Bolivia baby!!
Ok so alot has happened these last few days the most notable our 3 day desert crossing from san pedro in chile to uyuni in bolivia. we headed off on sat morn and climbed from 2500meters up to the bolivia border which is at 4200m. we all got off the bus and altitude sickness hit us to the max! we couldnt breathe, everyone was lightheaded and later on in the day one guy actually fainted and several others had terrible headaches so ive been very lucky! the bolivian border is outrageous, you have to drive for over an hour from the chilean customs and you come to this tiny shack in the middle of nowhere and there are two police officers to stamp you through...
the desert we were crossing through is dotted with these beautiful lagoons and geysers (alot like the taupo/rotorua district at home) so we stopped lots aklong the way to see the gren lagoon, the red lagoon, the mud pools etc. i have lots of pics and hopefully over the next few days (we are going to be based in one place) i should have time to pop them up! beside the green lagoon we had our first glimpse of the endangered cousin of the llama and alpaca. now i know i should know what its name is but i dont remember it right now so ill have to come back to that one, they are quite alot smaller and cannot be tamed like a llama or alpaca can so they´re only foujd in the wild. the red lagoon was based where we stayed for the first night (around 5000m above sea level it has not heating, 3 hours of electricity and was easily the coldedst night of my life, hit minus 20 apparantely brrrr!). in the red lagoon are piles of flamingos! these birds have to be one of the highlights of my trip so far, we saw them again on our second day much closer and they truly are amazing birds. the live in these lakes which are bright green and red and feed off the microorganisms which would make any other life form die. plus theyre really beautiful!
the road, actually road is a bit strong its really just a track that other 4wds have been on is rough as! half the time we would just be driving along over all the rocks wth the road beside us. There were a few hairraising momonts and it certainly wasnt the trip to try and take a nap on! at one stage during the 2nd day the road becomes so bad that the trucks carry on and we walked a different track for about a km. we saw llamas everywhere and wçalso were privilegded enough to see the rare desert rabbit they have here (again i have no name for it im sorry!)
our third day was spend on the salt flats. these are AMAZING an absolute must see! the whole thing was a sea about 20 million years ago but now all that is left is salt (for MILES we litterally drove all day on it!). itç is blindingly white and just breathtaking. it is so hard to describe you really have to see it to believe it! we spend a bit of time this day doing some prosectiove photogaphy as the salt flats turn everything into 2D. so we have photos were it looks like we are all hung up on a clothes line or jumping out of a wine bottle. they were so much fun to take and look increadible! again will endevour to get them up in the next couple of days...
at the end of our third day we visited the salt works where they harvest all the salt (bu hand mind). this country is so strikingly poor i am finding it a little sad! we stayed this last night in the towm of uyuni which is like a ghost town from the outskirts it just rises out of the desert, everything is only half constructed and the houses with roofs are all held down with big stones. however they also have the best pizza place in south america which after three days of freeing cold and no showers went down a treat! we then had a little night out with lots of dancing! they have there a drinking challenge which consists of obscene amounts of alcohol (it would be fully illegal anywhere else!) and if you do it in the fastest time its free. there were some sick wee boys on our bus the next day....
yesterday we had a wee stroll around uyuni in the morn (found all tyhe local food markets which are alwats a favouite of mine to visit!) and then got our bus up to potosi which is back at an altitude of 4000m. (i can no longer feel the effects execpt for a slight shortness of breath when walking uphill etc its amazing how well the body adapts). the landscape was so different- dry mostly huge mountains and colomns of rock. we stopped in a small village to use a the toilet - no public ones so the nearest house just opens there toilet and for a price you can use it.
here in potosi there are two main things people come to see. the first is the silver mine which is where we have been this morning. this town is basically built on a hill and the top part of that hill is the mine. it is the largest silver mine in the world and apparantely you could build a bridge from here to spain with all the silver they have pulled out of it. it has been active for over 500 years though so productions has not only slowed down some but has become alot more dangerous. this experience was a real eye opener for me and a little upsetting. the miners will work from the age of 11 and not stop until the die which might be 40 or 50 because of the huge amounts of dust they consume. there are 10000 miners working the mine who all essentially work for themselves are would be lukcy to earn 5 dollars a aday. there is one accident every day n the mine and three fatalities a month. it is pitch black there are no machins down there it is all done by hand- pick axes etc, they have wooden ladders, round logs or ropes to get over holes or up and down levels, we stayed ion there and visited some of the minders for around an hour and a half and i was more than ready to get out. the dust was awful and it is such physical work. they work 7 days a week and 12 hours a day. it was unreal and so sad to think this is there way of life.
the other attractiion in potosi is a museam which we have done this afternoon and has lots of old bolivian things....interesting art work too! tomorrow we are heading to sucre for a few days so will fill in a few blanks in the diary there... x | 