By far the most visited tourist attraction in Bolivia, the salar de Uyuni is salty, flat and incredibly huge, covering over ten thousand square kilometers. We caught an overnight bus to Uyuni and sought out a tour – booking ahead is for chumps. There are a ridiculous number of companies that offer identical tour packages for the salt flats, making it a complete crapshoot when deciding which to go with. After speaking with a few different agents and hearing the exact same description but with wildly varying prices, we decided to go with the second-cheapest and most racially-appealing option, World White Tours. The next morning we met our driver Pepe (who we were ensured was not a drunk) and the rest of our group, consisting of Luiz and Renata from Brazil, Casey from the U S of A and Gabriella from Israel (and a bunch of other places) and headed out of town.
After spending over a month in the jungle in Villa Tunari, we decided we were in need of a few days of civilization. A couple bumpy bus rides later we found ourselves in Sucre, a beautiful, clean and relatively quiet city (such a nice change after nasty La Paz) with a bunch of history we weren’t really interested in. Our main achievements in Sucre were eating some good food (so nice to have options again!), loitering at a number of cafés to catch up on our blogging, and finding a laundromat with hot water so we could sterilize our mold encrusted jungle clothes. Sucre treated us nicely, but just the same we were soon ready to get back on the road and make our way down to Uyuni to check out the much-anticipated salt flats. By far the most visited tourist attraction in Bolivia, the salar de Uyuni is salty, flat and incredibly huge, covering over ten thousand square kilometers. We caught an overnight bus to Uyuni and sought out a tour – booking ahead is for chumps. There are a ridiculous number of companies that offer identical tour packages for the salt flats, making it a complete crapshoot when deciding which to go with. After speaking with a few different agents and hearing the exact same description but with wildly varying prices, we decided to go with the second-cheapest and most racially-appealing option, World White Tours. The next morning we met our driver Pepe (who we were ensured was not a drunk) and the rest of our group, consisting of Luiz and Renata from Brazil, Casey from the U S of A and Gabriella from Israel (and a bunch of other places) and headed out of town. Our first stop just outside of town was the "train graveyard" where a bunch of old trains have been left to rot. I’m not sure why they’ve been left there, but it’s a cool place to take some pictures with rusty, graffiti-covered trains. Somewhere in the mix was the very first locomotive in Bolivia… kinda cool, I guess. The real highlight of the first day was, of course, the giant frickin’ salt flat. It’s really, really big! Once we’d driven far enough onto it, it was pretty unreal – nothing but flat, white, salty crust almost as far as you could see. If you’re lucky enough to visit during the wetter season the salar becomes a massive mirror, causing the sky to blend in with the ground making for an incredibly confusing horizon. It was in a dry mood for us, with the exposed salty crust forming hexagonal crystals into the distance. There was the odd spot where the crust had broken and the salty brine was visible underneath. To me it felt a lot like driving on a huge, frozen Lake Superior – the chilly air was about right, too! We stopped for lunch at Incahuasi Island, a lump of land covered in thousands of fuzzy cacti, where we made an attempt at some funky perspective photos (all the cool kids were doing it). Finally, after a long day of salty driving, we left the salt flats and pulled up to our cozy little salt hotel (yes, a hotel made of salt) where we were treated to a salty dinner and then rested our salty heads.
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We finally made it to Whitehorse! The last stretch was painful! If you can't see the above slideshow, click here.
We are now over half way through our 4 day 9 hour Greyhound bus trip. We left Kitchener at 10:15pm on Tuesday night. Spent 11 hours in Winnipeg yesterday and got into Edmonton this afternoon around 4:30pm (we were supposed to be here at 1:10pm but left late).
Right now we're just hanging out near the (sketchy) greyhound station in Edmonton charging our computer and iPods. It is a looooong way to go on a bus, but there are surprisingly a lot of people doing long hauls like us. Every bus has been packed so far. I guess its a popular thing to do these days? It feels like time has stopped, we never know where we are or what time or day it is, we just keep moving. seeing lots of country. I saw a bear near Wawa and Andrew saw a moose and fox last night between Winnipeg and Edmonton somewhere. No flood damage to be seen in Edmonton, but some of the prairies were flooded. Not over the roads, but the ditches were full of water. We passed a fallen down robot telephone pole as we were driving into Edmonton. Apparently there were strong winds last night and tornado warnings near Edmonton, so we think that might be what knocked it down. Anyways, tonight at one minute past midnight we depart for the non-stop drive from Edmonton to Whitehorse. Well, sometime after midnight anyway. None of our busses since Kitchener have been on time. Usually an hour or two late to depart. lots of stressed out people upset about their seats, or the bus being full, or the driver freaking out about time, lol. We're doing well though. Just going along, playing frisbee when we stop, walking around, and then sleeping, audio book and watching movies on the computer. Pretty chill. Will update when we get there. Andrew says "word to your moms!". |