Bolivia Tour
After an hour ride we entered into a freezing cold Bolivia. Pretty much all of Bolivia is at a super high elevation. Right away everybody slipped on their warm clothes, ate breakfast and checked into Bolivia. The first day was almost all sightseeing lagunas. Each laguna had its own distinct characteristic about it. Usually each one was characterized by a unique colour. Some of them even had some flamingos chilling in them. After seeing many different coloured lagunas we jumped in the thermal hot springs. That was a nice break from the bumpy jeep ride. We got to relax in a nice hot spring with a beautiful view of the mountains. What better to cap off hot springs then to check out the geysers. These were several wholes in the ground of bubbling mud bogs that were tons of different colours. They were super cool to watch. You could also see hot steam coming out of the ground. The whole place stunk like sulphur of course. People were kicking rocks into the bogs to watch it explode mud and others were pretending to push their friends in. I tried to get a photo of me farting from the ground using the steam spray but it didn´t really work. Gotta use any chance I can get…
That night we had a very humble dinner and went to bed very early because we had an early day ahead of us. But oh man was it cold. I had four crappy blankets and all my clothes and I was still freezing cold. I had to take my sleeping bag sleep in that with everything I mentioned before and warm up in the fetal position. Ya, I had a great night of sleep, haha. I found out the next day that the temperature was -20 in a hostel that had no heat and had bird´s nest for insulation. Ya, that´s why I came to South America, for minus 20 degree weather.
After barely surviving the night before we were off to see some flamingos! And buy some I mean thousands. We went to Laguna Colorado and saw so many flamingos. I was seeing pink everywhere. So after we got some good photos of the whole lake and some good close ups Matt and I decided to make them fly. Rocks would scare a few of them but it wouldn´t really do the trick. So I decided to charge a big group of them. That got em going. You have to go straight to the source to get what you want.
After all that running we headed to the famous petrified tree. It is a rock that looks just like a tree in the middle of the desert. It is surrounded by many other super large rocks. Everybody climbed the rocks, some hurt themselves and everybody had a good time. We then headed up to the highest elevation point in the tour. 5,000m! Whoo, it was getting harder to breath. From this point we got a great view of the surrounding mountains. From there was a long ride to our hostel made out of salt. Not completely salt but the majority is. The walls were hardened salt and the ground was covered with salt rocks. It was quite the unique hostel and we never ran out of that one condiment which was nice.
The last day was the day we finally hit the salt flats. This is the largest salt flats in the world. It used to be a giant lake but it dried up into a giant salt flat. You don´t have to go far before you see salt for miles and miles and all you can see on the horizon is the surrounding mountains. We hit a less touristy island in the middle of the salt flats where we actually saw a funny looking rabbit that kind of looked like a squirrel. We also saw some funny looking cactuses, but hey, which cactuses don´t look funny looking? We then hit the hotel in the middle of the salt flats so everyone could take there wacky photos. The big appeal of the salt flats is you can´t tell depth perception. Picture a desert of sheer white as far as you could see. You can´t see any reference points so you can´t tell how far someone is. That´s where the fun begins. We took photos of us eating eachother, surfing coke bottles, using the jeep we were driving in as a toy car and many more funnier ones. You´ll have to stay tuned for the photos when I get back but they are hilarious. We didn´t get enough time in the salt flats because our tour guide was a bit of a Dbag but we complained and got another solid hour in the salt flats after.
Later, we arrived in Uyuni had some dinner and jumped on a bus to Potosi. This was my first experience on a Bolivia bus and what a start it was…
That night we had a very humble dinner and went to bed very early because we had an early day ahead of us. But oh man was it cold. I had four crappy blankets and all my clothes and I was still freezing cold. I had to take my sleeping bag sleep in that with everything I mentioned before and warm up in the fetal position. Ya, I had a great night of sleep, haha. I found out the next day that the temperature was -20 in a hostel that had no heat and had bird´s nest for insulation. Ya, that´s why I came to South America, for minus 20 degree weather.
After barely surviving the night before we were off to see some flamingos! And buy some I mean thousands. We went to Laguna Colorado and saw so many flamingos. I was seeing pink everywhere. So after we got some good photos of the whole lake and some good close ups Matt and I decided to make them fly. Rocks would scare a few of them but it wouldn´t really do the trick. So I decided to charge a big group of them. That got em going. You have to go straight to the source to get what you want.
After all that running we headed to the famous petrified tree. It is a rock that looks just like a tree in the middle of the desert. It is surrounded by many other super large rocks. Everybody climbed the rocks, some hurt themselves and everybody had a good time. We then headed up to the highest elevation point in the tour. 5,000m! Whoo, it was getting harder to breath. From this point we got a great view of the surrounding mountains. From there was a long ride to our hostel made out of salt. Not completely salt but the majority is. The walls were hardened salt and the ground was covered with salt rocks. It was quite the unique hostel and we never ran out of that one condiment which was nice.
The last day was the day we finally hit the salt flats. This is the largest salt flats in the world. It used to be a giant lake but it dried up into a giant salt flat. You don´t have to go far before you see salt for miles and miles and all you can see on the horizon is the surrounding mountains. We hit a less touristy island in the middle of the salt flats where we actually saw a funny looking rabbit that kind of looked like a squirrel. We also saw some funny looking cactuses, but hey, which cactuses don´t look funny looking? We then hit the hotel in the middle of the salt flats so everyone could take there wacky photos. The big appeal of the salt flats is you can´t tell depth perception. Picture a desert of sheer white as far as you could see. You can´t see any reference points so you can´t tell how far someone is. That´s where the fun begins. We took photos of us eating eachother, surfing coke bottles, using the jeep we were driving in as a toy car and many more funnier ones. You´ll have to stay tuned for the photos when I get back but they are hilarious. We didn´t get enough time in the salt flats because our tour guide was a bit of a Dbag but we complained and got another solid hour in the salt flats after.
Later, we arrived in Uyuni had some dinner and jumped on a bus to Potosi. This was my first experience on a Bolivia bus and what a start it was…
posted by Kean @ 1:41 PM
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