We embarked on an adventure from the Atacama desert to the Salar de Uyuni, in Bolivia. First, we took a shuttle to the Chile – Bolivia border, had a very windy and pretty chilly breakfast outside our shuttle bus which gave us a small taste of what was yet to come, transferred into the obligatory Toyota Landcruiser 4×4 with our very nice driver called Eifel and a nice man from Santiago called Diego (who actually turned out to become our translator!!😝) and then off we went. It was pretty impressive how quickly the landscape changed to pure desert land. The Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on Earth and according to wikipedia actually the only desert that receives less precipitation that than polar deserts. As such, Mama incessantly urged us to drink and drink and drink water. Surrounded by huge volcanoes, abstract rock formations and lots and lots of sand on which we drove/slid/skidded along, time just flew by. We stopped many times, from the Dalí desert to the the Borax Lake, which on its shores had tons of Borax foam (sticky😯!) which I am sure would have been perfect for making slime (shout out to Em!) and which, as it turned out, auto-washed our previously very dirty hiking boots (and made them nice and soft…), the Laguna Verde from which to admire the volcano of 6010m while trying not to be blown away by the what felt like 300km/h winds and finally the last stop before lunch at the “Inca baths”, thermal baths in the middle of the freezing wind. We didn’t manage to motivate ourselves to go in (and especially not to come out!).
After lunch we head on to the Laguna Colorado, the desert’s flamingo hot spot on such a bright pink lagoon that we could already see it from over a half hour away. Hundreds of flamingos and vicuña – it was really a beautiful sight. At this stage we are already over 4200m up. That night we sleep in a hostel in Villamar, at 3800m. Given the altitude and the desert landscape it was pretty freezing up here, Vyas did his usual – by now even signature – reaction to fatigue and ended up throwing up before collapsing into “bed”. Mama was not super at ease at this point, so far from anything, really. But it really was only tiredness and so we can head off the next morning, load up the roof of our Landcruiser, plug in my playlist and stop at the Pierras Rojas, a perfect “playground” of climbable rock formations. Notably the football “Copa del Mundo” which the other tourists are already snapping pictures with, to no surprise as Papa points out, since “it’s only for the people who didn’t actually win it in 2018” 😝 There is also another incredible rock formation which looks a bit like a giant camel. Several grown-ups try to climb it up but without much success, then comes little Vyas who just scrambles up in no time.
The landscapes are just as incredible today, different, but just as beautiful. At the end of the day, Eifel beats down on the accelerator so that we manage to catch the beautiful sunset in the Salar of Uyuni.
That night we slept in the cute Salt Hostel made 100% of salt, the floors, the walls, la totale. We managed to get a shower in even if they only opened one for all (50+?) guests, have a fun dinner with a mixed crowd of Mexican/Chilean/Swiss co-adventurers and head off to a very short night. At 3.45am in complete darkness, we leave for the gorgeous Incahuasi. A paradise of hundreds of cacti in the middle of the salt. Incredible. The sunrise is just amazing and Papa and Mama can’t stop snapping pictures despite the cutting freezing cold. By now it was about 6h30 am and I do not hide the fact that we kids were happy to head back down to breakfast! Here, the wind was less cutting, the sun was out and a packaged spongecake never tasted so good! Papa approached a group of bikers 🚴♀️ to learn about their adventure. There was a French lady, Vanessa, a Mexican woman, an Ecuadorian man (Tati) and boy (Toto) who must have been about 15 and they were crossing South America on bicycle. They didn’t all start together but they met along the way and by now they felt like family. 3 months into their trip, one of their bikes broke down and they had been to pulling the boy for the past week. The last 3 days they had run out of water and with the biting cold of the Salar they were tired, thirsty and hungry but still wearing the biggest, sunniest smile ever. They told us so many incredible stories of their adventures together, and we were in awe of their grit and resilience (words that Mama and Papa used, obviously. But they, too, were happy to jump into our warm jeep! 😝). Now they were off to cross the Uyuni desert, across the Andes (!!!!) and then to Patagonia. We wish them luck and off we go to finally take some of the fun pictures I have been planning. With the big salt flats, the lack of perspectives allows you to create some unusual compositions, and we have ideas galore! Fortunately the wind eases up a little so that we can actually take our time and enjoy this little photo session. Thanks to our driver we manage to get a few good shots in and that then pretty much wraps up our trip before we have to start the long drive back to San Pedro.
