On the move

Since leaving Argentina over a week ago (i think), the last week has been a blur of multi-coloured mountains, cacti, martian landscapes, and familiar gringos....I definitely feel like I'm on the ´trail´now. Its funny in such a huge place u keep running into the same people.

Leaving Tupiza

The bus ride from Salta in northern Argentina up to the Bolivian border was a taste of things to come, slowly climbing from about 1100m to 2900m in Humahuaca. Walking around town started to literally take my breath away. After a night in a very quiet hostel, we hopped back on the bus for the border, arriving in Villazon Bolivia (altitude 3500m) about lunchtime. The border was a chaotic mix of locals scurrying across with goods unchecked, and gringos trying to find the migracion. It was there we met up with Shaker, an Iraqi-American, who would end up travelling with us all the way to Sucre. Abandoning our original plan to get to Uyuni that night based on a dream and a recommendation Will got in India, we bought a ticket to Tupiza and a bag of cocoa leaves instead. We had a hunch it was a better way of doing the Salar de Uyuni, and Shaker decided to tag along. In Tupiza we slowly adapted to the Bolivian way of doing things, that is, late and/or slowly, sampled the surprisingly good local beer, and shopped around for a tour that would take us to Uyuni via the many wonderful sights of south-west Bolivia.

Second day on the tour

The landscape in Bolivia can only be described as out of this world. Our first experience of this was a somewhat dodgey horse ride into the Canyon of the Inca just out of town. Our guide, and i use that term very loosely, was a 14 year old, who kept rearing his horse up and unsettling ours. This couldn't detract from the amazing scenery we rode through, or the fun of galloping down dry river beds past freakish geological outcrops.

Sunrise on the Salar

The next morning we departed on the much hyped tour of the Salar de uyuni and the Reserva Fauna Andina Eduardo Avoaroa. Our guide/driver Marco was a loco Bolivian with a lead foot, and Berna our cook was a smiling bundle of joy, and a good cook! The first two days we winded our way through the mountains, and into the Andes. The vastness and scale of the landscape blew me away, on the second morning we rose at 5am to see the sunrise over a 6000m volcano, but that was nothing compared to the final day on the salt flats where I experienced the most beautiful sunrise imaginable. On top of that we bathed in hot springs, got up close to hundreds of flamingos, and crossed vast desert valleys lined with snow capped volcanoes...

Uyuni

The short tour has probably been the highlight of my trip so far, and just as with every place I depart, i can´t imagine things getting any better, but they have every time.