RTW: Exchange in Chile

Picture-perfect landscapes

After the little “accident” in San Pedro in Chile I took off towards Bolivia, a country I had heard much good about (but less so before arriving to Chile). At the time of departure, there was only one problem: the painful experience of sitting almost anywhere thanks to the hard touch of the bicycle saddle.

The tour I took was a 3-day jeep trip to Uyuni, a town in the Southwest of Bolivia. Rarely have I been so overwhelmed by a tour.. The essence of the whole country (more on that in the next entry) became clear quite early on: as we were on the frontier area of Argentina, Chile and Bolivia, getting out of Chile on a paved road, all of a sudden the guide told us: “now we go to Bolivia” – and took a turn straight into the desert from the paved road (that was leading to Argentina).

Now I’ll let pictures talk more. The first stop was at Laguna Blanca, a lake made white by all the chalk in it (first photo below). After that we saw Laguna Verde (green because of the copper in the lake –second photo, note also Volcano Licancabur in the background) and after some awesome desert sights (third photo) and some hot springs (fourth photo) we arrived at the first overnight stop at Laguna Colorada (differs in color, now red thanks to the lithium there –fifth photo). In the photo (or its enlargement) you can see the last flamencos of the region still hunting for some microbes in the water.






It was a bit cold over there in the height of the mountains as well, but not to scare Johanna (my girlfriend coming to Chile very soon, finally) too much, they told me it does not get colder than this (-15 Celsius) in the south of Chile..


The first overnight reminded me again of my military service. Our room was some 10 below zero and the rented sleeping bags were made for – you guessed it- midgets. So not too much sleep there, but the journey continued in the jeep to the Arbol de Piedra (or, Stone Tree) below.


After that we had a long run of dying villages and generally boring sights (except the lake below) before entering a hotel that was total luxury after the first night. If you are wondering how someone would pay for such shit, I can tell you that lodging, travel, food etc. were all included for the three days on the 65 USD price. And just one night's lodging was feeble, otherwise we were really taken care of in the tour.


The last day we headed for a sunrise on a cactus-filled island, Isla de Pescadores. Here is also our team of 7: Shane and Suzie from Ireland, Marco from Canada, our driver Lucas (a pro driver who had a glass eye and thus wore sunglasses even in the night!!!) and Gunther from Germany in the upper row and me and Gunther’s wife Inga in the front.




Last I present to you a typical view of the Salar of Uyuni, a huge salt plain (12,000 square kliometers, at places over 1 meter of salt... the water in the ground trying to get out makes those hexagons) followed by a picture of me on a very old locomotive in the cemetery of trains close to Uyuni. The translated text says “asi es la vida” = “such is life” and on smaller text in the front: “se necesita un mecanico con experiencia –urgente!” = “in need of a experienced mechanic –urgent!”

posted by Kassu @ 1:45 PM