After a three day tour of Southwest Bolivia, your mind is awash with images. With every curve around a mountain or dip into a canyon, the landscape seems to change completely. We went from the stunning salt flats which offered surreal mirror images of the sky, to bleak, lifeless desert moonscapes and finally to vibrant blue and green salt lagoon, all in one day.Our group consisted of me, David, who I had met at the refuge, Tirini from Spain, a New Zealand* couple and our quiet guide/driver Raolo. We had also begun with a couple from Venezuala, but we lost them after the truck broke down the second time. Ah, the truck. It was a four-wheel drive Toyota that had apparantly seen better days. It broke down around 12 times during our trip, often leaving us stranded in very remote, desolate areas. There was apparantly something wrong with the fanbelt, but fear not! Raolo was able to cut pieces of the rubber that secured our luggage to the roof and use it to fix the fanbelt. I won´t get into the techie mechanical details but I´m pretty sure I saw bubblegum being used at one point. Fortunately, the scenery was amazing so we didn´t mind waiting while Raolo worked his magic. There was also a strong communal aspect to the truck tours, so often during our pitstops a fellow driver would stop, look under the hood and offer his bubblegum.
After three days of jumping around boulders, skipping stones on salt lagoons, prancing around salt flats and warming up by geysers, we were dropped off at the border of Chile, bus ticket in hand. Next stop, San Pedro de Atacoma.
*One useful piece of information gleaned from this trip: Kiwis will put ketchup on ANYTHING.
Salt Flats
Flamingo Reserve
High Plains Desert
Valle de los Piedras
Salt Lagoons
Early Morning Gysers
3 comments:
Looks cool, can you wash your clothes in the lagoon? They are looking a little rough.
Brent
is that you skydiving? looks fun
Amazing pictures Kellie, I'd like to see more
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