San Pedro on the Chile, Bolivia border. In the middle of the desert there is this quaint little adobe town. Very quaint. Tons of tourists of course as that is all that's here, the tours to the salt flats as well as a few other day outings. We arrived a bit late and the hostel owner was not very gracious, not sure how we were supposed make the bus be on time but whatever. Maybe he should have given us directions to the hostel so we weren't walking the streets at 11pm looking for it. La Cas EcoExplor was pretty basic, nice hammocks outside and a bit of a kitchen but no breakfast provided, only 1 bathroom for each gender and really no services. The owner was patronizing and treats his guest like kids. It was quite irritating, and the place was really expensive. I wouldn't recommend it.
We really only had a day to explore and get our tour set up. While wandering the next day we met a couple from Australia that were also looking for the same tour leaving the next day. They had checked out a couple places and were leaning towards Lithium Tours. I had read about Cordillera so we decided to team up and we went to both places to check them out. Both tours were the same, the difference being Cordillera has 20 years of experience and Lithium is a new company. However the have been in the industry for 10 years. The guy sounded really sincere and they addressed all the safety concerns. They gave a brief idea of what to expect for food and we decided to give them chance. It was a great decision. The only downside is our driver didn't speak any English but one of the girls spoke fluently so she did a bit of translating for us. All in all it was an awesome tour. One of the girls was Vegan and they catered to her totally. She always had plenty to eat and we enjoyed all the veggies we got because of it. The driver, "Chino" was awesome, he was so careful and always drove at a reasonable speed so we never felt at risk. You hear horror stories about drivers being drunk, driving recklessly, falling asleep at the wheel etc. This was a family company and they obviously are trying to make a name and I think they excelled.
The first day we drove up to 5000 feet and saw lots of open desert, sevaral lagoons with flamingoes and vicunas (similar to llama´s). Very other worldly. Unfortunately the elevation change was was just too fast for me. I got quite ill, migraine, dizzy, naseous and numb feet and hands. That was the scariest part. We desended slightly for the first night, I went to bed as soon as we got to the hostel and only got up for dinner. The place was very basic, we had electricity for only a couple hours in the evening and of course everyone scrambled to charge their phones! It was literaly in the middle of no where, but oddly there were a couple shops and we were able to stock up on water, twix and milky way bars, go figure!
The second day was spent driving through more desert, rock gullies that were like dry riverbeds, up higher again to see a semi active volcano, more lagoons and flamingos, wild rabbits that were almost tame and and "Island" in the middle of the desert covered with cactus, which you don't see anywhere else as it's just too dry to suport much life. Very surreal. The 2nd night was spent in the salt hotel which I personaly would not reccommend to anyone but hey when in Rome. The entire structure is made of salt, including the pedestals the mattresses are on. The floors, walls, furniture, everything! Only the bathroom was tiles, fortunately. Since we had no shower in the morning we were all anxious to get cleaned up. They turned on the generator and we had to wait for the water to heat up. Then we each had 5 minutes to shower. Fortunately, and oddly, we were the only group there for the night. Several vehicles pulled in but promptly left again. We figured they could see our dagger stares and didn't want to compete for the shower.
It was so dry you can't even imagine. My nose was so stuffed up and I still had the migraine. I didn't sleep more than an hour that night. Whoever though a salt hotel in the driest desert on earth was a good idea had rocks in their head.
The third day we arose at 4:30am and raced to the salt flats to see the sun rise. Not sure it was worth it but I wasn't sleeping anyway so it didn't really matter to me. I think some of the others might have voted to sleep instead if given the chance. Again the place is just otherworldly. It goes on for miles with no end, except the distant mountains. Our driver diligently drove around and about until he found an area with water. When it rains, which it does very seldom, the water lays on the salt and takes weeks to absorb. Fortunately mother nature had cooperated and it had rained a couple weeks before so there were still some areas covered in water. It looks like glass and from a distance you can't tell it's only and inch deep. A good photographer can make it look like you're walking on water, of course I'm not a good photographer so my photos don't look like that.
The last stop was a very strange train cemetary. At one time Bolivia was a very well off nation because of mining, particularly silver. When silver prices started to fall the industry fell apart. All the trains are just sitting rusting in the desert.
All in all it was a very interesting experience. Not one I'm anxious to repeat but I'm glad we did it. Lithium was great. All our meals were good, the driver went out of his way to make sure we were happy. It is up to them to bring the food and prepare lunches so on some tours you literaly get hot dogs. The 2 dinners were also very good with soup, entree and fruit for desert. Even our vegan was happy!
We landed in Uyuni mid day and headed for an internet cafe so we catch up on all that we'd missed in the past 2 1/2 days. How we ever lived without internet I'll never know. I wasn't able to get money, yet again, from the bank machines in San Pedro so they let me pay a deposit and the balance when we arrived in Uyuni. Of course none of the bank machines wanted to cooperate. I finally was able to get money using another bank card but only in 500 B withdrawls so I ended up paying about $50 in service charges. I have yet to figure out the best way to deal with money traveling over here. My credit card has not foreign transaction fees so when I can I pay that way but unfortunately it's not always an option. Anyway I got the money, paid for the tour and it was all good. We went to the street where the buses are and found what we hoped was a decent company to take us on the next let of the journey. We traveled with our friends for the first stretch and then they headed to La Paz. The ride was an adventure for sure. A 7 hour bone rattling journey on what felt like a dry riverbed. We were sitting over the wheels so we got to feel every bump and pothole. I thought for sure something on the bus was going to break. It was shocking how may people actually slept through it. We arrived in Oruro at 2:45 am and figured we would be sitting on the street for hours until we could get a bus to Cochabamba but no, there they were just waiting for us. One guy spotted us a weary tourists and promptly grabbed Josh's arm and started steering him towards a big fancy bus. At that point I didn't really care, I still had a migraine and all I really wanted was sleep. About 3 hours later we arrived in Cochabamba, strapped on our packs and headed off down the street to find the hostel where we would hopefully be working for the next several weeks.
