Instead of starting our tour in Uyuni and ending in Uyuni, we started our tour in Tupiza with La Torre Tours. Our group consisted of our guide, Vicente, cook, Augustina, and a lovely couple, Alex and Sas, from Switzerland/Austria. They were multi-lingual and would rotate the language they were talking in every couple sentences. So cool. So jealous. We loaded up our land cruiser around 8am, and we were off!
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| One of our first views climbing away from Tupiza |
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| Bernie Sanders cactus |
Anyways, we started out from Tupiza and quickly gained a ton of elevation. I learned that cocoa leaves really hurt my stomach, but Vicente and Augustina were chewing on them at an incredibly impressive rate. Everyone here swears by them for the altitude.
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| Looking back in the direction of Tupiza |
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| No idea. |
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| Valley of llamas, where the llamas roam free (but stay close because its a consistent freshwater source) |
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| The owners put the tassels on their ears so they can tell who owns the llamas |
The first day was the longest day of driving, but we had lots of quick stops to jump out and take pictures. The rest of the days gave us a lot more time to get out and putz around. Luckily, Alex and Sas were all about the pictures as well. Thankfully Vicente was super patient with us.
We stopped at some ruins of the old town of San Antonio, also called small Machu Picchu. This area was once famous for its gold mines run by the Spanish (with the locals doing the manual labor of course). We got to see one of the abandoned mines. It was a hole in the ground about the size of a small person. Our guide said we could go down in it! I made it about three cautious steps down into the hold before I could see how steeply the tunnel descended into total darkness. No thank you.
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| Mini Picchu from above |
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| Things they have pulled from the old mines: pottery, minerals, quartz, copper |
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| Cemetery in the ruins |
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| Each grave had a cross, with varying amounts of decoration |
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| Oh hey there! |
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| Do you see the rock thats actually a fluffy? They has a curly tail like a squirrel kinda, and hopped like a kangaroo. |
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| More ruins. |
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| It decided to snow as we were driving away from the ruins |
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| Our highest point for the day. In the background you can see a volcano that Bolivia shares with Chile and one of the mineral filled lakes, Laguna Morejon. |
They kept warning us that our accommodation would be really really basic and we shouldn't expect to much. So when we arrived our first night to a stone house and a room with four somewhat comfy warm beds, we were all pleasantly surprised. In addition, Augustina cooked some of the best food I have had in South America. With pretty simple veggies as well.
The next day we hopped back in the land cruiser. Poor Alex was over 6 ft tall, but adamant that he could sit in the back despite his long legs. There was no way it was comfortable for him, but he wouldn't take no for an answer.
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| Our land cruiser in the Dali Desert |
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| Couldn't help myself |
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| Dali Desert, named as such because it looks like the landscape in his paintings |
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| Laguna Verde, at the base of Lincanbur Volcano. You can climb Lincanbur from San Pedro de Atacama (where I was last month), just to give you an idea of how close we were to Chile. They tested the Mars Rover on the top of Lincabur because they needed conditions on Earth that were as close to Mars as possible. |
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| Laguna Verde is full of magnesium, lead, arsenic, and calcium carbonate, aka nothing lives here. Cute right? |
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| More geysers, these ones are just below 5000m |
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| This one was the most active and made a ton of noise spewing steam. Some spewed a very strange smelling grey mud. |
We stayed the night in another really nice and super warm hostel/hotel thing. After another delicious meal by Augustina, we waited for the sky to get dark so we could try for some cool star pics. Unfortunately, it was QUITE cold and windy outside, and people kept driving the jeeps around (with their incredibly bright lights), so I got cold before I got many that I liked. Just like in northern Chile, the stars were absolutely incredible.
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| Trying out some star pics. |
