SINCE MRS ROMMEL , my English teacher in the tenth grade, has been shown in class pictures of their journey to and through South America, has to do with the idea of a similar journey, set in my head: The photos I was so enthusiastic that no way could it pass by, travel to these places yourself and see with my own eyes!
We drove from La Paz to Uyuni. The trip should start at seven clock in the evening and end after about twelve hours. We would therefore be able to find the rest of our agency office to the tour to the Salar de Uyuni clock can start at ten in the morning. But once again, the plans should prove to be a nice wishful thinking: Just outside Oruro our bus stopped in the desert. From the previously announced half an hour, which would it take to go up, it could have been five hours and arrived in Uyuni, our jeep had already left.
The next day we were able to take another trip without having to pay extra for it (apart from the hotel and dinner). After all, we had had up to that time to walk a little through Uyuni: The town lives mainly from tourism, which is difficult to see from the numerous tour companies and pizzerias can recognize. Away from the high street, the picture of the place changes very rapidly. Mud huts line the dusty roads, desert and mountains in the background are seen, everything somehow reminds me of western movies.
Now for the tour: We went with Chacha and Ki, a South Korean couple, Miguel Ángel from Colombia, Chile and Caro from our driver, Alejandro, for the first cementerio de trenes , the train cemetery: Here are some steam engines and cars rust in the desert before him. Then we went to Colchani on the banks of the largest salt lake in the world: There was ostensibly cheap souvenirs. Behind one of the wooden doors grabbed a woman salt in plastic bags from what I discovered, however, rather accidental. The lady sitting eight hours a day in front of a pile of salt and pound plastic bags filled way with the white goods. For a thousand bags she gets eight p.m. Bolivianos - these are little more than two euros. Per day, it creates claims to about six hundred bags and therefore deserves about a € sixty, or two dollars. The fact that they live with it above the official poverty line is just cynical.
Colchani, we drove by again salt. The ground was white as far as the eye could see and they lost legliche orientation and the ability to judge distances. It was an incredible feeling to drive through the desert of salt! And it ought to be better situated in the middle of the salar the Isla del Pescado , fish island. There, giant cacti grow between which you could always catch spectacular views of the salt lake, with snow-capped mountains in the background and the blue sky. In the evening we reached
the southern bank of the Salt Lake and stayed at a hotel, which consists largely of salt: floor, walls and even furniture, so to speak were cut from the lake.
The next morning we started south. We moved increasingly to a height of slightly more than four thousand meters above sea level, so that almost all the mountains that we passed were covered with snow. And again, nature was simply stunning: the snow-covered peaks and eternal ranges, deserts, rock formations ... At the same time I had to think that with this environment, this rugged climate no wonder that Bolivia is the poorest country in South America: It can be grown nothing, and richer than other South American countries, Bolivia is in natural resources not: Salt is not worth anything and compared to Venezuela, Ecuador and other nations, Bolivia has no oil ...
passed on this second day we find some five thousand and a few lagoons where flamingos and numerous cavorting on which llamas and vicuña pushed to their Thirst. At the end of the day we still pass the árbol de piedra , the tree of stone, a bizarre rock in the middle of the desert, southern Bolivia, before the colored lagoon, the Laguna Colorada , arrived where we had our camp.
From there we broke on the third and final day of our tour to see geysers at dawn to bathe in hot springs and set down the two Koreans at the border with Chile. And then it was eight hours north through the desert. I could not see enough of the desert and the mountains, was nevertheless relieved when we arrived in Uyuni. From there he went to Potosí.
Today we have time, the city to explore a little, and tomorrow we will have a tour venture into the mines. I will report on this occasion. From Sucre, perhaps, where we go tomorrow, or Cochabambam where we will arrive at the latest on Monday, to end our journey in peace. Until then!
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