a 4 day tour in 4x4 jeeps through the desert from San Pedro de Atacama, Chile to Uyuni, Bolivia
in San Pedro there are seemingly hundreds of different tour companies to choose from. i chose based off a recommendation from a friend, which was one of the more expensive tours (~$200 USD for all food, lodging, and transportation), but definitely worth the few extra dollars because the bolivian guides have a bad reputation for drunk driving
we had to bring our own water & toilet paper, and exchange enough money for 4 days. the money part was a bit of a problem, since all the cajeros automáticos (ATMs) in San Pedro were OUT OF MONEY. and wouldn't be restocked until the NEXT wednesday (it was currently friday morning). good thing i pulled out a significant amount of cash at the airport the day before and brought some travelers checks (thanks dad, they actually did come in handy!)
migración bolivia was quite interesting. we tried to sneak a deal and get out of paying the full $135 USD visa fee (damn united states politics, very few countries have to pay to get into bolivia and los estados unidos is one of them). what usually happens when people only go on the 4 day jeep tour and return back to San Pedro in Chile they only have to pay a smaller fee under the table. our issue was that we had plans to return back to bolivia in july, so what we were hoping to do was pay the under the table one-time entry fee price and be able to use it for the next 5 years.
while we explained this to the head border control officer, he quickly made everyone else waiting in line inside the office leave. every time someone tried to enter he would yell at them to get out and wait so that we could discuss our options in private. it was a little flaite.
the main conclusion was that he told us to wait until we got to Uyuni, Bolivia to pay for the visa and see what we could work out there - meaning our chofer had to hold onto our passports the whole time (also pretty flaite). to make this already long story a little shorter, we did end up having to pay the full visa fee -_- but at least we tried to get out of it jaja
after the fiasco at the border, we were split up into our groups for the next 4 days. my chofer was a nice bolivian man named Edgar. in my jeep was my 2 friends from my EAP program (brian and sylvia), sylvia's boyfriend justin who was just visiting, a girl from northern england named rosie, and the cutest brasileña ever daniela, and of course myself!
rosie barely spoke spanish, and daniela knew a lot more than her but was a lot more comfortable speaking in portuguese. the issue here was that daniela could understand everything i said to her, but i could only pick up on about 60% of what she was saying to me because although portuguese and spanish are very similar, they are NOT the same. and i unfortunately am not a native spanish speaker otherwise i wouldn't have had a problem understanding her.
day 1:
lago blanco/lago verde/volcán licancabur
vicuñas!
hot springs
altitude 4980 meters
geysers
laguna colorada/flamencos
lago verde and el volcán licancabur - we saw this volcano the day before on the chilean side from the valle de la luna
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| justin, sylvia, brian, me |
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| crazy colored mountains |
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| this scenery is compared to a Salvador Dali painting. basically it's random rock formations spread out in the sand dunes |
hot spring! at really high altitude, 4980 meters. and the first one i've ever been in.
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| the lagoon around the hot spring |
now time for some geyser action! tons of holes in the ground with bubbling muck. and steam blowing out! it also had a veryy strong sulfur-like smell.
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i was FREEZING |
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| using my magical powers |
my attempt at videoing the bubbling geysers:
our first "shelter" experience - little stone huts in the middle of nowhere, usually with tins roofs held down by large rocks
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| my friend ripped his pants, so he threw them away |
the water was literallyyyy RED/ORANGE! dude to some major eutrofication going on, but the hundreds of flamingos didn't seem to mind
three types of flamingos live here!
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| trying to do cool things, but stopped because i almost fell in a few times |
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flamingo impersonations.. |
after a very long day our tour group - consisting of 3 jeeps with 6 travelers in each - headed back to eat dinner and rest. after we ate, 2/3 of the table left to go smoke outside (all the israelis except 1, the london girls, the belgians). the californians were the only ones left - meaning me and my 3 friends, and a couple who now live in san francisco (a german man and a colombian woman), so we played cards for a few hours and then hit the sack for a sleepless night of altitude induced pounding headaches
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