Nilesh's Posterous

Inca Mummies, Laguna Honda, Pink Flamingos and Laguna Colorada (Salar de Uyuni Tour - Part 2)

After a very good night sleep on our Salt Beds at the Hotel de Sal, the next day, we set off early again to go and see more marvels of nature in the Salar de Uyuni. The plan for today was to visit the Inca Mummies, the Laguna Honda, the Laguna Colorada and climb up to above 5000 feet to our next hotel de Sal to spend the night.

We started the day with the visit of the Inca mummies - The mummies of Coquesa. The mummies have been preserved in ritual caves and were found by the villagers. These mummies are over 1200 years old and are still in the fetal position that they were mumified in. Local villagers still pay respect to the mummies and give them coca leaves, drinks and fruits. Not really sure about the symbolism of it, maybe the mummies are their ancestors.

Then, we headed to Laguna Honda and it was such a spectacular sight to see the still lake and the reflection of the snow capped volcano in it.. picture perfect. We also spotted some wild pink flamingos in that lake. It's their natural habitat and while a few were pink, others were white. I did not know that pink is the color they take if they eat pink things. Otherwise, they take the color of what they eat. We chilled out there for a while and head lunch and I was amazed that for lunch, our cook/driver had prepared Chicken Cordon Bleu ! Could not beleive we were having Chicken Cordon Bleu and Pasta in the middle of a salt desert.

After lunch, we started our ascent up and as we got higher and higher in altitude, it started to get colder and colder and we started losing the distinction of what was salt and what was snow, as we also started having a lot of snow along the road. Huge patches of white snow on the brown soil, but also in may places, there were huge patches of white salt. Very very difficult to know what was what. On the way, we stopped at some amazing rock formations - a rock climber's paradise - to check out the sights and after that, we went the Laguna Colorada - another habitat for the pink flamingos and actually that lake is Red, Blue and White. It's being voted as one the new 7 wonders of the world. We chilled out there (literrally) for a while and then headed to our hotel de sal where we'd sleep for that night. The hotel was above 5500 metres above sea level and I think that's the highest place I've ever been in my life and going to sleep there. That altitude means, it gets very very cold at night. We had a nice dinner with the usual soup, typical bolivian main dish and desert and this time, they even gave us bottle of wine for free as it was our last night. 

After dinner, we all were taking about how cold that night will be and that the next morning, we were supposed to be up at 3:45a.m.. to be able to sleep through the cold, some of us took pills of mellatonin to ease the sleep and some of us took allergy medicine.. as that's also supposed to co-erse sleep. What a drug stricken group of people we were :) Anyways, the night went along find and every single one of these extra layers helped !!

Read about the first part of the tour here.

Read about the perspective free pictures on the Salar here.

Salar de Uyuni Tour -The Salar, Isla de Pescado and Hotel de Sal

Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat, located in Bolivia. The salt is over 10 meters thick in the center. It's one of the attractions to visit int he south of Bolivia and usually it's a 3 day/2 nights tour by 4x4 jeep.

After a tiring 12 hour bus ride from La Paz, I reached Uyuni early morning, around 6:00a.m. It was very very cold. Fortunately they had given us a blanket in the bus and the seats were fully reclining seats such that we could sleep during the entire voyage. I felt bad for some people though, as the bus also sold standing tickets. So a few people had to actually stand or sit in the middle lane the entire 12 hours. I guess it's the local way for stand-by passengers.

I had booked the 3 days/2 nights tour to the Salar de Uyuni in Lapaz itself and had managed to get a decent price for it - 550 Bolivianos from PachaMama Travels in Bolivia. It was in more expensive in Uyuni itself. Usually, the travel books and all suggest buying the tours in the cities where they are, as there are better deals. So the guide from Lipez expedition came to pick me up at the bus station and brought me to his agency while trying to sell his tour to other tourists who just arrived to Uyuni. 

They told me that the package included only a Spanish Speaking guide and if I wanted English speaking guide, it'll be $30 additional per day. I guess, hitting two birds with the same stone, I can learn some spanish and at the same time save some money. In fact, in our group that was in our jeep, only 1 person (Francois from France) spoke and understood decent Spanish. The rest of us - Pauline from France, Tom and Myrah from Australia and Scott from Canada and myself spoke and understood bits and pieces. Our driver, guide, cook and mechanic was all the same person - Victor !

Victor set up the 4x4 jeep with all our luggage, gasoline tanks, gas for cooking, food etc.. for our 3 days out in the salt desert and we departed around noon for the Salar. First stop was the Train Cemetery in Uyuni. I posted the pictures from that in another blog post.

Duct Tape Fixes Everything !!

After the train cemetry, we headed for the Salar de Uyuni. Victor was the fastest driver I think out of everyone. He was speeding (well, we don't know.. as his speedometer did not work and it always showed 3 km/hour), but we were among the first car ahead out of the many jeeps by different tour companies.. As we were driving though, he asked us if we smelled gas. We did. We stopped the jeep and checked and we were having a Gas Leak in the main gas tube to the engine !!! Not even 2 hours into the tour... Well, I guess Victor is a fan of McGyver. He took another tube from another something in the engine and replaced the leaking tube, but it still leaked. He tried to seal it with Electrical tape, but still leaked, then Scott proposed Duct Tape. He said, he always carry duct tape on all his trips and sure did the Duct Tape come in very handy. It did seal the Gas Leak and worked for us fine for the entire 3 days of the Trip. We drove all around the salt desert with duct tape making sure that the gas goes to the engine :)

While Victor was fixing the jeep, we took the opportunity play with perpective and take some unique funny Salar de Uyuni pictures featuring us. I have previously posted these pics in another blog post.

After fixing the jeep, we headed to a small salt village to see how the local harvest the salt from the Salar and produce salt for most of Bolivia, then we headed to the Isla de Pescado. It's an island on the Salar de Uyuni and it's filled with hundreds of giant cactuses. Some of these cactuses are over 1000 years old !!! Imagine all the history that they should have witnessed. We had a very late lunch there - 3:00p.m, because of the break down and all and we chilled out for a while till the afternoon, to head to our night sleeping place - an Hotel de Sal. On our way, We stopped by to check out sunset on the Salar and I think it was the longest ever shadow I ever produced in my entire life :)

Cathedral del Sal, Zipaquira, Colombia

About 1 hour away from Bogota is the small town of Zipaquira. I took a day trip there using public transportation to come see the famous Cathedral Del Sal. They have many mines in Zipaquira, where they mine the underground salt formed ages ago when the ocean got sunked into the earth by the movement of the earth plates. Prehistoric salt !