Lucie & Rhys´s Honeymoon Adventure: Week 15 - Uyuni, Potosi, Sucre (Bolivia)

The first 3 days of the week were spent on a 3 day trip into Bolivia (thanks for the Christmas present mum!). We left the hostel in San Pedro at 6am for a 5 hour drive in a minibus to the Bolivian border, a different border crossing to that the tours usually use since the usual one had been blockaded. After having our passports stamped by a drunken Bolivian guy we were allocated to a jeep with a French couple and a Swiss couple. Our driver wasn’t overly impressed as he considered 6 bags for 6 people to be excessive luggage and moaned about it non-stop. When he’d finally tied all the bags to the top of the jeep we climbed in and set off in convey with the other 3 jeeps in our group.

After a couple of hours of driving through the mountains at altitude and off road we came to the first stop, a beautiful lake with flamingos dotted around in the Eduardo Avaroa national park. The next couple of stops were for more flamingo filled lakes, each lake getting progressively more beautiful. That night we stopped at a refugio next to Laguna Colorado at 5000 metres, the most stunning lake you could ever imagine with pastel pinks and lilacs alternating with bright blue where it reflected the sky and the mountains. We were expecting a dive of a hostel from hearing about other peoples experiences but were pleasantly surprised, it was warm and cosy and the food was decent.

The next morning we were up at 5am for sunrise. We jumped into the jeeps and drove for 20 minutes to a field of geysers hugging the side of the mountain. Early morning the steam is at its most impressive since the temperature of the air outside is at its coolest. We spent a good hour watching the bubbling pools and walking between the geysers, no way would you be allowed to get that close in Europe. After we’d taken 100 photos it was back to the refugio for breakfast pancakes and to load the jeep.

The rest of the day was spent at more lakes and exploring rock formations that looked like something from another planet. Our driver continued to complain about the weight and refused to let us open the windows as it caused more drag. It got to the stage at the end of the day where we were all melting from the heat in the van and he started telling us that it was our fault because we had too much luggage and the jeep should only hold 4 people – the agency puts 6 people in a jeep and every other jeep had 6 people in, by the end we were fighting with him about opening windows and he locked us in to stop us getting out for air. It’s fair to say we were all pretty happy to be able to get out of the jeep at the end of that day when we arrived at the salt hotel – a hotel made entirely of salt, the walls, the beds, the tables and chairs.

The last day we headed out in the jeeps on to the salt flats which cover an area 60% the size of Wales. It’s white as far as the eye can see with mountains in the far far distance. We’d reconciled with our driver by this point. Our first stop was to the island in the middle of the salt flats, a little oasis covered by giant cactus – fact for you, cacti (these ones anyhow) grow at 1 cm each year, the oldest one on the island still standing was over 900 years old and stood at, you guessed it, 9 metres. Our next stop was just a random spot in the middle of the flats for a photo stop, as everything is white you lose all sense of perspective so you can take crazy photos – we had some of the best ones in the world ever but we managed to delete all the photos from that day so i’m afraid I can’t show you them to prove it. After the salt flats we headed to Uyuni to a train graveyard where all the rusty old trains are abandoned with some turned in to seesaws and swings.

The tour finished in Uyuni. We checked into a hostel and went up to our room to chill, the noise from the bars below was so loud before we’d even had a chance to shower we checked back out and moved to another hotel in a quieter area. 5 mins later a Belgian couple we met in BA and two Germans we met in San Pedro checked into the same hotel. That night we headed out together for llama steaks and on to the ‘Extreme Fun Bar’ which actually turned out to be extremely fun (cocktails, llama sperm shots, flags and rude glasses).

The next day we booked a bus to Potosi, the highest city in the world at 4,200m. By this point we’d been at altitude for a few days and had started to acclimatise. We checked into a hostel close to the main square and spent the afternoon exploring the city and chilling. Our room was so cold we had 6 blankets on the bed.

On Sunday we headed to Casa de la Moneda, a museum in the old national mint of Bolivia. When we got there we were told it was by guided tour only and tours were only in French or Spanish so we just tagged along with a Spanish group and looked at the minting machines, the mummies and the rocks without really knowing what we were looking at.

On Monday we’d booked a trip into the silver mines. Potosi used to be a really rich town thanks to the Cerro Rico mountain with looms over it and in which a llama farmer discovered silver in the 1500’s. The Spanish brought over African slaves to work the mines and since opening an estimated 9,000,000 people have died because of the terrible conditions and silicosis. Nowadays most of the silver has gone but a cooperative mine continues to bring out the remaining silver and tin. Our guide was an ex-miner who had been injured and had to stop working in the mines. First stop was the miners market to buy nitro-glycerine (like dynamite) and coca leaves and 96% alcohol to give to the miners as presents. Then we stopped at one of the plants to see how they process the rocks – it was like a shed in someones garden with all kinds of chemicals sloshing about in various vats (including cyanide). Then we headed into the mines. The tunnels are so small in places and the zinc oxide makes it hard to breath on the 1st level. To get down to the 3rd level you have to negotiate a rickety old ladder and crawl through holes then the heat hits you. After spending an hour and a half in the tunnels, meeting miners and handing out our gifts (the alcohol was a huge hit) we were glad to get back to the surface.

Back in town we headed straight for the bus station and bought a ticket to Sucre, 3.5 hours north. The bus pulled in to Sucre in the middle of a lightening storm, we grabbed our bags and a taxi and headed to the central market area to find a hostel. As we were checking in we bumped into the Belgian couple and the Germans again – within 10 minutes we’d dropped our bags in our room and headed out for dinner at the German Cultural Centre then on to a bar in the main plaza.

On Tuesday, after our first lie in in a while we headed out to explore the city. We ate amazing spicy mondongo (a bit like spicy goulash) in the central market and wondered around the streets admiring the white washed colonial buildings. That afternoon we met up with the others from our hostel for coffee before the Germans left to catch a bus. That night we’d arranged to meet Joel (who we’d met in Paraty in Brazil a couple of months ago) and who had been living in Sucre for a couple of months. We all went out for dinner and sat in the bar playing dice – a nice change to cards.