Day 1 of our 3 day tour to Uyuni starts
at 8 am in San Pedro de Atacama at about 2500 m above sea level and
it will end at 4500 m at Hostal Hualla Jara. Its always cold in the
morning in the desert even though you think a desert will be hot. We
were told that it will be around -15 at night at the hostal we will
be staying. I didn't believe this and I didn't want to believe this.
Minus fifteen, damn that's cold!!!! There was a short stop in the
morning at immigration to process our exit from Chile. Followed by a
short ride into the mountains where we stopped at 2 stone buildings.
Apparently this was the border and the bigger of the 2 is the
Bolivian immigration. The other smaller stone hut is where we had
breakfast. Its was still cold so everybody huddle inside and quickly
wolfed down the food and held onto their cup of tea for warmth.
After breakfast we along with 3 other guys loaded our stuff into a
4x4 and this was our transportation to Uyuni. The 3 guys in our 4x4
were exchange students who met in Brazil and were travelling together
to Machu Pichu before going back home.
The first day you drive through the
desert (well everyday is in the desert) to three beautiful lagoons,
each a different colour. You think that the water will be just a
little green or red but no, the colours are really vivid. Around
mid-day, we also made a stop at a thermal pool for nice long relaxing
swim. By this time it is much warmer and you don't have to be a
polar bear to go for a swim. So this time both Mareen and I went for
a swim. The next stop after the pool was at a simple lodge where we
spent the night. Everything on this tour is simple but good. We had
a late lunch here and then headed to Laguna Colorado (red lagoon).
This is a really weird colour for a lagoon. It almost looks like
it's mixed with blood. This is at about 4500 metre above sea level so
as the sun sets it gets cold really fast. There is no escaping the
cold in Uyuni. We had to head back to the hostal before it got dark
because there are no real roads and driving at night is not a good
idea.
Lucky for us we have spent 4 days at
2500 m acclimatizing to the altitude. A few people on our tour
weren't so lucky. 4500 m is just too high to go in one day and they
had a lot of trouble sleeping the first night. At this altitude
with nothing around the sky was super clear and full of stars. We
spent some time outside taking pictures of the stars. And yes it is
around -15!!! The first night of this tour was supposed to be the
coldest due to the altitude and there was no heating in any of the
rooms, just a lot of blankets. So after dinner everybody sat as close
as possible to the smaller fire and tried to stay warm. Our room
was also really cold and it didn't have heating either, not even a
fire. So Mareen and I wore all our warm clothes and slept in one
tiny single bed to keep warm. I can't really sleep when its cold so
this was not a good night.
No comments:
Post a Comment