Tupiza to Uyuni (and the salt flats)

Last day on the salt flats by which point I've obviously spent too much time around flamingos

Meeting up with Tom & Michelle, a British couple we'd first met in Torres del Paine we head to Tupiza, 10hrs and 300km south of Sucre. A return to relative bus comfort. We catch the briefest of sleeps before Berto, our tour guide for the next 4 days of 4WD exploring, shows up in the landcruiser.

It's not until you get to a place like Bolivia that altitude becomes as much a consideration in your every day travel plans as currency conversions or the next sugar fix. At 2950m, Tupiza is comparatively low but that changes quickly as Berto charges up the dirt road to Quebrada de Palala peaking at around 4600m. I've had problems with altitude sickness in the past and Nic has stocked up on pills for us both but still the headaches take effect immediately. We swallow a few more and thankfully it's soon only the lack of air giving us problems.

At the top of Quebrada de Palala

Hours away from anything resembling a shop these tiny towns defy the bleak outlook

I'll cut you a deal. My wooly jumper for your sandwich.

We stop for lunch on the first day in an open paddock where llamas are grazing. Grazing what I'm not exactly sure, there's nothing much but bare earth. In the truck we also have Berto's mum along for the ride. She is dressed in the traditional Bolivian style with plaits, pinafore and pleated skirt and she immediately adopts the four of us (insisting we call her mama). Neither mother or son speak English but they're both friendly and smiley people and speak in slow, simple Spanish for us. Mama is also our cook and soon whips up a delicious spread.

Arriving on day 1 at camp, San Antonio de Lipez, 4600m. Dinner is tasty and huge, and mama looks offended when we don't manage to eat it all. 





It's a 5am start on day 2 and we're into the truck just before sunrise. At this altitude it's impossible to be wearing the right amount of clothing for more than 20 minutes. The sunshine is searing, but any hint of wind or shade and the temperature swings below zero. We find ourselves continually stripping off and then quickly pulling jackets back on.

Laguna Verde, 4300m. Very misleading photo - weather looks warm and the water inviting. I'm freezing in the wind and out of the truck for the photo and no more. The water is full of arsenic.

Geysers at 5000m

And next to the geysers are these blocks of ice. Very weird.

Laguna Colorada - more amazing coloured lakes

Pulling into our camp spot on the second evening we settle down for a cold night at 4300m. We've been lugging our sleeping bags around since our time in Patagonia and the burden pays off. In one of the other jeeps staying at the same spot they'd forgotten to pack any for their guests. It's a cold night for these few and wheezy and airless night for all. But mama's made pancakes in the morning and everyone is happy.

Tree rock on day 3

We pass by flamingos and bizarre rocky outcrops, active volcanos and tired army outposts, abandoned railway lines to nowhere and spongey coral-like plants. It´s a weird and wonderful place.

Mama appraises Berto's tire changing technique

Sunrise on the Salar

On our final night we opt to stay at one of the salt hotels on the fringe of the salt flats. The novelty here is that it is constructed almost entirely from salt. Unfortunately it's a bit of a letdown because the cooking is not nearly as good as mama's and our group appears to be forgotten until 9.30 when they remember to serve dinner. But worst of all is the manager's 6 year old daughter who is running errands for the devil, tormenting guests and causing mayhem. When we're out the door at 5am the next morning this is all quickly forgotten however, because the salt flats are spectacular.

It stretches over nearly 11,000 square km and supposedly contains up to 70% of the world's lithium supply (which sounds like a lot but if the production output of hybrid car batteries was to match that of petrol engines currently, the world supply of lithium would be outstripped by 2015. So much for a sustainable alternative...)

Isla del Pescado, 3700m

We spend some time engineering the obligatory perspective shots (which turns out to be much more difficult than I´d imagined) and then we speed across the flats to the Wild West town of Uyuni. The less said about this place the better.

Thanks Tom and Michelle for the company. Cheque´s in the mail for the photo royalties. Onwards to Potosi!

xN&G

Santa Cruz, Samaipata & Sucre

Toucan!

We’ve dropped the ball a bit and arriving at 2am in Santa Cruz the mental note to book accommodation never developed further. While we’re negotiating for a better rate with the night doorman our taxi speeds off and our bargaining power disappears. But even the inflated price is a bargain compared to Brazil - $20 for an air-conditioned room with en suite. Welcome to Bolivia.

Santa Cruz Plaza - not a sloth in sight

There’s not really much to see in Santa Cruz itself, but we spend a day wandering around the plaza and take a trip to the zoo. Nic is desperate to see a toucan as they’ve eluded her since Iguacu Falls. The zoo delivers on this front, but otherwise is fairly depressing with big jaguars and pumas stuck in tiny cages. No sloths either.

Escaping from the heat

The next day we head for the hills of Samaipata, a small village 3 hours away by shared taxi. The higher altitude gives some relief from the heat of Santa Cruz. It’s our first experience of Bolivian transport (more to come on this) and is pretty straightforward in the end. Nic gets an unexpected shower in the back seat as we pass a truck spraying down the dusty road. In a slow motion moment we spot the incoming wave but can’t reach the open window in time to save us from being flooded.

The hills around Samaipata. The track can be seen to the right, but disappeared shortly round the corner.

The next morning we manage to flick the switch back into adventure mode and hike to the middle of nowhere. But we must have become accustomed to traveling in a group, because neither of us pays much attention to where we’re actually meant to be walking. We get some direction from a local girl who also suggests we’d be safer walking in shoes vs jandals – muchos serpentes and she motions a rattle with her hand.

When the track disappears at a river, 3 hours and a large mountain behind us (but no snakes disappointingly), we call lunch and draw on the lessons of Man vs Wild. We ditch the shoes and wade downstream in the hope of finding civilization. Bear Grylls deserves credit here because not only do we manage to find a road and hitchhike back to Samaipata, we also reach a waterfall that gives some relief from the scorching heat.

The TV never lies

Pre-Incan ruins at El Fuerte, Samaipata

And so for our memorable trip out of Samaipata. 

It delivered on every scrap of bus travel conjecture surrounding Bolivia. It's apparent when the bus arrives (an hour late but there's nothing inauspicious about that in itself) and passengers crawl out from the cargo hold that we're in for something special. On board we have to evict chickens and their owners from our seats. Which are situated directly above the rear wheels. 

I imagine that the optional extras list must be overwhelming for the new bus buyer in Bolivia. Because I'm certain the base model comes without suspension, shock absorbers or seat squabs amongst a number of things. In fact, it seems that all you need to claim it as a bus is four wheels and a horn.

To be fair to the bus company, it's not their fault that our tummies were misbehaving too. Or that the agency oversold the journey. Or that the nursery of children on board conspired to wake-up on hourly rotations with pungent loads in their pants. 

The hillsides are littered with overturned vehicles

The bus breaks down at some point during the night - only a flat tire as it turns out - I clamber over the mess of animals, people, dirty blankets and food scraps strewn down the aisle and dash outside for some relief. I swap seats with Nic to give her some relief of her own from an unconscious man who'd adopted her leg as a pillow.

We somehow get a little sleep and awake thankful to have arrived in Sucre. Only we're still 150km from Sucre because there's been a landslide across the road and it's going to take 2 hours to clear. It defies belief that we can still be upbeat when we eventually do arrive but somehow we are. It's the journey not the destination, right?

Landslip. Grateful it didn't happen as were passing because just out of shot is a cliff plunging hundreds of meters.

The next day a jumbo sized bowl of fruit salad and yoghurt for 50c. Opted against the local specialty containing a whole egg (shell included), a shot of beer, milk and fruit (MULTI-VITAMINICO on the menu shown).

Sucre is beautiful, but we had only a couple of days to explore as we were meeting friends to begin a tour of the salt flats. We had planned to come back and see more of the city afterwards but unfortunately it escaped us. 

Right, we're only 2 weeks behind now. At the moment we're in La Paz, back from a fantastic experience in the jungle. It seems hard to believe that we're just over half way of our whole adventure, while at the same time looking at our pictures from the first week in Chile it could be from another time altogether.

Keep reading and sending messages, always great to hear news from home.

xN&G

Salvador e Sao Paulo

With great reluctance we left Trancoso. Back to finding our way on local buses we were feeling a bit out of sorts after the last month of family fun. The overnight bus to Salvador was probably the most uncomfortable bus we had come by so far, so we were relieved to arrive in Salvador in the early morning. Only to open the curtain to find pouring rain.

The first day was spent hiding out at our hostel and catching up on our books whilst lying in hammocks – the rain wasn’t all bad! The next morning we awake to blazing sunshine – this was the Salvador we had heard of. We set out early to explore the Pelourinho (old city). We were lucky enough to have Mauricio, a friend we met in Chile, as our local guide - home from Sao Paulo for the weekend.

Everywhere you went the streets were full of kids with a lot more rhythm than me

Street art

Baianas - they charged for photos, so this is a sneaky shot

Mauricio shows us around the old city, filling us in on some history along the way: Salvador was the first capital of Brazil, and also the first slave market in South America, with slaves arriving to work in the sugarcane plantations. The name Pelourinho means pillory – the whipping post on which African slaves were punished was in one of the many plazas. 

Elevador Lacerda - a bargain for  R0.15 to take you down to the waterfront. The large cream building was the original slave market with a holding pen underground.

After an amazing lunch of Bahian food, and we continue around the beautiful beaches near the city, via an ice cream shop for Amazonian fruit flavoured ice creams, delicious! 

Sunset at Forte Mont Serrat

Mauricio and George at Igreja de Nosso Senor do Bonfim

Thousands of ribbons tied to the fence of the church, each one is meant to bring 3 wishes true. It must have worked for George...

An early start the following morning to get to Nicky and Emily’s hotel in time for the RWC final – a nice spot for a very tense game, thankfully the All Blacks came through (it would have been a very long day with George had they lost!). 

Next stop: Sao Paulo – as we fly in over the endless skyscrapers, we wonder what this huge city will be like.

Another friend we met skiing in Chile, Daniel, kindly picks us up from the airport and shows us around for the next few days. We eat our way through Sao Paulo, ticking off a few of the ‘must eats’ of the city: All you can eat Brazilian BBQ, all you can eat Japanese and Sao Paulo pizza (meant to be better than Italy?!). 

Did you know where cashews came from? Unfortunately the fruit is not so nice. 

George meets Nicodemus, Lu's pet turtle (tortoise?)

Eating aside, we also see quite a bit of the city, including a few architectural highlights for George, some beautiful parks and even a spot of shopping. All and all we were pleasantly surprised by Sao Paulo.

Sao Paulo Museum of Art

Hotel Unique, Sao Paulo. 

Panorama from roof of Hotel Unique - skyscrapers literally everywhere you look.

Great path for a walk in the park

Dinner with Daniel on our last night in Sao Paulo

Many thanks again to Mauricio and Daniel for hosting us in your cities. Also thanks to Noely and Liliana for inviting us into your homes, it was lovely to see more of Lu’s family.

We catch a cab to the airport and it’s off to Bolivia (sorry Sao Paulo, but Guarulhos airport is a blemish to your name). Brazil has been a luxurious holiday within a holiday. Now it’s back to long haul buses, hostels, adventure and thankfully, Spanish (who’d have thought?!).