4 Days in a Jeep

Travelling from Tupiza to Uyuni by bus takes about 7 hours. Thinking this much too short a journey compared to what we're used to, we decided to take the 4 day jeep ride option instead. We found a couple of friends from our bus to Tupiza to fill the jeep, bartered the price down slightly and finished a long day feeling very tired but content.

Day 1:
Leaving just before 9am from Tupiza, the four of us were introduced to Freddy (our driver), helped load supplies on top and jumped into our Nissan 4x4. Five jeeps from our tour company were leaving that morning, so we were paired up with another one driven by Freddy's younger brother Wilma (you can't write this stuff) so that we shared a cook, Emma (sadly not fitting into the Flintstones theme).

Incredible sights on our drive up steep, winding mountain roads, especially Valle de la Luna and the Devil's Pass, as we reached 4,600m altitude in quite a short space of time. We descended back down to a mere 4,200m to sleep in the tiny village of San Antonio De Lipez, where most of us spent the evening nursing headaches and nausea from the altitude. Sarah, on the other hand, suffered no ill effects whatsoever - must be her big rowing lungs...

Day 2:
Awake at 5am, breakfast at half 5 and leaving at 6am - didn't help the sore heads! First stop was a ghost town, abandoned centuries ago by half the village and with the other half turned into rabbits by God for believing in the Devil. Makes sense really. Lots of lamas and flamingos followed the rabbits before stopping for lunch at the Aguas Calientes (Hot Springs).

Sarah took advantage and went for a relaxing soak before eating a bright yellow dish for lunch which tasted much better than it looked.The afternoon was a quick dash to the Laguna Blanca (White Lake) and Laguna Verde (Green), before hitting the highest point of the trip at 5,000m. Lots of geysers and bubbling mud pools up here, nice sulphur smell too. Night was spent at 4,300m, but altitude sickness not as bad.

Day 3:
Freddy let us have a lie in until 7am before heading to the Laguna Colorada - stunning red coloured lake (from algae) with hundreds of flamingoes - definitely one of the most stunning things we saw. Five more lakes and plenty more flamingoes followed, before an afternoon of active volcanoes and a small salt flat. Couldn't really say where we stayed for night three, other than it was just before the Salar de Uyuni, was made of salt bricks and had a hot shower.

Down to 3,700m or so, easy times.

Day 4:
Early early start in order to be on Salar de Uyuni (the salt flat) for sunrise, which was incredible, if a little cold in just shorts. Set us up for the rest of the day exploring the salt flats; from climbing up the island in the middle to look out on white salt to attempting to take some crazy perspective photos with a bunch of Irish lads we'd been racing in the jeeps. Having been told by many people to make sure we went to the Salar, it certainly didn't disappoint. All in all a magical 4 days exploring south west Bolivia, seeing sights like nothing else we had before and having plenty of laughs along the way.

Until La Paz,

Luke