Sucre

Day 1 – Getting to Sucre (Altitude 2,180 Metres)

Before I start,  this is not going to be the most interesting of reads as Shell and I have decided we wanted to take a break from enjoying ourselves and just to hole up in a nice Air BnB apartment in Sucre for a bit of recuperation and try to sort out our tech problems.

First though after yet another crap night’s sleep and a breakfast of bread and jam, we packed up and headed to reception where we were reliably informed by a tourist agency that we would be able to book a taxi to Sucre.  However, the receptionist thought otherwise and said he could only get us a taxi to take us to the bus station where we could find a shared taxi.

At the bus station,  at first we were told we should be at the other terminal, but after we finally got ourselves understood we were pointed round the back of the station where the shared taxi’s were.

We dragged our bags up the stairs and around the back of the terminal and were accosted by two young girls who wanted to know where we were going, when we said Sucre they grabbed our bags and briskly trotted/ran towards a car.  At the car,  Shell’s bag was loaded into the boot and then another irate woman came across and started shouting the odd’s.  Suddenly there were 5 people hanging onto my bag (myself included) whilst a melee irrupted, with lots of pushing and shoving.  Shell decided it was best if she grabbed her bag out of the back of the car and shouted at the people to stop.

Finally getting out bags under control we deduced that this cab had either jumped the queue or was an illegal cab, so we followed the elder (still irate woman) to another cab and it all started to calm down a bit, although the various women continued to have a heated debate by the side of the road.

Once in the shared cab we had an old local guy for company, but we learned that we still had to get one more person on-board before we set off.  We waited for a while but were keen to set off so in the end we agreed to pay for the extra seat, which to be honest made the back seats more comfortable for us and for a 2 hour taxi ride we thought that £15 was reasonable.  Although along the way Shell was feeling quite light-headed, maybe because of the increased oxygen as we descended in altitude for the first time.

The drive was pretty good and again it was pleasant to watch the scenery go past and soon we were entering the town of Sucre.  The driver drove round for a bit with the help of our phone sat-nav but couldn’t locate the address of our apartment, so we got him to drop us nearby.

Unfortunately, using the sat-nav system on foot, we still struggled to find the address and found ourselves walking up and down the same street with very odd street numbering.  Getting very frustrated and with Shell’s phone and sat-nav system just about to die, suddenly a women, Jacqueline, came up the road (the host) and found us and showed us to the apartment.

The apartment to our surprise was far better than the photo’s suggested. It was very large and spacious, with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large area and kitchen cum dinner and desk space.  It was all tastefully decorated with the bedrooms having parquet flooring and a little outside space with a utility room for laundry, all for £25 a night.

We were very happy with the apartment and after the woman had showed us around and we had unpacked we then headed out to the supermarket to get some provisions.

The supermarket was quite a way away and when we got there we were a bit disappointed with the food on offer.  We did the best we could to find stuff to make up a few meals and some breakfast materials, but thankfully they had the essentials….Water, Beer & red wine.

We struggled back to the apartment and found home in the kitchen for all our stuff before I set about trying to cure the PC problems, which meant a factory restore.  As the PC was barely working I bit the bullet and decided to reset it to the setting when it was first bought, which meant losing all my personal files (hopefully backed up) and any programs that had not be pre-installed.

Whilst that was taking its time to process and keeping my fingers crossed for the best I went to the kitchen to prepare my famous Chile Con Carne which took my mind off it.

In the evening,  it appeared that the reset had worked and the PC now had life, although it had got rid of the Microsoft Office suite which I use for the blogging, never mind we can re-build it!

After this revelation,  Shell and I sat down for some much looked forward Chile Con Carne and a couple of bottles of red wine, it was nice to be having some home cooked food and a place to relax for a bit.

Later during the evening whilst I was downloading a new copy of Microsoft Office we sat and relaxed in the living room and watched some TV, before heading to one of our bedrooms for the night.

Day 2 – More R&R Re-Building/Relaxing

After the best night’s sleep we have had for ages (no stupid breathlessness) we were able to get up in our own time, Shell appreciated being able to get up and go into the living room without disturbing me, we set about our tasks.

Whilst the PC was now operational I now spent the day completing the job by restoring files from back-up’s, adding missing programs, sorting out various program settings (ensuring it doesn’t down-load the dreaded memory killing Window’s 10 again), checking bank accounts and uploading photo’s from the camera/phone.

During this time and most likely to try and block out my expletives Shell spent her time cooking breakfast, doing all of our laundry and Cooking our evening meal.

At some point during the day the owner, Jacqueline, popped by to see how we were getting on and if there was anything we needed.  Shell and I had already discussed it and decided we wanted to stay here and recharge for longer. So after checking with her we booked and paid for three more nights which meant we were going to stay in Sucre for a week.

By the end of the afternoon I had got the PC to a point where I was happy with it, a much stripped back version of it, but the main thing was that it was ready for blogging and banking again.

 

Shell then dished up a nice dinner of meatballs and spaghetti which she had improvised and was very tasty, which went well with the red wine.

The evening was spent reclined on the sofa watching some British download’s before heading to bed, only to get up halfway through the night and swap bedrooms as we were being attacked by either a mosquito or a sand fly depending on who you want to believe!

Day 3 – Just R

It was now Wednesday and we hadn’t really stepped out of the place and today this was not going to change.

After another great night’s sleep (I’m actually getting lie ins!!) much of the day was spent trying to catch up with the blog and I even managed to sort some of our banking problems out, which should make things easier going forward.

Whilst I was doing this Shell was sorting out meals for the day, although she did also relax while streaming the latest UK dating programme, Naked Dating.  She was happily watching people’s genitals whilst I was blogging away, which was a bit disconcerting. Although I did take a few cheeky peeks when the ladies were on-screen.  I think Shell’s found a new favourite bit of junk TV!!

In the evening, we ate another of Shell’s inventions which was a Tuna and Olive spaghetti number which turned out well, also went very good with the wine!!

As we headed for the couch for the evening we were very excited to see that we could stream ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here’ (very sad I know, but nice), which we watched and got up to speed with before turning in for the night. Larry is a Legend!

Day 4 – Actually got out of the House!

Although we most probably would have stayed in all day again, we had found out that Jacob & Danielle (Laos & Australia fame) had arrived in Sucre the day before and so we had arranged to meet them later in the day.

So,  until we were meant to meet them we spent the morning taking turns in blogging, having breakfast (could have been my dodgy boiled eggs) and booking our flights to La Paz. We also found out what to do with our rubbish, which is to hang it on a wall down the road on the provided hooks (I guess it gets it out of the way of the street dogs).

Later in the afternoon we headed for the main square where we were going to meet Jacob and Danielle, along the way trying and failing to find a shop that sold loose tobacco (had to buy tailor made’s instead).

 

Getting there early,  we walked around for a bit taking photo’s and trying to locate a decent bar that we could go to when we met them, this was easier said than done.

Going back to the meeting point in the centre of the square we sat down on a bench where an old bloke tried to sell us some seeds to feed the pigeons with, realising that we were not going to be customers he settled for bumming a cigarette off us instead.  Shortly after Jacob and Danielle arrived and after a few hello’s we all headed to a nearby pub that we had found.

It was great catching up with them again after meeting them in Laos and then hooking up with them in Sydney.  We were surprised they were in town as they were on their final stint of their travelling as they were going home for Xmas and were darting all over the place.

We all sunk quite a few beers whilst chatting about various experiences we had all had and swapped tips on other places that we were going.  Us giving them some tips on Brazil whilst they gave us the low down on Peru where they had just been.  Also,  Jacob and I kept on having small conversations about football, but the girls were not having it!

 

The beers kept flowing and we took a few photos for the blog before calling it a night after apparently 16 beers (shared), we said our goodbyes and headed off home, picking up a fried chicken take-away on the way back.

Back at the apartment we tucked into our chicken & chips, which wasn’t too great as the chicken covering was more like a thick fish batter ((KFC it wasn’t). Whilst we ploughed through that we watched another couple of episodes of ‘’Celebrity’ before hitting the hay.

Day 5 – RRRRRRRRRR

Slightly jaded from the night before we spent the day sharing the blogging duties and catching up on the social networks and sending a few E-mails to friends and family.

During the afternoon,  we knew we had to go for some food supplies so we trooped back up to the supermarket to get some provisions, but to our horror the booze section was shut and we were told it would not open again until Monday!! (It was now Friday)

We picked up some food for our evening meals and headed back to the apartment where I continued to blog whilst Shell found another favourite and started to stream and watch ‘First dates’

In the evening, Shell started to cook a family size Spaghetti Bolognaise, which meant she could use up the horrible port like wine I had bought at a little store the day before.  Whilst she did that I went down the road to take some money out of the ATM and visit the little shop to get some better wine and restock the beer.  The women in there are getting quite friendly now, enjoying my pigeon Spanish and miming, whilst they try and speak a bit of English, I’m becoming one of their regulars I joke with them.

 

After Shell’s spag bol we then settled down again and watched some TV, including ‘celebrity’ for the rest of the night. Larry is still a legend!

Day 6 – Ventured Out again today!

Once again the day was pretty much dedicated to blogging, but this time Shell had got up early, whilst I had another lie-in and had tackled one of the larger blogs.

After breakfast and some blogging for most of the day we decided we had to go out later that afternoon to do a couple of chores.  Firstly, try and arrange an airport transfer for the Monday and secondly, try and find some loose tobacco.

 

Around 5 we headed to main square trying along the way to get the tobacco without much luck so we headed for an agency to try and sort out an airport transfer. Unfortunately, the girl that was trying to help us was pretty vague and quoted us a price that seemed a bit expensive so we decided to give it a miss.

Leaving the agency, we re-doubled our efforts to try and find tobacco and after an hour or so of trying to ask various stall holders we eventually found some, although I think we were ripped off and we were pretty sure the tobacco was going to be old and very dry.

We then thought that as it was Saturday night, we would go for a drink before we headed home, but once again we were walked around for quite a while until we found a bar that was open.  But at this bar it seemed strange that once we had got a beer out of the fridge the owner made us pour it into two mugs then wanted the bottle straight back.  Shell deduced that it was against the law to sell beer today (On a Saturday!!), but that did not stop us having a couple more mugs of beer before setting off for home.

 

On the way back we visited my new shop-friends to liberate a bottle of Red (they did not seem too concerned about the laws) before going back to the apartment to enjoy them with last nights spag bol.

For the rest of the night we settled in to watch some more ‘Celebrity’ – how do you think Danny Baker will do?-  followed by David Attenborough’s “Planet Earth II” -those snakes! -before bed.

Day 7 – Blogasuaras-Rex

The most exciting thing about this entry is that I’m actually typing it whilst being in the exact day, we have finally caught up!!

Today I mostly blogged, 11 days worth to be exact, whilst Shell cooked breakfast, did some washing and cleaning, watched some streamed TV and had a nap, lazy bitch (although she does get up about 3hrs earlier than I do!). The only problem being that we have hit the apartments data limit on the internet, with all our downloading, streaming and blogging, so we will have to use our own phone data to finish off….bloody liberty!!

In the early evening, I popped down to the local store to pick up my final purchases and say goodbye to my new friends, whilst Shell prepared dinner, which was pretty easy as we were finishing off her family sized Spag Bol. We are both fed-up with Pasta, but try buying decent veg and salad ingredients in Bolivia, we’ve yet to see a potato that hasn’t been chipped and frozen in a bag!

For the rest of the night it was a bit more ‘Celebrity’ and downloaded TV before our last nights sleep in this nice apartment.

As I am just about to post this blog, we are totally up to date and it is Monday 21^st morning. So in last nights  celebrity, Danny's upset Martin again, poor love!! We are just packing, cleaning up and preparing to get a taxi to the airport to take us to our next stop, La Paz!

Potosi

Day 1 – The Silver City (Altitude 4,090 Metres

Again, both of us had a very broken breathless night of sleep, we hope our imaginations calm down shortly. Fortunately, we were not in a rush this morning as we were told the coaches to Potosi run pretty much every half an hour, which meant we could pack and have a leisurely breakfast before heading for the bus station.

At the bus station, we were quickly accosted by a ticket seller and we purchased tickets for Potosi and then waited for the drivers to finish eating their breakfasts before loading our luggage and getting on to the coach.

Our next destination was Potosi,  is named the silver city and was founded in 1545 when the Spanish discovered silver in the hills and pretty soon the silver that was mined here was funding the Spanish empire and became one of the wealthiest cities of the America’s.  The silver is still being mined to this day.

The coach journey was shorter than the 5 hours we thought, at 3.5 hours it was a relatively short journey for us, although we didn’t realise it we were still climbing though (we may need some more of those Coca leaves).

Arriving in the city, we noticed that it is built on a sprawling hill so after checking our phone navigation system we decided against the 30 min 1km uphill walk to our hostel.  Instead I managed to get some change from a nearby shopkeeper and we caught a taxi up the hill to our hostel.

On checking in,  we found ourselves in a nice place where the rooms were all built around a central courtyard. Also,  once inside we found ourselves inside a lovely traditionally decorated spacious room, with en-suite, again for a very reasonable price.

 

After locking up our bags we then headed out to look at our surroundings, the town seemed very pretty with nice architecture.  It had a lovely plaza which was overlooked by a quite imposing cathedral.

There wasn’t too much open at this time of day, but after searching down a few back streets we found a couple of chairs and tables outside a café/pub.  The pub had a large mural of miners outside on the walls and as there was some pretty good music being played and it was now early afternoon we sat down and had a couple of drinks and got talking to the friendly barman.

 

An hour or two later we were getting cold because the bar was in the shade and there was a bit of wind building up, we decided to go back to the hostel.

 

We were also feeling a bit weary because of a lot of recent excursions and possible the effect of the altitude which made walking uphill somewhat tiring.  So back at the hostel Shell had an afternoon nap whilst I did some reading.

In the evening, we headed out to look for somewhere to eat.  As we entered the main square we heard the sound of a band, when we got there we saw and watched a sort of carnival procession of bands and dancers pass through the square.  We were not sure what it was all about but guessed in was the tail end of celebrations for their national day on the 10^th November.

 

From here we wandered around for a bit until I spied what looked like a very local restaurant with an open grill at the entrance, so we thought we would give it a go. Inside it was packed with locals and we seemed to be the only tourists in there, perfect!

Finding an empty table, we sat down and studied the menu and ordered a couple of things and a beer and coke.  However, when the food turned up I think we were just given the special, because Shell’s chicken she ordered did not look very chicken like and looked suspiciously like a pork chop.  I tried to explain the mistake to the waiter but he just said a few words and walked off, not to return anytime soon.

In the end,  we just ate what we were given which was pretty tasty anyway and very cheap.  Whilst we ate a busker came in, whilst not perfect we were still impressed that he played guitar and pan-pipes at the same time and did a bit of singing in between.

Once we had finished dinner still being a bit fatigued and ratty with one another we decided it was best to go back to the hostel to watch a bit of downloaded TV and have an early night.

Day 2 – Closed

Again,  we both didn’t get a very good night sleep, so after getting up we went for breakfast which was served in the courtyard.   The breakfast wasn’t so good though, basically just juice, coffee and bread rolls with jam.

After getting showered we headed out to do some touristy things.  The main attraction here was a visit to the silver mines, but we had read that you got to see the miners in atrocious working conditions and the mines themselves weren’t altogether safe, you had to sign a disclaimer to enter them.  Maybe it should be something you should witness to get an understanding, but Shell and I did not feel like seeing human suffering or pay to support it.

So, after checking with our guidebook, we saw that the museum was a top attraction so we headed there instead.  After finding the museum and purchasing tickets for the English guide we found that we had ¾ hour before the tour started so we went for a wander around the nearby streets.

 

We walked for a bit before finding another pretty church which was marked on our map before heading back to the museum via a local food market, which had very rank looking cuts of meat hanging from the stalls.

 

Waiting at the gates for our tour to start, there was a call for Spanish Speakers and then a call for French speakers, but not one for English speakers.  Heading back to the receptionist we were told there was no English tour today (I don’t think the guide had turned up from what I could gather), so we decided that we would give it a miss and get a refund.

So instead we headed for the large cathedral to have a look around that, but amazingly as it was Sunday, this seemed to be shut for the day.  At a bit of a loss what to do next we headed to the bar with the miner mural outside and ordered a drink.

 

 

Whilst sat there the owner came and introduced himself to us and explained that he was a former miner which explained the theme of his café/bar which also had old pictures of miners inside along with mining lamps and TNT explosive charges on the walls (we hope they were disarmed!!).  he also explained that he had invited the miners to his bar for free drinks and was in the process of setting up a foundation/charity for the miners and their children.

He was very interesting to speak to and had excellent English so we sat there and had a couple of beers whilst we spoke to him.

We were still not feeling 100% so in the afternoon we headed back to the hotel to relax, sleep and read before getting the energy to go out in the evening.

Consulting with trip advisor I found a nearby restaurant which had the highest ratings although it said it was a bit shabby and the food took a long time as it was a one man band.  When we arrived, we found that it was empty and pretty much as billed, the owner came over and was very friendly and chatty, although we were slightly concerned by the state of his food stained jumper.

Having read the reviews people had raved about the spinach soup so we ordered two of those and then for the second course I thought it was time to check out the llama steak, whilst Shell just plumped for the beef steak.  As we were sitting there we noticed that the heating was a bit basic, a gas bottle with a heating element attached to the nozzle, we were quite happy when a few more people came into the restaurant and sat next to it, a bit of blast protection!

A few more people came into the place so we were glad that we had got our orders in early and when it came the Spinach soup was indeed lovely (apparently all the food here is organic and home grown)..  The second course came up and I must say the llama was interesting (pretty OK), although not having had it before I couldn’t tell if it had been spiced or that was just the way it tasted.

Pretty happy with the food we had we then paid and headed back to the miner bar for one final beer before going back to the hostel for the night.

Bolivia - Uyuni

Day 1 – Getting to Bolivia – Uyuni – altitude 3,656mtrs

Despite internet connections, PC issues and general tardiness I am proud to say we have now completed one year of blogging and I feel like Adrian Mole aged 47 3/4.  I hope that some of you are still reading and it has been worth the hard work!

Getting up at 5.30 and managing to get a coffee from the reception area we then packed up our gear and Shell phoned the bank to see if we could sort our blocked cash card.   After relating the story three times and getting cut off three times, the bank were still not helpful and we are still down to the one cash card.

We were picked up by a mini-bus around 7.00 and driven around town where we picked up a few other people including a German guy who wanted to chat to us quite a lot.  Just outside town we stopped by the side of the road and we were not sure what was happening as we knew all about the government strikes so we were concerned the boarder control was not open.

The driver then got us all to get out of the van and he prepared a breakfast out of the back of the van, coffee, juice and nice hard roll’s with ham and cheese as usual.  Whilst we were stood there a young Swiss girl joined us and related her story of being ill for the last 9 days, having a few hospital visits and scan whilst her travel party had moved on.  She was not very happy and was scared to eat anything. She also said that everyone that goes to Bolivia & Peru gets ill at some point, which is something to look forward too!!

As it turned out we were just waiting for the boarder control to open and it seemed that our driver had got us there early to ensure we were first in the queue.  He ushered us over to the office as quick as he could and we then got an outgoing stamp in our passport before getting back on the minibus and heading for Bolivia.

Driving towards the Volcano’s and up the mountains for around half an hour we soon found ourselves pulling into a car park next to a very basic looking stone building, this was the Bolivian boarder control.

Quickly , we got ourselves to the back of the building and queued up in order to get our passport stamped for Bolivia (We love getting new stamps) and then had to hang around for a while whilst the minibus driver sorted out our 4x4 transport for the rest of the journey (8 hours in total).

Transferring our bags from the minibus to a 4x4 and being joined by one more passenger (a local lady) we then sat there for another ¾ hour, not sure why, I think the driver was just chin wagging with his mates. Although we were pretty happy that there were only three of us in the jeep so we had quite a bit of space and we arranged it so the local lady was in the front seat so she could chat to our driver.

At last we were on our way and making our first tracks into Bolivia and as we drove along, the mountain scenery was pretty amazing.  Soon we found ourselves climbing higher and higher and Shell caught sight of the driver bringing out a bag of Coca leaves which he started chewing (apparently, it helps alleviate altitude sickness). Shell politely asked if we could have some (well I should say she pointed and smiled!) and soon we too were chewing these leaves, not too bad just a bit bitter, we hoped it would do the trick.

An hour later and we pulled to a stop where we had to pay and entrance fee to the national park as we were travelling through it on our way to the town of Uyuni, our final destination.  A quick toilet stop later and we were on our way again.

The roads were very bumpy, rocky, dusty tracks but the scenery was great, passing through volcano/mountain ranges, salt flats and lakes.  It was just a shame that we were not stopping anywhere to take some pictures, instead just trying to get a few shots through the jeeps tinted windows.

It seemed we had been driving for ages and were looking forward to the lunch stop we had been promised.  As it past 12 & 1 o’clock and passing through a couple of small villages we got the impression that lunch was not going to happen, so we broke out the emergency biscuits we had in our day sacks.

Sometime after 2.30 we did actually stop in a dusty one horse town for a refreshment break (this made me slightly concerned about the town we were heading for).  We were given ½ hour to find something to eat, however we could not see anything worthwhile getting so we just settled for a toilet break.  The public toilets had an attendant that wanted a few coins, as we only had notes and no change he eventually allowed us in for free, which was much more than these conveniences were worth!!

One thing about this town was that it was our first experience of the traditional local Bolivian women, fairly rotund, short, with long double plats running down their backs.  The dress consisted of very large multi-layered skirts, a shirts, very wrinkled stockings topped off with a bowler hat perched on their heads . It did now feel that we were now in South America.

Asking the driver how much longer it was to Uyuni we were informed it was only an hour and twenty minutes away, so for the rest of the journey we just read and watched as the scenery change. 

Arriving in Uyuni (3,656 Metres) it appeared to be a more bustling busy tourist town and when the driver tried to drop us off at our hostel there was a market taking place in the road we needed so he dropped us off around the corner and we had to negotiate the stalls with our bags to get to our hostel.

 

 

We were quite pleased to be in Bolivia as we heard it was vastly cheaper than Chile and after Australia, New Zealand, Chile and Brexit our budget could do with some relief.  On checking in we noticed a label on the wall that translated as oxygen which was interesting, but we thought nothing of it. 

The room itself was ½ the price of what we had been paying in Chile and was fairly comfortable, so hopefully using this as an indicator it looks as though the standard of accommodation is going to be better too.

Once unpacked,  we headed into town to do a few usual tasks when we get to a new country, get some local currency and try and get a local SIM card, the latter being a bit more tricky. We had to do a bit of miming and bad Spanish before waiting for the shopkeeper to rub off ten scratch cards and load the credit one by one onto the phone and then set up the internet for us.

 

 

After these jobs were done we then had to find the agency where we had provisionally booked a trip for the next day, although on our way through town we had been offered it for a cheaper price.  We spoke to the lady in the agency explaining this and she agreed to do it for the same price, saving us a tenner, but everything counts!

Jobs done we sat outside a café and got our hands on our first Bolivian beers (which were more expensive than expected).  We sat there for an hour or so people watching, especially looking out for the ladies in the traditional dresses and bowler hats.  It was also evident that there were loads of tourists here to end/start their four day 4x4 trip. We had opted against this as we had already seen enough, desert, volcano’s, geysers and lagoons already.

 

 

Now relaxed,  we headed back to the hostel where we chilled for a bit whilst checking the internet to see if we could find somewhere to eat.  A lot of the reviews mentioned food poisoning and after listening to the Swiss girl in the morning we decided to head to a local bar that did hamburgers.

 

The bar was pretty funky but quite quiet (I think we were early), so we had some fairly decent burgers and a drink, but as it has been a pretty long day, we headed back to the hostel to watch a bit of TV and have an early night.

Day 2 – Breathless/Salt Flats

Even though we had a comfortable room neither of us had a good night sleep.  We both woke at various points in the night very breathless and trying to suck in air, wondering if we were having heart attacks or panic attacks, eventually putting it down to altitude (at one point I considered going down to reception to get the advertised oxygen).  We are still not sure whether it was down to the altitude or just in our heads as we had heard a lot of travellers talking about this issue along the way. Interestingly though, we only realised each other was going through the same thing when we spoke about it in the morning.

Anyway, after a broken night sleep, we headed down to breakfast which was pretty decent and had an eggs option, which Shell had read was not the norm in Bolivia.  We even had the option of Coca leaves tea for the altitude, so we thought we would try a cup just in case it helped.

As our trip, for once, started at the decent hour of 10.30 we headed to the main square where we sat and took some surreptitious pictures of the bowler hatted ladies passing through.  We then headed to the agency and waited for the trip to start and got chatting to a nice Australian honeymooning couple who were booked on the same trip.

 

After being introduced to our guide (very little English) six of us piled into a jeep, the Australians, a couple of locals and us and we were off to the first attraction of the trip which was apparently a train graveyard!!

The graveyard was only about 15 minutes out of town and we were soon pulling into a car park packed with tourists.  Although we had our reservations about this stop it was pretty cool and made for some good photos.

 

We were give ½ hour to wander around and clamber over loads of really old rusting engines and carriages.  Some of them were very interesting and had graffiti over them, it struck me that it would be a really good location for a music video.

 

Back in the 4x4 our next stop was a little village which was basically a tourist trap with a long row of stall selling, Bolivian blankets, bags, souvenir’s made of salt and plastic dinosaurs?!  We had a quick browse before heading for the salt museum which proclaimed to have the world’s biggest  llama.  The museum was tiny and the llama (which I presumed would be stuffed) turned out to be a dodgy looking salt sculpture of a llama, it would have been worth a photo for comedy value if they were not charging for it.  The museum had a few of these salt sculptures and some very iffy looking taxidermy and took all of 2 minutes to look round, luckily entrance was free.

Going back to the jeep,  we then were taken out on to the salt flat proper, which is the largest salt flats in the world.  After travelling over this mad landscape for a while (white as far as the eye can see) we then stopped and got out where there were small pyramids of salt that had been scraped up ready for collection.  Shell quickly jumped on top of one of these for a photo op, before being told off by the driver (not the done thing apparently). So we then took some time getting some photo’s, although this was easier said than done with the sun and white all around making you practically snow blind (well me because I wasn’t packing sunglasses!)

 

Once the photo’s were in the bag,  we were then heading off to lunch and we pulled up to a building, literally in the middle of this vast dessert, which had been constructed of salt and was where we were going to have our lunch.

 

 

We were given half an hour to walk around and get some photo’s whilst the driver prepared our lunch.  It’s really hard to express how alien and vast the landscape is.  I had been to a salt flat before but in was nothing compared to what we were looking at today.

After wandering around for a bit getting lots of white photo’s we entered the salt building and found our guide who sat us down on a salt sculptured table and chairs and then presented us with a fairly decent lunch of meat chops, rice and salad. If you had wanted any salt for your food,  all you had to do was bend down and pick some off the floor.

 

Lunch done,  we were on the road/salt again and we were enjoying chatting to the Australian couple, swapping travelling tip and stories of woe concerning loss of cash/credit cards.  After a while we then pulled up in what may or may not have been the centre of the salt flat.

 

 

It was now time for some fun and the driver who,  up until now had been pretty monosyllabic, suddenly came to life and was very excited by what we were doing.  It was time to do some perspective photo’s in this unique landscape, we now understood what the plastic dinosaurs were for as the driver positioned us in various poses whilst he took pictures on all our camera’s.

As I said,  the driver was really into this and kept on getting us to try various different things to get some really great photo’s and he was pretty much a perfectionist trying to get the best shots he could.

 

Whilst the driver was doing some shots with the local ladies, ourselves and the Oz couple tried to come up with some of our own idea’s.  Shell (project manager mode) and the Oz  girl (dance instructor) suddenly becoming art directors, thinking up the idea’s and making them happen!

 

In honesty, you could have spent the rest of the day coming up with idea’s but we had to move on to the next location which was called Isla Incahuasi.

 

 

We drove for another ½ an hour and I must have been having a bit of a blonde moment as I was expecting to have to get a boat across to this island (in a salt desert!!).  What we stopped at was a large rocky outcrop in the middle of this white wilderness.

Climbing out of the jeep we then headed to the office where we had to pay a small entrance fee to walk around this site.  The great thing about this place was that ‘the island’ was totally covered in large cowboy style cactuses with the odd llama wandering through them.

 

You could take a little hike around the place to the top where you had a view over the whole of the salt flat with the mountains fringing it.  Due I think to the altitude (I think) the walk did take your breath away a bit, but not as much as the incredible surreal scenery that we were lucky enough to be seeing.

 

Having taken enough pictures of cactuses, whiteness and with the salt in the air seeming to dry us out and preserve us we thought we would bite the bullet and get a beer at the onsite refreshment kiosk, amazingly the beer was cheaper than in town.

Shortly, we were joined by the Australian couple who had had the same idea, so we sat drinking cold beers in the shade whilst waiting for the time to leave.  Only a brief minute when I spotted some nearby llama’s posing for some photos separated me from that beer.

 

It was now getting late in the afternoon and we were headed for our final stop of the day which was a sunset on the salt flats.  As we waited for the sun to drop to try and get the best photos of the hexagonal landscape, the driver was seen in the distance creating some yellow salt!

 

We took a load of photo’s as the sun hit the horizon before getting back in the jeep and heading back to town.  The trip was one of the most interesting ones we had done for a while and we decided with the Aussie couple that this would have been the highlight of the 4 day trip had we chosen to do it (this was later confirmed by some other friends we had met on our travels).

 

Back in town we went back and dumped our stuff in our hostel and headed to the square to have some drinks and then some food at a nearby restaurant.  Again, we were being cautious, so just decided on having some pasta dishes and a beer, before returning to the hostel for another relatively early night.