Salar tour

January 28th, day 1 Uyuni Tour Bolivia

Woke up early this morning and waited for our driver to pick us up at 7:30 am. We were very pleased that Fillipe is a jolly guy and our 4x4 looked to be in good shape (this I could tell from the colour obvs!). The 4 of us, Fillipe and Mama Broula, our cook, set off after the usual delays of going to the ATM and buying water etc.

I absolutely didn't know what to expect and found out within the first 10 mins when we started off towards the mountains on a non trail, crossing streams and rivers. Off-roading. The landscape was breathtaking, like giant ant hills near Tupiza. We drove near 3 other Landcruisers from the same agency and it suddenly became like a TV ad for how rough and tough Landcruisers can be... It was amazing! Our driver was very safe but after some heavy rain we got stuck in a mud rut, skidded around a bit, we also had a flat but mostly just avoided cacti and drove over smaller bushes. Completely exhilarating! I was absolutely loving it. 

By mid day it began to rain pretty heavily and started getting really cold. We stopped at a couple of sights and at a lagoon, but mostly also for me to pee. What I'm saying is that everyone saw my bum. The altitude we got to today was 4,850 meters above sea level but I was okay after taking my altitude pills, lifesaver. After some time, the cold began to get to us, coupled with absolutely no shops to buy snacks (no civilisation at all) and we'd been driving for about 9 hours on a non road. Finally, 12 hours later we reached our stay for night 1 which is actually very nice considering everyone scared us and told us it was extremely basic and freezing cold.

Unfortunately, our bags which were on the top of the Landcruiser covered by tarp got wet. So we had to unpack every single thing and hang all over the room to dry. Since we reached so late, we only had soup and bread for dinner but it was just enough.

Though long, day 1 was pretty awesome.