From Chili to Bolivia

Hi everybody,
I arrived in Bolivia after two weeks of intense travelling. I have seen so many things that my head is spinning, but it also could be because of the height. I'm now in Potosi, which is the highest city (of this size) in the world (4070 meter NAP). But before coming to that I visited La Serena, San Pedro de Atacama, did a beautiful trip across the altiplanos to Bolivia where we arrived in Uyuni.

In Uyuni we heard that many roads in the country were blocked because of political problems, but after two days, we (three dutch, Barbara, Walewijn, and me) were able to travel to Potosi, where I am now, sitting in an internet café, where it seems war! Many kids around me play computer games, and as far as i can see, there are a lot of bodies flying around, and the noise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okee, i will try to evade the flying flesh, and tell you about something about what i saw. And yes, for all those of you who don't like landscapes, you can skip this story (again) because you won't like this! OUCH, i think i have been hit by a loose ear!

I left Valparaiso, and took the bus to La Serena. The coast from Valparaiso to La Serena is mainly made of cliffs, and sometimes you see a nice beach. Also it is time for the first cactuses to arrive. La Serena is a nice town (120000 inhabitants) with of course a plaza and a rather modern centre.




Going to La Serena

The two main reasons why I wanted to go were the - Reserva Nacional Pinguino de Humboldt and the Mamalluca observatory.

- Reserva Nacional Pinguino de Humboldt This is a reservate about 70 km north of La Serena. It consists of a few isles a couple of kilometers outside the coast of Punta de Choros. The two main isles (Isla de Choros and Isla de Damas) are packed with animals, and for this biogolist, that's always exciting.




Isla de Choros


By boat we approach the first island and we see lots of sea lions, pelicans, three different cormorant species (aalscholvers), a small otter (but not to be confused with sea otters), and some Humboldt penguins. The isle itself is also beautiful, so i will upload a lot of pictures to show you why! I like the sea lions most, because they are curious and the male macho's make a lot of noise to impress us.



The first seelions



the rocky coast of Isla de Choros



Isla de Choros more sealions



curious pelicans

On the second isle we can make a hike of an hour and there are some beautifully coloured ibises, and further there are many vultures (black with a red head), and thousands of cactuses (many different species). Shells and kelp weed can also be found, and there are many amazing views of the sea (FOKKE!) and the surf (NIQUI!). I can't help it but also from this part some nice pictures.


Isla de las Damas



Cactuses



Nice seaviews



Nice seaviews2

The roads and or cars in Chili are not always very good. So on our way back we see a truck next to the road, one of its front tires has exploded, with this result. The driver has had luck, and has hardly anything. His goods can go to the trash.



to be recycled material

10 minutes it also occurs to us. Luckily it is a back tire, and we only smell the smell of burning rubber (I don't love it).



another exploded tyre

The same night I went to the Mamalluca observatory. In this part of the world the sky is incredibly clear, so that's why many professional organisations (ESO, and AURA) have huge telescopes to study the sky. In my naivety i hoped to look through 6 meter wide telescopes, but if you want to do that you have to be a professional astronomer with a lot of money (10000 dollars/h). One of these is Tololo.

Okee, the largest Mamalluca telescope is 40 cm wide, so not what i expected, but still it is exciting to see the rings of Saturn with your own eyes, and also Jupiter with some of its moons. Furthermore a very enthusiastic guide showed us the main constellations in the southern hemisphere, Alpha Centauri, some red and blue stars and furthermore double stars, star clouds, and some nebulae and star clusters.

Here they informed me about two interesting astronomical things you can find on the internet. One is a website, were you can see images from the sun (real-time). It's called SOHO.

The second is a beautiful program, it is called starry night. You can download the demo that seems to be working for 15 days. I could not find the demo, but maybe you can.

Next day i take the public bus from la Serena and drive into the Elqui Valley. It is only 2.5 hours to get there, and at the end of the day i travel back to la Serena. Funny but I’m getting so used to travelling i don't mind sitting in a bus for 5 hours. It's fun mainly because of all the things you can see under way (little villages, different people, and some landscapes).



to the elqui valley, crossing rio elqui

The Elqui valley is strange. When you look up the mountains, hardly anything grows there. The valley however is very green and is mainly used for the production of a grape ( the pisco grape). From this grape they make pisco, a strong alcoholic drink (40%), that i already tasted in Santiago (I still like Cachasa more).



Lush valley with pisco grapes, bare hills



Elqui valley 2

Now they are improving the valley by planting trees and more pisco grapes up the mountains, so who knows in a few years the whole area is green.



Implantation!

People say that the Elqui valley gives strange energy to the people that live there, so you can find many people that give new age therapies (yoga aroma therapy f.i.!), and I think I saw some of the people floating a couple of centimetres above the ground. The people also were running much harder than ordinary people. They were at least doing 60 km an hour! Incredible!

Last day in La Serena I walk to the beach. The sea is nice, and it is low season (to cold) so no people are sunbathing. Some seagulls even do their normal job instead of eating from garbage cans. It's funny to watch. Just like little children they run after the waves searching for shells, and when the surf comes in, they run to the beach to prevent getting wet feet. I'm lazy and i watch some kieviten (sorry no English word for this) looking for food. Also funny to watch. They feel with their feet if there is something in the sand, and if they feel something, the head goes into the ground like ostriches.



Beach La Serena



Seegulls fishing at sunset beach La Serena

That night i take the bus to San Pedro the Atacama, a journey of about 17 hours. The first hours there is nothing to see because of the dark, but the following morning i can see the desert of Atacama. I have seen a few deserts in my life, but never one as bare as this one. You don't see any plants during most part of the drive, only sand and stones. Many mine companies are operating in this area.



Desert of Atacama

This continues for 5 ours until we reach Antofagasta , a harbour town in the northern part of Chili. The waves here are incredible, and I think Niqui would like these, although i think they are quite dangerous.



Antofagasta surf

In San Pedro de Atacama (2400m NAP/above sea level)I go to a nice hostel (Eden) , and finally I meet tourists again. Here I meet Sergio and Judith for the third or fourth time during my trip (Yes the world is small). Actually there are a lot of tourists in San Pedro. Main reasons are lakes, deserts, flamingos, salt planes etc. etc.



Hostel Eden

My original plan was to stay for a week in SP. However i meet two Belgian girls that tell me about a trip of three days to Bolivia. This trip is incredibly cheap (65 dollars for three days all included, later more!). Because the trips in SP are not cheap, and SP itself the most expensive town in Chili, i only do one organised (cheap) tour to the Valle de la Muerta, and the Valle de la Luna (yes also in Chili there is one).



Valle de la Luna



Valle de la Muerta

This Valle de la Luna is also sand with hills and rocks, but the difference is that in the surface there is also a lot of salt. This gives different structures, and different sounds. At the end of the day you can here they creaking because the rocks are cooling. Furthermore there is a nice small canyon. There are large sand dunes that i will visit a few days later. During this trip I meet Jez (Irish) and Simone (Aussie), i will meet them later again.
That night I talk with two Canadians (Alain and Vincent) that were doing a little climbing trip. They only came a few days ago from sea level to SP, and now they were climbing a 5800m volcano. Alains doesn't manage this because of altitude sickness (after vomiting his lunch he quits), Vincent however reaches the top (not bad Vincent!).



Salt and sand



Valle de la Muerta at Sunset



Sunset at valle de la Luna

San Pedro is a nice town that for the first time gives me the feeling to be in South America. Mainly because the people are more Indian here, and the houses are completely different from what can be seen in the earlier stage of my travels. For the first time in months I actually do nothing. I see a hammock, and i can't resist sleeping in it for a while (Yes travelling makes very tired).



San Pedro de Atacama

The other thing I do in SP is sand boarding. Together with Ulli and Ben (two Germans, working in the Casa Roja in Santiago), and Marina (Spain) and John (New Zealand) we first mountain bike uphill to the Valley de la Muerta, and then downhill with our sand boards. In the beginning it is going very well, but after the third run our boards resist to go down, plugging deeper and deeper in the sand. Hey but we got candles! Maybe that will help.



Sandboarding 1



Sandboarding 2

After waxing our boards things are a little bit different. The Solex has transformed in a fiery 500cc motor, and the first time I am so surprised i fall off the board after a few meters. The second time I manage to stay on the board. Now that's sand boarding, i should learn snowboarding!



Sandboarding 3

We leave the valley at sunset, and again we have an amazing sunset.



Sandboarding till sunset

The sand is coloured red, and the whole atmosphere and feel of the valley is completely different.



Sunset sandboarding 2



Sandboarding sunset 3

Two days later I leave Chili and go to Bolivia in a three day tour, until now probably the most amazing thing I have done in my first 4 months!. The tour company we go with is cordillera travel. We are Jez and Simone (see above), Michal, a nice girl from Israel, and Barbara and Walewijn - two dutch- who also travel the world for a year, and if you want to read more about their journey go to there website.



Jez, Simone, Walewijn, Barbara, Michal, and me

At the Bolivian border (at 4600 meter) procedures are a little bit simpler than in Chilli, only one simple stamp and that's it. The post at the border is quite simple, probably a forebode of Bolivia. I like it immediately. We have breakfast here, and to be honest, I’m glad Christiana told me to buy thermal underwear because thanks to the wind it is very cold.



Border Bolivia

The first day we drive entirely above 4000 meter. The maximum point we reach is about 4900, most of the altiplanos this day is around 4300. This has two consequences: you feel cold, and you feel weird (more than usual in my case!). The lack of oxygen combined with our amount of red blood cells causes some strange light feeling in the head (they say strangling sex gives the same sort of feeling!), and every physical activity gives you short of breath.

That's the bad part, the good part is the rest (well almost the rest, I’ll come to that later). The landscape is superb, and we see a green lake (again), the lago verde, I take a bath in a thermal pool (about 36 degrees, unfortunately no picture),



Lago Verde

we see geysers (Sol de Mañana) that make roaring sounds, some volcanoes and in the end the laguna colorada.



Geisers



Altiplano

This lake is something i have never seen before. It's partly coloured red because of some sort of algae that can live there because the lake is fed by hot thermal waters.



Laguna Colorada

As consequence there are also living flamingos, they say three different species, although i only see two, a beautifully coloured pink one, and a grey one, only when it flies you can see some pink stripes. In the lake you can see also small mountains of borax salt, like icebergs, and near the border of the lake green algae.



Flying flamingoos Laguna Colorada

In the very basic and very cold hostel that night, we drink tea from coca leaves (thanks to Michal), have some wine (thanks to me), and we play a typical Dutch card game "Toepen", won by Barbara who doesn't understand what she is doing (probably height sickness). During the night most of the guests in the hotel can't sleep, another consequence of the altitude.

The second day is even better, we see three different lakes (lag. Cañapa, Hedionda, Ramadias) two of them have flamingos again),



lag. Cañapa

a Dali like landscape, a volcanic landscape, volcano's (the volcano Ollague is one of the only active ones left), strange rock formations (Arbol de la Piedra),



Arbol de Piedra

a strange spongy lichen (llareta), that is used as fuel, you can smell a sort of petroleum (probably to stay alive these lichens produce something on a methanol basis, "anti freeze"),



Llareta

and we see lots of Vicuñia, an animal like the Guanoco, but smaller and a little bit lighter. It is hardly to imagine where they live from, because most of the landscape is bare. Our guide Alex shows us tiny lichens that grow on the ground in between the sand. They need one kilo of that per day. I'm glad I’m not a Vicuñia, that's a hell of a job.



Vicuñia

Furthermore during that day the landscape changes every 10k, grey sands , yellow sands with or without plants, red sands, red mountains, green mountains (not because of trees or plants), white mountains (snow or gips) etc. etc. etc.



Altiplano and coloured moutains



Vulcano

Later on we cross a little ghost town Chiguana, the train used to stop here but not anymore. There are still 4 families living here, and they look very unhealthy and poor. One little girl gives me the shivers because of the things hanging out of here nose, i never saw it that disgusting (and big and yellow, and coming out of both nose holes.......).




Ghost town Chiguana

Then we cross de Valle de las Rocas, with strange rock formations, the little village of San Juan, with a picturesque church, we see the beginning of the Salar Uyuni (see day three), and in the end we reach a hostel that is almost completely made of salt. Together with Michal i do a little tour to a mummy tomb (1800 years old), although a skeleton is not a mummy), and here you can see big cactuses.



San Juan church

The salt hostel is a nice place to stay, because the salt keeps its warmth longer, which gives us a good excuse to drink a few bottles of beer, and we have a nice dinner with lama meat that's very tasty.



salt hostel

At the end of this day I’m so tired of landscapes that i can't absorb them anymore, and i have made so many pictures that I’m even disgusted to make pictures of another beautiful sunset!



Sunset at salt hostel

Day 3 brings us to the Salar Uyuni . This is a salt plain (actually the biggest in the world, more than 12000 sqk and according to our guide Alex, 3 meters thick (another guide says 6 meters). It's strange to drive and walk here. You expect the bitter cold of a snowy landscape, you expect the car to slip on the ice, but when you get out, it's a hard surface with many salt crystals.



Salar de Uyuni

The dryness of the air is incredible, in the distance you can see a sharp line, which is the horizon, no haze at all. It gives some weird pictures.



Salar de Uyuni 2



Salar de Uyuni 3

We drive to the Isla del Pescado, where on initiative of Michal we make funny pictures.



Magic

The isle looks like a tropic Island, only one thing is missing ...............water.



Isla del Pescado

There are enormous cactuses here, the biggest one is 12 meters and because cactuses only grow 1 cm per year, this one is about 1200 years old.



Big cactuses



Isla del Pescdo 2

Later we drive to the originial salt hotel that is situated on the salar, it is not used anymore because the salt is too much damaged by water, and now it is more a less a museum.



the original salt hostel

The end of the tour is in Uyuni. When we arrive there is a lot of panic, because we here that in big parts of Bolivia roads are blocked, because of political problems, people are rioting and shooting (that's what they say) in La Paz, and what's even worst, tomorrow it will also start in Uyuni. So get the hell out of here. Many people that had come that day take the 4wd drive back to Chili.

Michal, Barbara, Walewijn and me decide to stay in Uyuni. I don't trust this sort of hectic. One i find that this looks like a sort of "rumor clamat" (One of the first times i like having read Vergilius Aeneis), and Two tour operators are too helpful and pushy filling up there empty 4wdrives, because roads are blocked and no other tourist are coming anymore to Uyuni from other parts of the country. (Later I receive an email from Christiana, that's telling me that rod blockades are common in Bol., happen at least four times a year, and that I'm not to worry, Welcome to Bolivia). Two days later the blockades end.

In Uyuni we stay in Hotel Avenida. Uyuni (3700m) is very cold at night, and I’m wearing two jackets, two thick sweaters, a t-shirt, and thermal underwear. Uyuni is a very nice place to stay, and immediately love Bolivia. The people are lovely, it looks that in this town there is no normal tension between people. When I great three old men that are sitting on a bench they politely remove their hats as if I were the mayor . The women wear beautiful dresses and often bollard heads, but unfortunately they don't want to be photographed. Most younger woman carry a baby on their back and these babies always look very curiously at you with two dark and peeping eyes. It is a lovely site.



Uyuni market

When the blockades are over most tourist leave Uyuni as fast as they came, but we decide to stay another day, and next day we stroll along the market. Bolivia is a cheap place to live. Barbara and Walewijn start shopping, and after two days they send a 5 kg package with all sort of stuff (little bags, alpaca wool made things, hand shoes, little children’s close etc.. ) home. Infected by them I buy some alpaca, but not that much so i will carry it around until i have 5 kg of stuff.

Michal in the mean time gets taught by a Bolivian girl how to make jewellery. It takes her more than 1,5 hours. I'm trying secretly to make pictures, but most are not very well. I have to find different ways to show you how lovely the people here look.



Traditional clothes

Another highlight of our stay in Uyuni is the tourist information office. The people here are extremely friendly, and more than an hour two employers show us everything we want to know, and later they tell us everything they know about Bolivia. After this conversation I know that I will gonna stay a long time here. My god how will I ever get out of this lovely country with its lovely people (and its cheap prices). There is so much to see here!! That night cute Michal leaves for Sucre. Barbara, Walewijn and me leave the next day for Potosi. Why I want to go to Potosi, you'll see in my next story. See you there!



Los endos