I had no idea that desert landscapes could vary so much. Now I know.
Last time I wrote, we were in Uyuni, a small town in southern Bolivia. From there, we set off on a 3-day tour of the desert in a bright red 4x4. Our driver and guide was Mario, who brought along his wife (or possibly sister, we're not sure) Feliza and we were joined on the tour by two Englishmen, Mark and Leo.
The first stop of the day was the train cemetary right outside Uyuni. It used to be a station but now all that is left are the wreckages of trains in different hues of rusty red. We took a bunch of photos together with all the other tourists that were on pretty much exactly the same tour as us but with different agencies.
A few things about Mario: for most of the rest of the tour, he was constantly stressed, herding us into the car to whisk us off to the next site as quick as possible. Annoying as it was, it always afforded us views unmolested by other tourists, at least for a while. Another thing was that he was very unimpressed by Monica's vegetarianism, grouchily telling her to heat her own tomato sauce when she didn't want to eat the bolognese Feliza had cooked for us.
Next, we drove into the salt desert, which is actually a 12 m thick layer of salt on top of a lake. It was very hard to wrap one's head around, especially when standing on top of a cactus-dotted hill which is actually an island in the middle of the lake.
After visiting a salt hotel, taking lots of photos of piles of salt and hexagonal cracks in the salt we drove to our own salt hotel where we spent the night. The evening passed by trying to play football with the villagers and their kids at 4,300 m height, I think it was, which definitely isn't good for your lungs. Charles also managed to introduce rugby to the local 6-year old thugs.
The next morning we set off at sunrise and visited an active volcano (but only viewed it from afar), lots of lakes with flamingos and a bright red lake (also with flamingos). We spent the night at a freezing hotel with a lot of other tourists, a group of which was getting roaringly drunk on cheap wine.
The following morning we woke up (fully dressed, since that's how we'd gone to bed the previous night) half an hour earlier than the last time and zoomed off to look at geysers in the sunrise. After the geysers we zipped away to a hot spring where the guys took a bath. Monica and I were scared of the cold (it was around -10 degrees) and looked at ice instead. Apparently it was really warm though, even when the guys got out of the spring, so Moni and I did regret our decision a little bit.
We carried on toward the Chilean border, passing Dalí's desert and a really cool, bright turquoise lake that was filled with copper. After another half hour, it was time to say goodbye to our companions and wait for the bus that would take us to yet another country.
