day, off we went!! It's probably a good thing I didn't really know what I was getting myself into here for this 'salt flats' tour for 2 main reasons - firstly, I probably would've shat myself in advance had I have known how much I was going to be roughing it and how cold it would be, but secondly (more importantly) it meant that I was completely flabbergasted with all of the amazing scenery. So here goes a summary... Few facts first: Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat at 10,582 square kilometres located in southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes at an elevation of 3,656m asl. It was formed as a result of transformations between several prehistoric lakes. It is covered by a few meters of salt crust, which has an extraordinary flatness with the average altitude variations within one metre over the entire area of the Salar. It is also a major breeding ground for several species of pink flamingos.
We were blessed with an adorable Spanish-only-speaking guide/driver/chef, Walter. Essentially we embarked on a 4WD trip through the most remarkable, varied terrain - from endless crisp white salt flats with grand snow topped mountains in the distance, to an oddly shaped brown soil island smack bang in the middle of the salt flats covered with thousands of the tallest cacti imaginable, to desert like barren landscapes or rocky valleys with striking volcanoes and mountains bursting with colours I'd never seen mixed together before - earthy brown, red, deep green all rolling into eachother.
Turn the corner and there's rows of sharp jagged icicles next to large chunks of ice and then probably the most magnificent of all were the lagoons - one, a gorgeous turquoise colour and my favourite, the one with deep dusty red coloured water, then a strip of white salt behind, flocks of flamingos across the water and in the distance almost-fake-looking mountains against the backdrop of a perfectly clear bright blue sky.
The flamingos, with their gorgeous pink chests are such elegant and graceful creatures, the perfect life force to take command of such a stunning part of the world.
Honestly some of these landscapes were the most incredible, picturesque and, more importantly, vastly different vistas compared to anything I have ever seen. I kept pinching myself to check that I hadn't just slipped into national geographic or one of David Attenborough's series.
Walter prepared lunches for us on the go - chicken and veggies in the middle of the salt flats, chicken schnitzel and salad in a rock valley and tuna salad rolls amongst the rolling green and rocky hills inhabited by a herd of llamas and alpacas - which we came across quite frequently throughout South America!
Our first night was spent in 'salt hotel' in the middle of nowhere, which was literally made of salt, so when you walked around, the ground crunched like snow and it looked like an icebox - completely white inside (including our bedside tables!).
There was one shower which cost extra for hot water - a necessary luxury after not showering in about 36 hours, and way to warm up since the salt box had no insulation. We were at around 4000m asl and the temperature would have been sub zero - I was a little chilly with a Tshirt, thermal long sleeved top, 2 polar fleeces, a hard core sleeping bag and 5 layers of sheets and blankets. I felt like my nose would freeze off, my lips were stinging and I was so cocooned in my sleeping bag that getting up to pee seemed like way too much hard work! For dinner that night we had llama steak which was actually quite yummy!! But I went a little overboard with the eating both at lunch and dinner and by the next day my body was screaming at me for eating so much at such a high altitude- something you're not supposed to do, oops! After almost fainting at the breakfast table, feeling sick and having the runs that morning, my appetite was back and all physical issues had dissipated by lunch time despite us climbing to altitudes of around 5000m asl! Some spots we stopped at were so bloomin' freezing I wondered why the hell I was putting myself through all of this, not to mention the fact that our 'lodge' for night 2 had no shower, the beds were so soft and uncomfortable we were lying on the cement frame underneath the mattresses and got barely any sleep before the 430am rise, and toilets were hard to come by (needless to say we've all left our mark on a number of spots across this gorgeous Bolivian landscape!) But all of these testing circumstances were quickly forgotten when we bathed (and re-heated) in the thermal spring on the final morning at 630am after watching the sun rise through the mountains on the drive there. It was surreal seeing the steam crawling off the water which overlooked a flat swamp like landscape (mountains in the distance) dotted with smaller puddles and streams of hot steamy water and the odd bird or duck peacefully basking in the morning sun.
This was a very blissful moment for me, and I was so grateful for the opportunity to see and experience this truly astounding part of the world!
Chilled Copacobana
After god knows how many hours on a bus and no shower for almost 3 days, we arrived in Copacobana overlooking the lovely Lake Titikaka. This lake lies in the Andes on the border of Peru and Bolivia, it's the largest lake in South America and is often called the highest navigable lake in the world, at 3812m. A day trip to the island, Isla del Sol in the southern part of Lake Titicaca allowed us to actually test out our hiking abilities at a high altitude and most of us did pretty well! Apart from getting severely sunburnt because of course we were 4km closer to the sun!! (Isn't that crazy to think about!)
The hike around the island was refreshing - the terrain was quite harsh- rocky and hilly, with heaps of - can you believe it - eucalyptus trees!!! We felt like we were back in oz!! There are no cars which was very peaceful and at one point we were walking amongst a herd of donkeys! A delicious trout dinner (from the lake) in a super cute cafe was the perfect end to a big day!
We're trying to learn a bit of Spanish on the go, with the phrase book out some nights and teacher Mairead helping us to memorise important things like - is it close or far? Left right straight ahead, and probably the most important - why has the bus stopped and why is the plane delayed???!!! Haha gotta love South America! And I most definitely do so far!!
