Friday, April 25, 2008

Salar de Uyuni - Day 2






Wednesday 23rd April

We got up early (0545) to go and match the sunrise over the Salar. All was going fine until our guide manager to get the jeep stuck! Goodness knows how he managed to get it stuck, but we turned around and he had the back wheels buried up to the axles. So he spent the next two hours digging it out – major bummer, as we hadn´t had any brekkie and were starving!

We finally got back to the Salt hotel at 0900, and had a very quick brekkie and then packed up the jeep and travelled to Isla Incahuasi (or Fish Island to the tourists). This is basically a small island in the middle of the Salar covered in cactuses. We had a wander around for an hour and then had lunch and travelled to a volcano on the other side of the Salar. This was a pretty cool looking volcano, which still erupts every 3 years or so. There was a village at the bottom with Incan ruins etc, and people still farming the Incan terraces. There was also a salt lake where we saw some Flamingoes – very awesome!

We then travelled a few hours back to Uyuni where we arrived at 1700. We had already bought tickets on a bus to Potosí that night leaving at 1900 (so we didn´t have to spend any more time there than we had to). We dropped our bags off at the bus office and went and had pizza for dinner – one thing Uyuni can do right – bloody good pizza! The bus to Potosí on the other hand was a different story – it was a public bus (no tourist busses run from Uyuni to Potosí), there was very little leg room, and it smelled bad – Andrew said it was one of the worst seven hour periods of his life, as he was very uncomfortable.
We finally got in to Potosí at 0230, and caught a taxi to our hostal (Hotal Felimar) where we collapsed into bed.

1 comment:

Andrea & Steve said...

Wow, that was certainly a lot to catch up on.Glad you had such a great time with Anna and Dave.

Saw Aunty Helen & Uncle Murray today (we were in Rotorua for a meeting)- they said to say hi. Needless to say Nic fed Possum today. Can we upload photos on this site - I really nned to send you one of a particularly fat cat. Even Nicola couldn't believe it was Miss Scimmys.

Back to work tomorrow again - it's been a long weekend here with Anzac w/end. I could really take to a three day weekend!!

Don't know if POppa Goat told you but we seem to be temporarily the owners of a subaru. Sold the bluebird and got a WRX with an STI engine for a good price. Just needs a couple of small fix it jobs and then we'll flick it off. However Poppa Goatis delighting in telling everyone that I bought a subaru.

Oh yeah and we raided your garden - capsicum, chillies, grapes mmmmyummy. We have photos of the stolen produce as well. What are the bigger chillies by the capsicum - I can't remember??? Whatever they are, they're rather large (bit like Possum really).

Beth-Ann is away till Thursday so we'll be catsitting until then.Had to go round and get the lawnmower going for her the other night (can't remember if I told you that or not). Nothing the matter with the mower she just wasn't strong enough to pull the cord. Lawns have been done now though.

Other than that not too much is happening. Will write some more tomrrow night.
Love you.