Uyuni Tour: Day 2

Uyuni Tour: Day 2

Juntacha, Bolivia, South America

I’ve had another good day of sightseeing, while again not enjoying my tour at all. The day started with a 6am breakfast that consisted only of bread and jam, until the israelis complained to Hugo and a plate of scrambled eggs came out for the six of us to split. We left that hellhole of a hostel at 7am and stopped in a town called San Juan as our last “village” to buy anything in for the rest of the trip. We picked up a few snacks and then headed out to our first stop of the day.

We stopped at a viewpoint where we could see the Ollague Volcano which is on the border between Chile and Argentina. It was a pretty nice view, but the most amazing thing to me was how blue the sky was, and there was not one cloud to be found. It was beautiful. We hung around there for about a half hour (even though Hugo said it should only be 15 minutes), and then we headed off to see the lakes.

There are a series of lakes in the desert that each have their own unique quality. The first one we got to, Laguna Caí±apa, has a slight green color, the edges are covered in borax, and the lake is littered with flamingos. I was really excited to see flamingos in the wild because I missed them when I was in the Galapagos. It was a really beautiful scene, and this is where Hugo set up lunch for us. Today’s lunch was a little better than yesterday’s. We had a chicken schnitzel, with some potatoes and vegetables. The Israelis all sat on the ground in a circle, which I noticed didn’t have an empty place, and spoke Hebrew the whole time. I stood by the back of the van and ate by myself. It was pretty strange.

On our way to the next lake, the rest of the group started playing their own music through the radio. Instead of picking popular hits that would be known around the world, they only played music in Hebrew, so Hugo and I were left to suffer. It’s not a nice sounding music. Trust me. I decided to leave Hugo on his own and I started listening to my iPhone with headphones just to escape the racket of the music and the people in the car trying to shout over it.

We continued on to Lagunas Chiarkota, Hedionda and Honda. They each showed a slightly different color, and they all had flamingos wandering around in them. It was cool to see. We then had a pretty long drive out into the desert to get to some volcanic rock formations, where one was meant to resemble a tree. The ride was absolutely miserable because we were going over the same tracks that thousands of other cars have gone over, so it was incredibly bumpy and it was impossible to get comfortable and relax in the car.

We got to the Arbol de Piedra (Tree of rock), and I was pretty underwhelmed. I think it was a combination of the horrible ride, and the fact that I’ve seen places like Cappadocia and the Garden of the Gods, where the rock formations are much more impressive. We just had a short drive from there to Laguna Colorada, which was a great way to finish off our day of sightseeing. This is a massive lake that has an incredible red color. I’ve never seen anything like it.

We passed the checkpoint for this national park we’re now in, bought our tickets and dropped our stuff off at our hostel. It’s another crappy place we’re staying for the night, where all six of us are sharing a room, but it’ll do the trick. We all headed out for a walk up to the viewpoint for the lake. It was about a 30 minute walk and the wind was just incredible. Luckily it was at our back on the way there, but the walk back was not so easy.

We got back, had to fight with the old man to let us take a hot shower for 15 Bolivianos ($2). Finally I got to take a warm shower before dinner, and now I’m in bed ready to try and get some sleep. It’s only 8:30pm, so I don’t see that happening, but we’re getting up at 4:15am to go see some geysers, so I need some rest.

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