Bolivia - Salar de Uyuni - Album

Bolivia - Potosí - Album

Argentina

Finally, I reached the country that I dreamt of seeing: Argentina.
I took a bus (Gemini) from San Pedro de Atacam in Chile to Salta, ARG. Beautiful landscape.
I will stay a couple of days at Backpackers Salta Hostel, which includes Breakfast AND dinner!! Booked over hostelworld for quite a good price. It is a brandnew hostel. Nice!
I will see how to get to Paraguay from here before going south again.

Salar de Uyuni (BOL) to San Pedro de Atacama (CHI)

By bye Bolivia, bye bye Coca Leaves, bye bye 80s music! :-)
I stayed one last night at the Pierdra Blanca Hostel which was very good as it was warm at night. Nights get really cold here and that was a great thing to have: heating in the rooms.

I had a wonderful 3 day trip from Uyuni in Bolivia through the Salar de Uyuni to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. The beginning and some things were (typically for South America) a bit chaotic, but in the end it was beautiful! Although the last night, or more the last morning, was really really cold at almost 5000 masl.

The Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat and you can cross it by Jeep and take loads of cool photos, once you start it's hard to stop. Now my clothes are full of salt from lying on the ground. On the 1st day our tyre burst but it was all OK, just a bit of waiting and more photo-taking.

At the moment I am in San Pedro de Atacama. Yesterday I went with Unai and Eneko from the Basque Country and Simone from Italy (3 of the guys that were on the Salar de Uyuni - Jeep with me) to stay at Hostal Rural and straight on a joint trip for sandboarding and the Moon Valley, ... but on our way to sandboarding our car got stuck in the sand and couldn't move anymore ... so we walked to the dune and went sandboarding but ... the car still stuck and the trip to see the sunset ant the Moon Valley wasn't happening. So, they offered us moneyback or a new trip, which Simone and I will do today.

Let's see what happens next :-)

Potosi

I finally made it to Potosi, the highest (big) city in the world with ca. 4000 masl and it used to be one of the biggest cities in the world in the early 17th century, because of the silver in the mines.
Some claim that nearly 8 Mio died in them, mostly slaves. Just for the sake of the silver.

I went (of course) to see the mines. I went with The Real Deal as the guides are Ex-Miners.
They still work in the mines to get silver, copper and tin etc.
It was a great experience!

I stayed in a more or less nice Hostel called Casa de Huespedes. Was OK, but why to they let people in my dorm at 1 AM (!) when I am asleep, while there are many other empty dorms? ... of course the 2 girls switched on the lights and made a lot of noise. Best thing: when they finally lay in bed, the one girl asked the other to move around more slowly as the whole bed shakes. Hello?? And then, why all the fuzz when they leave again at 7AM. Why do they have to unpack almost all of their backpacks??? Sometimes I hate hostels, or people without respect. But, thank god, there are different people, like the guy from Colorado in La Paz who even was sorry about his shoes making some noise on the floor ;-)

I took a srubby bus at 10 AM to Uyuni. Nice landscape on the way!
Staying at Pierdra Blanca. Seems to be nice.

Voy a ver!

Bolivia - La Paz - Album

Bolivia - La Paz - Cholitas Wrestling - Album