7am: the bus has arrived in Uyuni a long time ago, but they let us sleep until 7am, which is great
7:10am: we start walking on the streets when a guy pulls up in his 4x4. "Looking for a Uyuni 4x4 tour? Get in my friends, I'll take you to my agency". We get in, it'll save us from walking!
7:30am: the guys drops us off at a breakfast place, right next to his agency. We order breakfast, we check our emails etc...
8am: we meet the guy at his tour agency and he gives us his schpiel. Sounds good, but we want to compare with other agencies. We walk around the two main streets where the tour agencies are and most of them are closed. We end up signing with the guy for a 3 days tour.
While we wait for the 10:30am departure time, I decide to get my beard trimmed. It's getting long and weird, so it's past time to get it under control. I locate a hair dresser in the street and walk in. Definitely looks dodgy in there, but that'll do. Several people are waiting to get their hair cut, and look at me funny. I can hear them thinking "what is this gringo doing here?"! :)
30min later, it's my turn. I sit on the chair and, mustering my non-existing Spanish, I hesitantly tell the guy "Necesito recortar mi barba". He understood and I indicate with my fingers that I want to keep half of it. He nods and goes to work.
20min later, the beard looks great. I thank him and go on to meet Max and Camille at our rendez-vous point.
10:30am: It's time to go to the agency. They'll make us wait a bit before asking us to meet our driver further away on the street. we believe they didn't have enough people to fill one car, so they merged two groups of people from two separate agencies into 1 car. The other 3 persons are 3 Chinese girls: 2 from Seattle, and 1 from Beijing who barely speaks English/Spanish.
We were barely at the car that the driver already starts complaining that our bags are too big, even though we only had 2 bags for 3 ppl, and the 3 Chinese girls only had a carry-on each. Great start.
The driver's name is Ruben. We'll get to know him over the next few days. Nice bloke, but a bit brusque and not much of a guide!
11am: first stop of the trip, the Train Cemetery. Just outside of Uyuni, this is where the old mining trains are rusting away. This makes a great tourist attraction, and it is indeed full of tourists, although this is probably nothing compared to the high season!
11:30am: Classic stop at a "tourist village" where you can buy all sorts of crap. We felt like in Marocco where organized tours stop at all the tourist shops to sell you stuff.
11:40am: we stop at some thermal waters (very salty) where locals bring little plastic chairs and dip their legs in the therapeutic waters. They believe that the waters help with arthrosis etc... Don't want to be cliche here, but the three Chinese girls immediately started shooting pictures of the locals, without asking permission. They looked like they were in a Safari in Africa.
12:20pm: we are on the Salar de Uyuni, the salt desert! It's very impressive! Flat as a pancake and
almost completely white. We felt like we were on a different planet. Ruben said that the rain cleans all the dust from the salt and the desert becomes completely white.
We stopped at one of the "Dakar" outposts.
1:30pm: we arrive at the Cactus Island at the Salar de Uyuni! It's a strange island, full of cactuses in the middle of the salt desert. We stop there for our first lunch. Quinoa, veggies & cold meat, that's actually a nice meal compared to the regular Bolivian regimen!
2pm: we pay 30 Bolivianos to climb on top of the island. Easily worth it as the view is spectacular. We took great pics up there.
3:20pm: Tourist stop to make "trick" pictures. The Salar is well known for its flatness which allows people to make trick shots. See below (we didn't do very well... Better examples on Google!)
4:30pm: we arrive at our hotel in San Juan. It's very early, and there is nothing to do outside. We play UNO for a good 2 hours and drink a few warm cervesas.
The hotel seems to be made of salt bricks! Interesting concept, however there are no windows in our rooms, and the temperature must be 28 degrees Celsius in our room.
7:30pm: Dinner! The hotel is cooking dinner. As usual: hearty soup, and plate of rice and chicken. The plate of chicken was actually really well presented, but still massive. I couldn't finish half of it due to the soup!
9pm: Shower and night-night!
7:10am: we start walking on the streets when a guy pulls up in his 4x4. "Looking for a Uyuni 4x4 tour? Get in my friends, I'll take you to my agency". We get in, it'll save us from walking!
7:30am: the guys drops us off at a breakfast place, right next to his agency. We order breakfast, we check our emails etc...
8am: we meet the guy at his tour agency and he gives us his schpiel. Sounds good, but we want to compare with other agencies. We walk around the two main streets where the tour agencies are and most of them are closed. We end up signing with the guy for a 3 days tour.
While we wait for the 10:30am departure time, I decide to get my beard trimmed. It's getting long and weird, so it's past time to get it under control. I locate a hair dresser in the street and walk in. Definitely looks dodgy in there, but that'll do. Several people are waiting to get their hair cut, and look at me funny. I can hear them thinking "what is this gringo doing here?"! :)
30min later, it's my turn. I sit on the chair and, mustering my non-existing Spanish, I hesitantly tell the guy "Necesito recortar mi barba". He understood and I indicate with my fingers that I want to keep half of it. He nods and goes to work.
20min later, the beard looks great. I thank him and go on to meet Max and Camille at our rendez-vous point.
10:30am: It's time to go to the agency. They'll make us wait a bit before asking us to meet our driver further away on the street. we believe they didn't have enough people to fill one car, so they merged two groups of people from two separate agencies into 1 car. The other 3 persons are 3 Chinese girls: 2 from Seattle, and 1 from Beijing who barely speaks English/Spanish.
We were barely at the car that the driver already starts complaining that our bags are too big, even though we only had 2 bags for 3 ppl, and the 3 Chinese girls only had a carry-on each. Great start.
The driver's name is Ruben. We'll get to know him over the next few days. Nice bloke, but a bit brusque and not much of a guide!
11am: first stop of the trip, the Train Cemetery. Just outside of Uyuni, this is where the old mining trains are rusting away. This makes a great tourist attraction, and it is indeed full of tourists, although this is probably nothing compared to the high season!
11:30am: Classic stop at a "tourist village" where you can buy all sorts of crap. We felt like in Marocco where organized tours stop at all the tourist shops to sell you stuff.
11:40am: we stop at some thermal waters (very salty) where locals bring little plastic chairs and dip their legs in the therapeutic waters. They believe that the waters help with arthrosis etc... Don't want to be cliche here, but the three Chinese girls immediately started shooting pictures of the locals, without asking permission. They looked like they were in a Safari in Africa.
12:20pm: we are on the Salar de Uyuni, the salt desert! It's very impressive! Flat as a pancake and
almost completely white. We felt like we were on a different planet. Ruben said that the rain cleans all the dust from the salt and the desert becomes completely white.
We stopped at one of the "Dakar" outposts.
1:30pm: we arrive at the Cactus Island at the Salar de Uyuni! It's a strange island, full of cactuses in the middle of the salt desert. We stop there for our first lunch. Quinoa, veggies & cold meat, that's actually a nice meal compared to the regular Bolivian regimen!
2pm: we pay 30 Bolivianos to climb on top of the island. Easily worth it as the view is spectacular. We took great pics up there.
3:20pm: Tourist stop to make "trick" pictures. The Salar is well known for its flatness which allows people to make trick shots. See below (we didn't do very well... Better examples on Google!)
4:30pm: we arrive at our hotel in San Juan. It's very early, and there is nothing to do outside. We play UNO for a good 2 hours and drink a few warm cervesas.
The hotel seems to be made of salt bricks! Interesting concept, however there are no windows in our rooms, and the temperature must be 28 degrees Celsius in our room.
7:30pm: Dinner! The hotel is cooking dinner. As usual: hearty soup, and plate of rice and chicken. The plate of chicken was actually really well presented, but still massive. I couldn't finish half of it due to the soup!
9pm: Shower and night-night!
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