After nearly 40 days in Chile, I said goodbye and started my journey into Bolivia by joining a 3 day tour accross the southern parts of Bolivia, including the Uyuni Salt Flats.After nearly 40 days in Chile, I said goodbye and started my journey into Bolivia by joining a 3 day tour accross the southern parts of Bolivia, including the Uyuni Salt Flats.

My friend Pascal had put me in touch with his friend Felipe in San Pedro De Atacama. Felipe is a local guide and, despite his busy schedule, he met me for lunch. He recommended that I do the trip with Cordeleria and even negotiated the price down for me!

Cordelería was clearly a good choice, the hostels we stayed along the way were warmer than the teeth shattering refuges I had heard from many people.
Although, at 14000+ feet altitute you are very cold still and I had put on my antarctica clothes before going to bed!

Already at the border crossing to Bolivia we are at 14,435 feet and are greeted by fantastic mountains. Our guide says “welcome to home to one of the highest capital!”. He omits that Bolivia is home to the three highest cities in the world which I would visit soon.

Along the way we visited volcano lakes, deserts, hot springs, lagunas home to thousands of flamingos, geysers and various natural volcanic lava pools, volcanic mountains, green valleys home to tiny villages and lamas, salt flats including the famous Uyuni salt flats. I added the link to the tour I took which details all the steps we visited:

http://www.cordilleratraveller.com/index.php/en/tours-a-uyuni-3/uyuni-salt-flat-4-days-3-nights

A FEW NOTES / FACTS:

1- I added the pictures of the Sol de Mañana Geysers: Whereas on the Chile side of the visit to geysers we were restricted in terms of how close we could get to steaming hot geysers or lava pools, in Bolivia we could walk right next to them and even occasionally had to jump accross them; so you really have to concentrate whilst walking. It’s no place for selfies or staring at phones whilst walking!

2- I loved swimming in the natural hot spring pools whilst admiring the beautiful mountains round us. I’m told that my GoPro camera is fully water proof so, I had it with me in the pool but still decided not to fully test it.

3- Altoug the altitute in Atacama was already over 8500 feet, getting to over 14000 in just a few hours was a challenge. I was lucky that the first day I had no headache and even found a great spot for my yoga mat at the hostel but after one hour on the mat, I was out of breath.

4- Pink Flamingos we saw are apparently are not born pink but they have this pink/orange colour because of the food they eat (mainly shrimp), the gorgeous lagunas they live smell really bad from nearby, I am told that they spend about 18 hr a day eating and they sleep on one leg only!

5- The rock formations that you see below are located in Siloli Desert and are created by wind erosion. I know the wind can be very powerful and have felt it first hand in my Antarctica run experience but still, it was amazing to see that it can be a great artist too; creating features/shapes that even the most skilled artists would struggle to make as perfectly.

PEOPLE:

I should pause here and tell you about my companions:

Our car was extra comfortable because there were only three passengers in the jeep instead of 6. Me and a lovely Brazillian couple Stephanie and Caetano. They were very friendly and I thought that their story was very romantic: Only a few months after meeting each other they realised that they wanted the same things in life and got married in Miami while Caetano was visiting Steph; they live in Brazil now and have already done lots travelling together. They’ve just received their visas to move to Canada together. I’m told that the next step after that would be Europe.

Our guide, Juan, was this lovely 55 years old Boliviano and, although he has been guiding for many years, he was enjoying the views as much we do and was eagerly taking photos in every spot. We were joking that he was either a first timer pretending to be experienced or just bought a new camera! He had great ideas for a pictures. The credit for our jumping photos and this photo where I face the rock (I think that the version where I successfully kiss the statute is still in Ceatano’s camera but for now I post the first one he attempted. My facial expresion is a curios one because I had only realised what he trying to do after I saw the shot; super clever!). He also took fascinating pictures whilst making us jump!

VISIT TO SALT FLATS AND NEGOTIATING MY 5 K RUN WITH JOSE:

Our final day, Juan agreed that we could get to the Uyuni Salt Flats for sunrise. For this we had to leave at 4:30 a.m.. I have certainly seen my share of great sunrises and sunsets during my big South America trip but this was just gorgeous, seeing the sun come up in the horizon of these endless looking salt flats was very moving. It was cold and we could still feel the altitute but we were all watching the sun come up in fascination.

I asked Juan whether I could go for a run and he said that he could think about it after the breakfast. For breakfast he drove us to the part of the salt flats that’s home to the cactus island. It’s a very small piece of land in the middle of this dried salt lake and home to giant cactus trees. It is certainly curious how it came to be in this dry salt lake. I had learned that most trees were well over a hundred years old. It made me wish to be as strong if I get to leave to that age!

After about 1 hour of exploring this island, I had a quick breakfast and agreed with Juan that I would run in the direction that he will drive later on and, instead of waiting for my return, they could drive and pick me up on their way. There was a small chance that I was not running in the direction Juan pointed so, after about 1 km I ran back and showed Ceatano the direction I was running in case it was wrong. Thankfully I did, I had found out later that Juan had meant the other direction!

The run was a bit more difficult than I expected, I was running out of breath frequently and my speed wasn’t certainly the normal 5 k speed. However, it was a very meditative run, I had this great sense of limitlessness because I was surrounded by endless looking salt flats. For a while, it felt like I was the only living thing on earth; it’s hard to describe that sense of calm and isolation. I was very happy and in my element. Reminded, yet again, how lucky I was that I could do this.

Aroundabout the 5 k mark our car caught up with me. Caetano took this amazing video. I was reluctant to get back in the car but Juan was not going to let me run another 5!

We spent the rest of the day visiting diffent parts of the salt flats. Our penaltimate stop before the entry into the Uyuni town was this train cemetery but we were more keen to head to the town for some well deserved but late lunch.

Ceatano and Steph were going to go back to San Pedro with another group but they had enough time to walk me to the bus stop with Caetano carrying my giant suitcase |(this giant bag has been painful but it introduced me to many kind strangers along the way who were happily offering to carry or pull it for me).

My next stops would be Potosi where I had visited a silver mine and the beautiful city Sucre.