Bolivia – te Espera

The Altiplano Plateau is covering the west part of Bolivia with an average altitude of 3750 masl. The name itself comes from Spanish and means “the high plain”. Our 3-day adventure, which we started in Uyuni, also included visiting deserts, lagoons, gaysers and volcanoes.

After the day full of wonders at Salar de Uyuni, the biggest salt flat in the world, we thought that the highlight of the trip is already behind us. Were we right?

Martian landscape and local flora

After a breakfast in the salt hotel, we had to put our luggage on the roof of the car. Than, we set off for a ride across the spectacular, bolivian deserts. The ladscapes behind the window reminded us a bit of NASA pictures from the latest mission to Mars. Volcanoes were towering in the distance and the vast, red plains were covering the area all the way to the horizont. Our guide/driver was well prepared and told us some stories about the difficulties of the living in such harsh conditions and how animals and plants try to overcome them. The moss, for example, stood out brightly green among the redish sand. It grows very slowly and resembles a rock more than a plant.

Bolivian Volcanoes

Flora of the Altiplano

Altiplano Plateau

Hundreds of flamingos and colourful lagoons

Later, we arrived to the area where we could find numerous lakes inhabited by flamingos. It was our first time to see these birds in their natural environment and we were impressed by their beauty. First, at the Laguna Cañapa, we could not stop taking pictures. The water was coloured with different shades as well. It was the first lake out of the four in the area. After a short drive, we arrived to Laguna Hedionda. There were even more flamingos there! While we were walking along the shore we could not believe how lucky we were to be in such a marvelous place. We had a lunch just by the lake as well, prepared by the guide.

Flamingo Paradise

Landscapes of Altiplano

Cañapa lagoon

3 2 1 Fly!

Laguna Hedionda

Such a joyful moment!

Wild flamingos up close

Home to the flamingos

Flamingos searching for food

Andean fox and viscachas up close

Further South, we stopped at Laguna Honada, which had a particular, very pale colour. This day on our way across Altiplano Plateau we were driving as high as 5000 m masl! We came across some of the local mammals. We saw the andean fox and some viscachas – a sweet, furry rabbit-like creatures. We passed through some spectacular landscapes, colourful rocks and also visited the Siloli desert.

jumping up the rocks

Andean Fox

Sweet Viscacha

Laguna Honda

Siloli Desert

The Rock Tree

There’s this one spot, where the sand and the water carved the rock to create an extraordinary fomation known as the Rock Tree. It stands in the middle of the dry plains and looks unearthly.

The Stone Tree

Laguna Colorada

Finally, we made it to the Eduardo Alvaroa National Park, where we had to pay 160 BOB each for the entry, which is around 22 USD. That is very expensive for Bolivia. Right before the entry, we stopped at the most beautiful view point that we saw this day. Who knows, maybe the view was even better then the ones we saw at Salar de Uyuni. I leave it up to you to decide. Down below, we could see Laguna Colorada – The Red Lake in its full glory. It is located at 4278 masl and covers 60 square kilometers.

What makes the lake so picturesque are algies feasting on rich mineral waters, full of sodium and magnesium. As a result, the water is coloured in various shades of red. It is a magnificent thing to see.

We just froze with our mouths wide open staring at the sensational view in front of us. Finally, we overcame the spell and started taking some pictures. Than we drove straight to the second-night acommodation. The evening was very cold with temperatures dropping below 0° celcius. There was no heating in the building, so it is worth it to take your own, warm sleeping-bag with you.

Such an impressive landscape

Busy street crossing

Fluffy Alpacas

Laguna Colorada

Morning full of gaysers

The third day started very early for us. The wake up call and breakfast were before the dusk and at 5:00 am we departured towards the geothermal area. For the sunrise, we made it to the “Sol de Mañana” (Morning Sun) geysers. The mud pools were bubbling and the steam was comming from the cracks in the ground. There was a strong sulphur smell around and the sun was rising slowly bringing us a little bit of long awaited warmth. Then, we headed to the hot springs, where we could finally warm ourselves up. The pools were not big and there were quite a few cars around. Anyways, it was great to jump into 45° C water when the air around was 40° C cooler.

Thermal pools

Geyser sunrise

Geothermal activity fun

So worm and so nice

Hot Spring in Bolivia

One step away from Chile

Next, we drove across Salvador Dali‘s desert. The artist himself had never been to the area at all, but the landscapes resembles his surrealistic paintings.The last stop of our 3-day tour was the Laguna Verde. Unfortunatelly, it turned out that you can see the green colour only in the afternoon sun. Behind the lak,e we could see the Licancabu volcano, 5960 masl high and on its other side there was a new country – Chile waiting for us.

Licancabur Volcano and Laguna Verde

You can finish the tour by the chilean border

At 9:00 am we were dropped at the borde where after the passport check and paying the small fee for the stamp we boarded the shuttlebus. It took us directly to San Pedro de Atacama. It was all arranged back in Uyuni while we did the booking for the tour. Three day trip turned out to last less than 48 hours because ot started at 11:00 am the 1st day and finished at 9 am, on 3rd day. If we chose to come back to Uyuni we would be back in town  around 5:00 pm.

But first, coffee!

Luckily for us, at 1:00 pm were were sipping iced coffe at the main square of San Pedro recalling the incredible trip that had just finished. Here, more than 1500m lower than Altiplano, it was pleasantly warm. The sunny weather, after the harsh mountain-climat, remided us of Huacachina Oasis in Peru where we had been relaxing 3 weeks earlier.

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Uyuni – the small town in the middle of nowhere

We got to the small town of Uyuni at around 6:00 am.  The nights on the Altipiano plateau are incredibly cold so we felt very happy we could check in to our hostel that early in the morning. We even got to eat breakfast altough we had a reservation only for one night. That day we decided to rest and look for the best agency to set off with on a 3-day tour around Salar de Uyuni and to the Eduardo Avaroa National Park.

Andes Salt Expeditions

We checked every agency that was well-rated on tripadvisor. All of them had the availability to join the tour the very next day. You could always ask for an English-guided tour, but the cost was automatically much higher, by 80-100USD, so we decided to take a tour with a Spanish guide. After careful consideration, we booked our tour with the Andes Salt Expeditions for 700 BOB which would be around 100$.

We made sure our agency had a guide that would be willing to help us take some really good photographs with the forced perspective. It was also important that he would have some funny items with him in the car, like a dinosaur or a pringles box. We checked if we could finish the tour by the border with Chile, next to the Atamaca desert. The price was an important aspect, as well.

Salt Expeditions Tour

Just a few tips

Don’t forget to take with you:

• some warm layers of clothing,
• sunglasses,
• lip balm.

Although the sun is very strong, shining not only from the top but also reflecting from the salt, the temperature drops drastically at night, below 0° C. Your lips get dry very quickly and you’re more likely to get sunburnt.

Bolivian Sun

Let the bolivian adventure begin

The next day, at 11:00 am, we met the rest of our group in front of the agency we chose. We had a really lovely team, a couple from England and Denmark and two ladies, one from France and the other from Switzerland. Our luggage was put on the roof of the car and we were ready to set off for a new adventure. We were pleasantly surprised how spacious our jeep was. Very comfortable!

The visit to the train cemetery

The train cemetery was the first stop of our escapade. This region was an important mining area in the past but nowadays it’s mostly living off the tourist industry so the rusting trains are now useless. We were able to climb to the top of the locomotives and the wagons and we felt like we were on a set of an postapocalyptic movie. Quite an interesting place!

Train cemetery

Straight from MadMAx

This train won't get you anywhere Mike!

Wiola is on her way to the Salar

Train graveyard

World’s biggest salt flat

Next, we drove towards Salar the Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat located at 3653m asl with the acreage of 10,582 square kilometers. Undoubtedly, it’s the most popular tourist attraction in Bolivia. We felt extremely excited about visitig this white, salty paradise and having the possibility to play with some interesting photohraphs.

The Salar was formed as a result of transformations between several prehistoric lakes. It is covered by a few meters of salt crust, which has an extraordinary flatness with the average elevation variations within one meter over the entire area of the Salar.

Salar the Uyuni, in the wet season, changes into one big water pond that creates an amazing mirror-effect. In dry season, for a change, you can notice the hexagonal pattern covering the whole area. Bolivia is also a place where the Dakar Race takes place. Because of that, there’s a huge logo of the race carved in the stone just outside of the Hotel made from salt, where we stopped for a lunch break.

Vicuñas roaming around Altiplano

Dakar Race, Bolivia

Yay Salar de Uyuni!

Dakar Race Flags

Ready for Bolivian off-road!

Foreced perspective Photoshoot

Finally, our driver took us to the remote area where we could take some fun photos with the forced perspective. Fortunately, our driver not only had a plastic dinosaur with him in the car, but also many more items we could use in our shots. He was our main Photographer and he took some group shots, as well. One of our favourite idea was to use a pot, so it looks like Wiola is ready to do some serious cooking. We also had to escape from the huge dinosaur or keep the pringles box so it would’t smash us. Later on, we still had some time to use our own imagination to create some intersting snaps. The optical illusion was also used on the set of Lord of the Rings Movie and we could learn about it while visiting Hobbiton. It’s a bit easier to take such pictures with the wide angle cameras, then you don’t have to walk away so far to have the same effect. We were happy with the results of our GoPro 5 yet our guide said the best photos come with the use of Iphones, because you can put the lense really close to the ground.

Having fun at Salar de Uyuni

Forced perspective Salar de Uyuni

Biggest saltflat on the planet

Look what I cooked up!

Escaping from the dinosaur

Cactus Island

Our next stop and a scheduled destination was the island full of cactus. We had about an hour there so we decided to use it for some more Photography fun. The landscape was truly breathtaking. It was hard to say if we were still on earth! At least the one we knew so well before visiting the world’s largest salt flat!

Fight Night at Salar de Uyuni

Cactus island

Relaxing on the Salar de Uyuni

Goodbye Salar de Uyuni

At the end of the day, we stopped to marvel at a sunset, somewhere on the egde of the desert. Then, we checked in a hotel that was made entirely from the salt. The beds, chairs, tables were all salt blocks. After waiting for our dinner we could feel we are sitting on a rock. We all fell asleep pretty fast, ready for some more adventures in the next 2 days.

Sunset on salt flat

Salt Hotel

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Puno – City by the lake Titicaca

After a visit to the White City of Arequipa, we headed towards Bolivia. On the border of Peru and Bolivia, there is the largest lake in South America – Titicaca. We decided to stay for a while on the peruvian side of the lake, in Puno. The town itself is not very attractive, but by pure luck, we ended up in the middle of the festival. The streets were crowded with dancers and instumentalists. The parade was in the full swing and one colourful group after another was  marching across the main square – Plaza de Armas. The music and dancing took over the city.

Local delicacies

We found a fantastic place to eat, a cevicheria called Las Mareas. Restaurants like this one specialize in the national delicatessy – ceviche. The place was full of locals and the food was affordable and amazing. We felt in love with this special, peruvian way of preparing fish during our first few days in Peru while staying in Lima. In the evenings, the streets of Puno turned into a market and fruit and vegetable were sold from the piles, on the street. The traditional snacks in this area are quinoa crispy pancakes with honey. You can get them for 1csol (0,3$), what a treat!

Night market in Puno

Festive time in Puno

Time for celebration!

Snack Time, Puno, Peru

The Uros Islands

This side of the Titicaca Lake is famous due to peculiar, floating grass islands called Uros. People who live there are descendents of the tribe that long ago escaped to the lake from the expanding Inca Empire. Today, they speak their own unique language, different from quechua. During our trip, we navigated among hundreds of floating islands with grass huts build atop.

Uros Floating Islands

Everyday life of the islanders

After cruising around for a while, we made a stop on one of the islands. We were welcomed by the colourfully dressed locals. Each island is inhabitated by a few families and each one has its own president. On the island that we visited, this honour was held by a middle-aged lady. She told us some stories about everyday life on the island and how they were build. They usually spend time maintaining the islands’ construction and fishing. Later on the dried fish is traded for fruit and vegetable, in Puno. Women are often busy making traditional clothes. They are often decorated with the scenes from the local mithologhy, where Mother Earth plays the biggest part.

One island can be visited not more often than twice a week. There is some controversy around it and some tourists see theses visits as a “human zoo”. We absolutly loved our stay and we felt the citizens of Uros really wanted to share their culture and experiences with us.

the citizens of Uros

Floating Islands on Lake Titicaca

Day trip to Uros Islands

Arts & Crafts session

Uros Island floating away towards… Bolivia

The traditional mean of transport are the boats made entirely from grass. You need to pay 10 soles for a ride. The locals told us that they need money to buy medicine, educate thair children and buy ropes, otherwise they are going to float away to Bolivia. We belived them because we saw how modest their lives are. This tiny bit of luxury – a radio powered by the solar battery, did not changed our impressions. We felt like we were visiting a totally different civilization.

Uros Islands

Lake Titicaca and the locals

Living in a hut

Peru to Bolivia by bus

The next day, we left for Bolivia. The bus took us to the border, where we had to disembark and walk through the control points. It was not long and soon enough we were in a whole new country. The bus continued to Copacabana on the shore of the Lake Titicaca. The town was very small and, although we had only an hour to walk around (because we had to catch a bus to La Paz), we were satisfied with what we saw. We walked by the beach and had some amazing coffee at the irish cafe called El Condor.

A brief stop in La Paz

On our way to La Paz we had a ferry crossing. The bus could bearly fit on a barge and we were transported seperetly on a small boat. We made it safely across but it all felt a bit dangerous. La Paz is wonderfully located in a basin, surrounded by mountains, but the closer we got the less atractive it became. We heard  it is a bit dodgy and unsafe city, so we only planned a quick transfer at the bus terminal. After 2 hours of waiting, we departured onboard the night bus towards Uyuni. New exciting and incredible places were waiting us not far away!

Crossing the border

Ferry ride in Bolivia

La Paz, Bolivia

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