Salt Flats Day 3

Saturday, December 31st, 2011
Holy moly we’re up at 4am and on the road by 4:30am! The cool thing about this is that we’re in the middle of the desert and the stars are amazing. We can see the Southern Cross, the Milky Way, and on the opposite horizon the big dipper (upside down and low to the ground) and even Orion’s belt low in the other direction. I even saw a shooting star it was so clear. The Acama desert is supposed to be one of the best places to see the stars.

We’re off and aroun 5:15am we make our first stop at the geysers of the Sol de Maῆana. The first geyser is shooting full strength straight up in the area. Then we wander around and see the other mud pools, geothermal activity, geysers, etc.

The sun is rising and our next stop is 6:15am at Aguas Calientes (or the Termas de Polques) – a small 29.4C hot-spring pool. It takes a bit of convincing to strip down to our swimmers peeling off our wool hats, gloves, down jackets, fleeces, long sleeves, t-shirt, pants, socks and shoes to bear the cold morning air. But we jump in to the hot springs and it is so awesome (especially since we haven’t showered in 2 days) and we soak until we’re too warm and can get out and dry off without being affected by the cold.

We stay at the hot springs from breakfast and are back on the road before 8am! We drive up and over a 5,000 m pass and then up a stark hillside through more desert and stop at what’s called Desierto de Dali. It resembles a freshly raked Zen garden dotted with enormous ‘Rocas de Dali’ (Dali rocks) which appear to have been meticulously placed by the surrealist master Salvador himself.

Our final stop is the Laguna Verde. When the wind is blowing it’s a stunning blue-green lake at 4400m, tucked in the SW corner of the Bolivian territory. When the wind isn’t blowing, you can’t see the green color from the high concentrations of lead, sulphur, arsenic and calcium carbonates as they sink and are sitting at the bottom until the wind stirs them up. Behind the lake is Volcan Lincancabur at 5960m whose summit is said to have once sheltered an ancient Inca crypt. Behind it is Chile.

Our tour takes the small detour to the Chile border to drop us off at 9am before they head all the way back to Uyuni (there’s not much on the way and they will drive for another 7-8 hours). First we have to go to Bolivia Migracion and get our exit stamps from Bolivia (but for some reason they don’t charge us the exit tax.) We say goodbye to our group and then we get on our transfer bus with loads of other tourists (sitting 4 across including aisle seats!) and drive the 47 km to San Pedro de Atacama. The bus driver gives us all the Chilean arrival forms to fill out while en route and after about 10 minute, we’re on our first sealed road in 4 days!

It’s only 10:15 when we arrive in San Pedro de Atacama but we have to get our passports stamped and take all of our luggage through their X-ray (screening for fruit, coca, dugs, etc.) and then we get back on the bus and get to the main square by 10:45am and we’re exhausted already!

San Pedro de Atacama is at 2440m in elevation so we’re finally out of the high altitude and able to get rid of our coca candy and other high altitude aids. The population is only 3,212 but its Chile’s number 1 tourist town. It’s in the middle of the desert and very hot, and the town is all adobe buildings and there’s not much to it. Our first stop is the tourist information centre which tells us that they don’t do anything for New Year’s Eve here, the TI is closing in 5 minutes, and many restaurants and shops will be closed for the holidays but the activities for tourists will still be open.

Our hostel (Incahuasi B&B) picks us up and tells us that all the tours are booked out all over town. The good news is that we’ve already done geysers, hot springs, salars (salt flats) and lagoons so we weren’t going to book them anyway. This will be a few days to recupe, rest, do laundry and read books. I think we may hit a swimming pool if we get motivated.

We shower (finally!) and venture into town for a look around and have lunch at La Estaka. I had an amazing steak with rustic tomato sauce and some kind of corn mash and Mike had baked Mediterrean cannelloni and Austral, a beer from Punta Arenas, Chile (Patagonia).

We bought some cheese, tomatoes and avacados and a bottle of wine for dinner later and head back to our hostel to rest. There’s a great group of people staying here- a French guy from Cannes, 2 friends from Michigan (the guy just finished his second year in Paraguay in the Peace Corps in forestry and the girl is a friend visiting for a month), a couple from Sao Paulo, Brazil (they met at Columbia University and he’s an American lawyer in NY and she’s Brazilian and worked for the UN in Timor and they are living for a year in Sao Paulo), a couple up for the weekend from Santiago, and a Chilean miner who seems to be a friend of the owner.

San Pedro de Atacama doesn’t do anything to celebrate NYE (not even fireworks!) but everyone in our hostel goes out to dinner at 10pm and the restaurants turn into discotechs afterwards to bring in the New Year and at midnight all of the bars and restaurants burn effigies outside their front doors (some with fireworks in them). This year we have to pass on NYE since we’ve been up since 4am so we go to bed at 10 instead.

Salt Flats Day 2

Friday, December 30th, 2011
On our second day of our tour, we got up at 6:30am, had breakfast (a bread roll and orange juice) at 7am, left at 7:30am. Rodrigo packed up our vehicle and we were off.

Usually you go west through the Salar de Chiguana (a second salt flat) but it had rained and the water was too high to drive across so we drove on the dirt for 3 hours to Ollague Volcano – capped with snow at 5,865 meters) which is an active volcano on the Chilean border. We stopped halfway on these railroad tracks to get out, stretch and check out the views.

Rodrigo passes around the coca leaves.

We passed Ollague and looked back at it while climbing all over rocks.

Throughout the last 2 days we’ve seen lots of vicuῆas. They look like a cross between a llama and a deer to us, but actually if they breed with a llama you get an alpaca. I think they are much prettier than llamas.

We arrive at our first lagoon -- Laguna Caῆapa which is really cool because it has lots of flamingos. There are 6 species of flamingos in the world and 3 can be found in South America, and all 3 are in the lagoon – Chilean, James and Andean. I’ve taken a picture of the 3 in the guide’s office so you can tell the difference as they are too far away in my photos to tell.

After we left the lagoon, we saw an Andean fox. He was so cute and was running beside our car like a dog. We hear they eat flamingos though.

The next lagoon was Laguna Hedionda which had more flamingos, smelled strongly of sulphur, but was a great place to stop for lunch. Rodrigo whipped us up some chicken and pasta and potato/carrot/bean dish with oranges for dessert.

The busy town on the lake...

Lunchtime.

After lunch we drove by Laguna Chiar Kkota which was a red lagoon, but we didn’t stop so no photos. Next up was Laguna Honda which was a quick stop but a beautiful view. This lake doesn’t have much for flamingos to eat so there were only about 10 of them on the shoreline.

Next we drove through rough and bumpy landscapes into the Desierto Siloli (desert). Rodrigo stopped for a moment near a rocky area to look for the local Vizcacha which is an animal that looks like a rabbit (especially the ears and head,) but has the tail of a squirrel. He said it wasn’t there today so we continued on.

We arrived at the Arbol de Piedra (Stone Tree) which you see in most of the photographs and postcards of this area. It’s shape has been eroded by the wind in the middle of this desert.

We arrived at Laguna Colorada which means Colorful Lagoon and you can see why. It’s a fiery red lake at 4278m that covers about 60 square km and gets as deep as 80cm. The red color comes from algae and plankton and the shore has white deposits of sodium, magnesium, borax and gypsum. There’s also a lot of flamingos that breed here – all 3 South American species (Chilean, James and Andean).

Next we enter the National Park – Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa – and pay 150 Bolivianos each (about $20) and we’ll need to show our paid ticket tomorrow as well.

We stayed in a small camp near the Laguna Colorada. Its lodging for the tours and the mines nearby and more basic than last night but good to be here by 5pm and have time for afternoon tea (cookies, tea, coffee) and rest before dinner.

Rodrigo gives us Bolivian wine with dinner.