twelve countries twelve months

We could almost taste the thick juicy steaks and fine red wine of Argentina, but we weren´t quite done with Bolivia yet.  We had one last thing we wanted to do, and it turned out to be a highlight, not only of Bolivia, but of our entire trip.  We joined forces with some new friends from all around the world: New Zealand, Israel, Harlow and Stansted, and spent four days in a jeep touring the rural south-west corner of Bolivia.  The landscape lord threw everything he had at us: rocky canyons, baron deserts, green lakes, red lakes, toxic lakes, natural hot springs, bubbling mud geysers, smoking volcanos and even a glimpse of a tornado, until we reached the highlight – the vast salt flats of the Salar de Uyuni.

Our drivers were amazing, driving for up to eight hours each day, through sometimes featureless landscape, without getting lost.  They didn´t even get angry when we asked them to drive for an extra three hours on the first day, although they got their own back by serving us dinner at almost midnight following a long period of strange hammering sounds in the kitchen!  They even kept us moving on the day of the Bolivian general election, when no-one was meant to travel at all.  We did have to get up really early and drive off-road over a railway to avoid the police check points!

The Salar de Uyuni was formed when Lago Ballivián dried up 40,000 years ago and is now the largest salt flats in the world at 12,000 km².  It is estimated to contain ten billion tons of salt, of which 25,000 are extracted each year.  None of this is exported though- which doesn´t surprise me as I have seen first hand how much salt they use in all their food!  Apart from providing Bolivians with all their salt needs it also provides excellent opportunities for funny photos:

~ by robcheek on December 12, 2009.

Posted in travel
Tags: bolivia, lakes, volcano