Well we have had a rather adventurous last week, and I think our trip has picked up a notch in terms of activity and excitement!
Chile was nice and a great way to ease into Sth America, but now that we have our 'travel legs' and are starting to meet new people and do unique experiences we are loving it even more!!!
San Pedro de Atacama was a very cool place and we loved the desert. I could have easily stayed there for more days, but we have to keep moving! The bike ride through the canyon was breathtaking (both literally because of the altitude and because of the scenery!)
The Valley of the Moon tour was cool with very unique scenery of large sand mountains and dunes...
We also had a very cool hostel that we found which had a mint kitchen so we cooked up a few feeds, including good ol scrambled eggs! We stumbled across a blender which had Daile in a frenzy wanting to make a fruit smoothie, which tasted awesome, but caused a sore belly for 2 to 3 days! Couldn't hack it after so little fruit for so long!!
Anyway moving on from the food cos I don't want to bore anyone senseless... Thursday morning was the beginning of an adventure we were very much looking foward to! A 3 day 4WD trip from San Pedro to Uyuni in Bolivia. It is so hard to describe how amazing this tour was! Day one was full of lots of Lagoons - a white lagoon, green lagoon, and red lagoon (and they really were these colours!!!) We saw our first flamingos (so pretty!) and geysers (sorta like the ones in Rotorua with no fences or anything!).
We topped 5000m that day and slept at 4200m, and there were lots of very big headaches amongst the group and people even vomitting! Rodney and I were very lucky, he got a pretty bad headache, but I was rather stoked with myself, I just felt a bit tired...
Day two was mostly making up the miles... and I am not sure if I should tell you this next part or not.... as we were driving along we saw some people waving us down (from another company) to find that they had rolled their 4WD. 3 people were injured, one with a broken arm, another with a sore back and ribs and another with a munted arm. It was not nice for those in that car and our first aid skills were not required as everything was under control by the time they got there, but we squeezed people into our car to get them to the next hostel while the injured got taken to hospital. This reinforced our decision that we are willing to pay a bit more money for the highly recommended companies (we did our research before we booked). Put a bit of a downer on the day, but at least no one got seriously injured. (I hope this doesn't make anyone worry about us!!!) FYI our company was called Estrellar del sur, and were very good, safe and fed us really well!
Day three was the highlight of the trip. The Salar de Uyuni Salt flats. 30 years ago this was a salt lake, but has since dried up and is now the largest salt flat in the world at 12,000 sq metres. It was unlike anything we have ever seen and was AMAZING!! We took some pretty cool pics, (sorry to tease you about those when we havent uploaded any yet). I can't describe in words how facinating the 360 degree views are. White salt on the ground, which meets the horizon all around. And it created amazing reflections of the clouds in the sky. A HUGE highlight for us!!! We also saw giant cactus which was over 1000 years old. They were massive, like 3 or 4 Rodney's high!! (aka 6 to 7 mtrs).
We then arrived in Uyuni which is a hole... and booked a bus to get out of there immediately. As it is rainy season we were told that the road was very wet, and there was a chance the bus may not go. We were also told that we would get 3 toilet stops over the 11 hours. Weeeeellll the bus did leave but the toilet stops were few and far between! The bus was an epic journey to say the least... The road was so rough it´s difficult to describe!!! We could feel our kidneys bouncing around in our guts which was not overly comfortable. More than once, we got bounced about 30 cm off our seats so we were totally airborne and all this in pitch black darkness. The aisle and drivers cabin where filled with locals, sleeping on the floor! Parts of the road had been washed out and after a few hours, we started to understand why they were hesitant to leave... We had to forge a number of rivers where the drivers lacky had to walk through first to make sure we could get across in our off road bus with around 1 and a half meters of ground clearance!!!! Was a few very dodgy moments where we thought we might roll it.... At 3 am (that is 7 hours folks!) we got our first bathroom stop much to everyones relief! As you can imagine, the constant jolting and bouncing were not helping!!! Rodney jumped off the bus straight into a knee deep puddle! Anyway, we eventually made it to La Paz some 14 hours later!!! Bus ride would have been quite fun if there was a bathroom on board and no people sleeping everywhere there was a bit of floor space!!! We were travelling with an Aussie couple we met and a cool chick from the US which made it more comfortable, having safety in numbers!
La Paz is pretty sweet. Got a nice place too stay and are spending some time with people we meet on the tour which is great. Food so far has been awesome and super cheap. 3 course meals, are only NZ$5 each!! Booked in our bike ride down the "Worlds Most Dangerous Road" for this Wednesday which sounds awesome and we are really looking forward to that. See http://www.gravitybolivia.com/ to read about it. Pic at the start of this post is a teaser for you from the website.
Chile was nice and a great way to ease into Sth America, but now that we have our 'travel legs' and are starting to meet new people and do unique experiences we are loving it even more!!!
San Pedro de Atacama was a very cool place and we loved the desert. I could have easily stayed there for more days, but we have to keep moving! The bike ride through the canyon was breathtaking (both literally because of the altitude and because of the scenery!)
The Valley of the Moon tour was cool with very unique scenery of large sand mountains and dunes...
We also had a very cool hostel that we found which had a mint kitchen so we cooked up a few feeds, including good ol scrambled eggs! We stumbled across a blender which had Daile in a frenzy wanting to make a fruit smoothie, which tasted awesome, but caused a sore belly for 2 to 3 days! Couldn't hack it after so little fruit for so long!!
Anyway moving on from the food cos I don't want to bore anyone senseless... Thursday morning was the beginning of an adventure we were very much looking foward to! A 3 day 4WD trip from San Pedro to Uyuni in Bolivia. It is so hard to describe how amazing this tour was! Day one was full of lots of Lagoons - a white lagoon, green lagoon, and red lagoon (and they really were these colours!!!) We saw our first flamingos (so pretty!) and geysers (sorta like the ones in Rotorua with no fences or anything!).
We topped 5000m that day and slept at 4200m, and there were lots of very big headaches amongst the group and people even vomitting! Rodney and I were very lucky, he got a pretty bad headache, but I was rather stoked with myself, I just felt a bit tired...
Day two was mostly making up the miles... and I am not sure if I should tell you this next part or not.... as we were driving along we saw some people waving us down (from another company) to find that they had rolled their 4WD. 3 people were injured, one with a broken arm, another with a sore back and ribs and another with a munted arm. It was not nice for those in that car and our first aid skills were not required as everything was under control by the time they got there, but we squeezed people into our car to get them to the next hostel while the injured got taken to hospital. This reinforced our decision that we are willing to pay a bit more money for the highly recommended companies (we did our research before we booked). Put a bit of a downer on the day, but at least no one got seriously injured. (I hope this doesn't make anyone worry about us!!!) FYI our company was called Estrellar del sur, and were very good, safe and fed us really well!
Day three was the highlight of the trip. The Salar de Uyuni Salt flats. 30 years ago this was a salt lake, but has since dried up and is now the largest salt flat in the world at 12,000 sq metres. It was unlike anything we have ever seen and was AMAZING!! We took some pretty cool pics, (sorry to tease you about those when we havent uploaded any yet). I can't describe in words how facinating the 360 degree views are. White salt on the ground, which meets the horizon all around. And it created amazing reflections of the clouds in the sky. A HUGE highlight for us!!! We also saw giant cactus which was over 1000 years old. They were massive, like 3 or 4 Rodney's high!! (aka 6 to 7 mtrs).
We then arrived in Uyuni which is a hole... and booked a bus to get out of there immediately. As it is rainy season we were told that the road was very wet, and there was a chance the bus may not go. We were also told that we would get 3 toilet stops over the 11 hours. Weeeeellll the bus did leave but the toilet stops were few and far between! The bus was an epic journey to say the least... The road was so rough it´s difficult to describe!!! We could feel our kidneys bouncing around in our guts which was not overly comfortable. More than once, we got bounced about 30 cm off our seats so we were totally airborne and all this in pitch black darkness. The aisle and drivers cabin where filled with locals, sleeping on the floor! Parts of the road had been washed out and after a few hours, we started to understand why they were hesitant to leave... We had to forge a number of rivers where the drivers lacky had to walk through first to make sure we could get across in our off road bus with around 1 and a half meters of ground clearance!!!! Was a few very dodgy moments where we thought we might roll it.... At 3 am (that is 7 hours folks!) we got our first bathroom stop much to everyones relief! As you can imagine, the constant jolting and bouncing were not helping!!! Rodney jumped off the bus straight into a knee deep puddle! Anyway, we eventually made it to La Paz some 14 hours later!!! Bus ride would have been quite fun if there was a bathroom on board and no people sleeping everywhere there was a bit of floor space!!! We were travelling with an Aussie couple we met and a cool chick from the US which made it more comfortable, having safety in numbers!
La Paz is pretty sweet. Got a nice place too stay and are spending some time with people we meet on the tour which is great. Food so far has been awesome and super cheap. 3 course meals, are only NZ$5 each!! Booked in our bike ride down the "Worlds Most Dangerous Road" for this Wednesday which sounds awesome and we are really looking forward to that. See http://www.gravitybolivia.com/ to read about it. Pic at the start of this post is a teaser for you from the website.
Had planned on catching a local football game but nothing on for a week so will have to wait for Bogata or Rio. Had planned a tour of the San Paedro prison but apparently a little girl living in the prison got killed a few days ago so theres a bit of clamp down at the moment so thats a no go unfortunately. Gonna do a bus tour of the city tomorrow and then the bike tour the next day. Gonna spend a night or 2 in Corioco which is at the end of the bike tour and then onto Copacabana on Lake Titicaca. Gonna spend a few days around there and do a walk for Copacabana to the end of the peninsula and then catch a boat over to Isla Del Sol for a couple days and then onto Puna and Cusco for the Machu Pichu trip.
So that is us for now!! Having an awesome time, living the dream completely! We think of you all lots and wonder how you all are! Thanks to those who have been emailing us and keeping us up to date, its great to hear the local goss!
Chau from La Paz, the highest capital city in the world!
xo
So that is us for now!! Having an awesome time, living the dream completely! We think of you all lots and wonder how you all are! Thanks to those who have been emailing us and keeping us up to date, its great to hear the local goss!
Chau from La Paz, the highest capital city in the world!
xo
hey Guys, sounds awesome - make sure you spend enough time in these places to enjoy it and not just rush off to the next place! Remember you dont have to wake up to go to work the next day! Enjoy the Copacabana - and the island, good opportunity to put your feet up!
ReplyDeleteScotty
Great hearing what you guys are up to. That pic you've posted provides an amazing insight into what you're experiencing so far. I didn't realise Bolivia was so mountainous. Keep up the good work...and as Scotty said above ENJOY!
ReplyDelete