The next stage of our trip would take us north-west from San Pedro, across the Atacama desert and over the boarder into Bolivia, ending-up on the salt flats in Uyuni. The three-day, two-night trek would be undertaken in a jeep, along with a driver and 4 other passengers and would take us to some of the most remote and inaccessible spots in Latin America, some of which at nearly 5,000m.

Customer service is not Chile’s strongest suit, so all it took was a friendly smile and some engaging conversation to narrow the shortlist of travel agencies and we decided to go ahead and book a tour with Sol Andino.

The final challenge involved exchanging some of our Chilean Pesos to Bolivianos, which we would need to pay our entrance to the national park once across the boarder. The exchange rates were horrid and despite Ed’s frantic negotiations in broken-Spanish, involving him waving an iphone about with the live FX on his screen, we were well and truly ripped-off! But so did everybody, so we forgot about it pretty quickly.

We set-off early Monday morning, at first by minibus, which took us to the Chilean boarder, where we joined a long queue and used our final Pesos to buy a decent cup of coffee from a strategically positioned food truck – what an excellent idea!

Another hour of ascent and we reached Hito Cajon at 4,600m, a little outpost that was the Bolivian border. At which point we found our driver, David, and transferred to a Toyota jeep (best in the world according to Top Gear, so we felt in safe-ish hands!).

We managed to get into the same jeep as Sam and Martina, the Swedish couple that we met in Pucon and the final spots were taken by Danny and Tracey, a lovely couple from Australia. They had recently retired and were four months into a tour of Latin and Central America that would see them arrive home in time for Christmas 2016 (importantly, stopping by the best surf-spots along the way!).

 

Delighted with our ‘team’ we set-off into the desert and leg-1 of our circa 1,000km trek to Uyuni. The ride was certainly not cosy and any plans we’d had to catch-up on our blog whilst gliding along the sand dunes (Lawrence of Arabia-style) were immediately dismissed!

Our first stops took us to two lagoons; Laguna Blanca and then the Laguna Verde. We had to adapt and move slowly not to be exhausted by the altitude.

Ed was the first to get a headache and start to feel dizzy – cue L’s treasure chest of a pharmacy and some coca sweets. Coca is said to help with the altitude and it is very common to see locals chewing the leaves. Once back in the jeep we all started chewing a few leaves.

The technique only requires a few chews and then you’re supposed to deposit it at the side of your mouth. Unfortunately, Sam over-chewed and ended up with lots of little pieces around his teeth, his technique was probably not the best…

Further along we stopped at what they call the desert of Dali because the landscape was used by the artist in a number of his paintings.

The next stop was a thermal bath, called Termas de Polques: a tempting stop with a view and probably the only opportunity of a bath before reaching Uyuni! Ed, struggling with the altitude and in a bit of a zombie-like state, sat quietly on the side, playing photographer.

Despite the altitude, it was still pretty hot. However, opening the window in the jeep was a perilous task because of the dust. Every now and then we’d pass another jeep returning from Uyuni, or get caught behind another jeep, so if you sat by a window, you had to be quick closing it. Too late and the jeep would fill-up with dust and it wasn’t long before just about everything had turned mildly grey (including clothes and even (more of) Ed’s beard!).

We then reached 5000m and stopped a few minutes later at 4900m to observe the Geysers Sol de Manana. We had to be careful because the bubbling waters were above 100 degrees Celsius and it would be impossible for the guide to rescue us back if we fell into a hole. Apparently, two tourists passed away there (no doubt selfie-sticks were involved) so we were extra careful.

This stop exhausted us all and we had all just about fallen asleep when we reached our final destination. Our hotel for the night was located in Wayllajara at 4,200m. Starving, we immediately sat-down for lunch, which consisted of frankfurters, puree and salad.

Surprisingly, full stomachs really helped with the headaches and, feeling better, we all boarded the jeep again to go explore the Laguna Colorada. We spent an hour or so watching the flamencos and llamas.

Over dinner we met Ben, another Australian, that we pretty much adopted into our group. We also observed (quite impressed) to see some English people drinking their rum. The next day we observed over breakfast (less impressed) as they were clearly suffering from the most horrendous altitude and alcohol-induced migraines and were clearly struggling!

Day 2 took us around more lagoons and we sat quietly observing the flamencos, secretly hoping that they would take off and fly around because it is such an amazing spectacle.

Not long after we hit the Siloli desert, famous for its desert stones and particularly one that looks like a tree. This is the result of years and years of erosion.

Despite the 4,600m altitude we enjoyed climbing the rocks and taking in the spectacular, colorful mountain scenery.

A couple more lagoons (Laguna Khara and Laguna Salada) and a rainbow later and we stopped for lunch at Laguna Turquin. This remains our best picnic spot to date, consisting of a view of the lake, green pastures full of llamas, a spectacular mountain backdrop and a landscape full of stones, which looked like mushrooms!

 

After lunch our jeep left the desert sand to rejoin the main road to Uyuni (cue many appreciative noises from the back). The smooth road took us to our last stop of the afternoon, which consisted of some interesting rock formations, including one that resembled a condor.

We then drove to a village called Alota, where we were given private rooms and access to hot shower. We took a stroll around the small town before dinner, getting caught in a mini-tornado and exploring the town.

At dinner, David presented us with us a bottle of Bolivian red wine, which we sipped apprehensively since we were still at around 4,000m.

Day 3 of the trek started very early and we headed straight to Uyuni. We started by visiting the steam train cemetery. Once upon a time trains had been used frequently to transport minerals but since the demise of the mineral trade, trains became obsolete and some of them had been left to rust in the cemetery.

It was a bizarre place, partly sad but also partly exciting as we got to pretend we were 5 again, playing on the trains.

Next stop was a small local market, where we ambled about, observing the locals and ended up buying a few props for the salt flats (including Frank the dinosaur – alas his photos weren’t the best, so we haven’t included them).

Then finally, we headed to the salt flats! Everyone was very excited to see those vast white landscapes and quite curious to see what they looked like submerged by water.

A short ten-minute ride took us to the salt museum, which had previously served as hotel but was most recently used to host the Dakar Rally 2016, whch had occurred a month before.

To the right of the museum, there was an area full of flags. Unimpressed, L failed to find either the French of Belgian flag, so she had to settle for a picture beside the English one. She did find a Uruguayan flag and, cheating a bit, we reconstructed the Union Jack from the kiwi flag – how creative.

From there the girls jumped on the roof of the jeep and we set-off to find a decent, dry spot for some creative photos. It was unreal! This absolutely vast white space occupies over 2,500 square kilometers and you have to look very hard to see the hazy mountains in the distance.

We soon discovered that David was wasted as a tour guide, for his real talent was in photography and he soon took on the role of chief creative for our photos. A role he took very seriously!

Laying flat on the carpets from his jeep, he orchestrated some impressive shots – alas, those involving Frank were not under David’s guidance, so didn’t quite end up how we wanted them.

The last stop was on our tour of the salt flats was to a wet area, where the water acted as a perfect mirror. By then we were a bit tired, so we did not get embrace the picture-taking to quite the same extent, but instead, we observed all the salt crystals while splashing around in the water.

L had forgotten to put sunscreen on her feet (too excited by the prospects of visiting the salt flats) and would regret it later (she now has perfect flip-flops sun-marks!)

Time flew and it was already time to head back to town for our last lunch with everyone. We had decided to spend a night in Uyuni and by pure coincidence, Sam and Martina had booked a room in the same hotel (El Castillo de Lilian). Tracy and Danny ended up coming with us and staying there too! We spent the afternoon discovering Uryuni and enjoying some well -deserved beers and delicious pizzas for diner!

The next morning, after breakfast we said our goodbyes and marched off to catch the bus to Potosi. We were extremely lucky to have had such a good group of people to travel with!

Next stop: Potosi, Bolivia

Highlights:

• The salt flats!
• The desert landscape; beautiful lagoons full of flamingos, lamas and vicunas and the beautiful, varied landscape

Gastro Highlights:

• Coca leaves: not really a gasto highlight but an altitude life-saver and actually pretty good soaked in hot water with some sugar!

Annoyance:

• Dreadfully slow internet; hence the painfully slow posting…