rufmita: Southwestern Bolivia

The Andes are gorgeous. I love being in the mountains. I spent a lot of my month off exploring in the high altitude, cold air of the Andes. First in south west Bolivia.

Let me tell you... a place you want to see.

Not many people go there because it really is difficult to get to. The "roads" are all but non-existent, and I guess in some places there really aren't any roads, you just pick a direction and drive across the salt or the open rocky terrain of the high Andes.

We started by flying into La Paz from Santa Cruz. A short, one hour flight into the highest commercial airport in the world (at 4010 m = 13,150 feet).

View of La Paz from the Altiplano

Next we head to the bus terminal in La Paz and book an overnight bus to Uyuni. Have you ever been on an overnight bus? Maybe you have and it was all cushy, with nice reclining seats and clean fabric... well, not in Bolivia. The bus ride was, how do I say disgusting, ok it was disgusting. The nasty blankets on the seats, no chair reclines... needless to say, not a night of good rest.

We arrive in Uyuni the next morning and it's time to meet our guide (Cecilio) and get some breakfast before heading out. We really have no idea what is in store for us, so we just go with the flow. The Spanish speaking guide option was quite a bit cheaper for us, so we opted for that and now are wondering if we are going to get anything out of this trip... Our Spanish is better than nothing at this point, but as Laura's friend pointed out... the complexity of our sentence structure in on par with a four year old!

The bustling town of Uyuni

After breakfast we head out for our first stop of the tour... the salt flats. Salar de Uyuni. I just found out that Salvador Dali spent time in South America, and in SW Bolivia and some of his art is inspired by the salt flats...

Salt, salt, salt everywhere!

The perspective photos you get are really cool.

Apparently this painting was inspired by the salt flats in Bolivia.

As you drive further into the southern part of the country you enter volcano land. All of a sudden you are surrounded by craters, some dormant and some spewing out a bit of smoke...

Look at the top of the volcano - see how it's not pointy, but a crater? Cool, huh!

Heading deeper into the Andes, the environment becomes harsher and harsher. The altitude is now almost 5000 meters (over 16,000 feet) and the air so thin that breathing becomes a thoughtful task. The vegetation has disappeared and when you look around you see rock, rock and rock. Amazingly enough there are vicuna. A sort of antelope looking mammal that thrives on this high altitude environment. Eating tiny bits of plant life and enjoying the lack of predators.

Vicuna are just wandering around the desolate landscape.

We're at 16,400 feet now. The sun is burning hot, the air thin and low and behold there is another organism that finds this environment bearable...

Yup, flamingos. Apparently there are three different species of flamingos that call the high Andes their home.

I'd never seen a flamingo take off and land before...

The next thing we know, we find ourself in the crater of a volcano! We have driven for hours on the flat terrain and made our own roads. We've climbed a bit higher and now are at the top of the world.