Sucre - La Paz, Bolivia

Bolivia is a country of two flags and two capitals. Above government buildings and on the arm of every soldier two flags represent the diversity of the Bolivian people. The traditional three striped rectangular banner of red, green, and yellow flys adjacent and equal to the indigenous square Wiphala, a seven by seven patchwork of seven colors arranged diagonally. 

Enjoying the view of Sucre from La Recoleta

and by night

Sucre by day

The two capital cities, Sucre and La Paz are as varied as the two flags. Colonial Sucre, located in central Bolivia stands as the constitutional capital.  Nestled in a valley below green forested slopes the old city sparkles with red tile roofs cresting multistoried white washed buildings connected by paved cobblestone streets. 

One of many colonial buildings in downtown Sucre

Sprawling La Paz, located 250 miles northwest of Sucre could not be more different. As the administrative capital, La Paz is home to the president and congress. Modern skyscrapers fill the downtown while a mishmash of low rises creep up the steep hills. Throughout the centuries the city has grown to places almost inaccessible by cars. Long staircases link steep and narrow roadways and an extensive aerial cable-car system avoids the congested diesel choked streets while providing a birds eye view to the claustrophobic city.

La Paz, a very different city than Sucre

An hour before the sun rose, our bus from Uyuni arrived in Sucre. To our surprise, every seat in the bus station was filled with Bolivians and tourists waiting for first light. Following the locals, we huddled in a corner with our mountain of backpacks watching Bolivian children play with a toy car on the cold tile floor. 

A parade in Sucre celebrating the 25th of May, the day
Bolivia declared independence from Colonial rule

At sunrise the station cleared and we found a taxi to our newest AirBnB. Unlike the AirBnBs in Argentina and Chile we arrived to find conditions different than advertised.  Without wifi or secure luggage storage we immediately knew the accommodations would not meet our needs.  As it was early, I waited with our backpacks while Cody hit the streets in search of something adequate.

Luck was on our side that morning.  In less than an hour Cody booked an AirBnB we had previously considered called Judy's Shared Apartment. Only minutes from the city's main square, Plaza 25 de Mayo, celebrating the fledging countries first cry for freedom in 1809, the incredible accommodations included a spacious kitchen, living area, deck, bedroom, and private bath. While the apartment contained two bedrooms the second was unoccupied for the first three days of our stay. We relished in the solitude forgetting our room adjacent to the karaoke bar in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, the long bus rides that moved us northward from Córdoba, Argentina and the cold, cramped quarters of Uyuni, Bolivia. 

Having been on the move for weeks our first days in Sucre were filled with relaxation and chores. We dropped off laundry, researched flights to the Amazon, bought bus tickets to La Paz, explored the city's ancient streets and took a stroll through the captivating central market. 

Exploring the cobblestone streets of Sucre

Simon Bolivar, the liberator of Bolivia (and much of South America) in Plaza 25 de Mayo

Simon Bolivar and the traditional red, yellow, and green Bolivian flag

The central market of Sucre is a vast, bustling and exotic three story building. A myriad of smells, sights and sounds fill the dimly light aisle ways. Stalls carry every imaginable food item and even some that's stretch beyond imaginations. Llama steaks and slabs of bacon lay next to intestines and cow noses. Bags of peanuts and potatoes the size of five men sat on cobblestone floors while elderly women in colorful garb hawked their goods. Passion fruit shaped like delicate red flowers sat in baskets alongside, large greenish-yellow plantains, tiny bananas, and chirimoya, a scaled green fruit with creamy, sweet white flesh. We bought long red potatoes shaped like fat fingers, eggs, cheese and other vegetables before retiring to our cozy AirBnB. 

The juice stands in the central market. Chirimoya is the green fruit with white flesh in the middle of the photo.

Looking down on the first floor of the central market

The impossibly large bags of peanuts

Enjoying craft beer in Sucre

Our second day in Sucre was absolutely perfect. We slept in, enjoying the the marvelous mattress and warm comforter, took long hot showers, and made an impressive breakfast scramble with our goods from the market. I worked on my writing while Cody made plans for my birthday, buying plane tickets to Rurrenabaque, Bolivia, the gateway to the Bolivian Amazon. As we ate a delectable dinner of llama kebabs and trout salad we made plans to go climbing the following day. 

Cody had corresponded with several local climbers and learned Sucre supposedly held the best developed climbing crag in Bolivia.  With written directions, a little information about the cliff, and positive reviews on an Argentinian climbing blog we were excited to taste a little of Bolivia's rock climbing. 

We haggled with several taxi drivers before one would take us to the pueblo of Villa Alegría for a reasonable rate. Located only five miles from downtown Sucre, Villa Alegría may as well be a different planet.  Perched above the junction of three river valleys, the pueblo stands above fields of quinoa, potatoes and corn. Pigs stood tethered to stakes, rooting though garbage and brush while horses and cows grazed lazily next to red cinderblock houses.  

The directions from the local climber seemed easy and straightforward. The climbing area was called the Seven Falls Wall and our GPS map had a point of interest nearby called Siete Cascadas (Seven Falls). Making an assumption (never a good idea) that the climbing was located nearby, without proper orientation we set out following the GPS towards the trail to Siete Cascadas. 

The taxi had dropped us at the far end of Villa Alegría where children played amongst piles of trash. We looked for an obvious trail into the canyon and settled on one that seems well walked. The path led us through a sprawling heap of garbage strewn across a hillside east of town. Aggressive feral dogs rummaged through the rubbish and something felt off as we made our way down the rounded hill slope . 

The trail ended abruptly on a steep, loose hillside covered in sticker buses and cacti. Knowing we were close to the actual trail we followed mule paths across the hill slope, cursing at every scratch received from the dense vegetation. The sun was bright and temperature hot. We continued our bushwhack unwilling to backtrack through the brambles and thankful to eventually find a well worn dirt path running down the spine of the ridge. 

Looking down on the almost pristine Siete Cascadas

We followed the trail dropping down and crossing two of the intersecting rivers channels. The trail skirted and climbed the opposite side of what quickly became steep canyon walls. Carved from poorly cemented layers of sedimentary rock, the canyon displayed the folding and tilting of past tectonic action. With every bend in the river we hoped to see improving rock quality. Instead we only found friable layers of mud stone, notable only by occasional examples of well preserved fossilized ripple marks.  

Thinking we had gone in the wrong direction from town, our fears were confirmed when rather than a climbing area, we found a series of tiered pools connected by small waterfalls. The area was almost beautiful. Pools of turquoise waters rested below tall vegetated cliffs, tainted with floating plastic bottle and takeout containers. Garbage cans overflowed on to the stone slabs next to the pools and I felt sadness this sanctuary was treated with such disregard. 

While the state of the Siete Cascadas, known for its swimming holes and waterfalls, disgusted us; many Bolivians sought out the serenity it offered from the busyness of Sucre. We left the area as Bolivian teenagers set up tents to camp next to the pools. Cody asked if they knew where the climbing was and were unsurprisingly they did not know. Climbing is not accessible to most Bolivians, with a lack of infrastructure and the high cost of equipment. Never the less, the Bolivians were friendly and cordial. We wished them well as we turned back working out our next step. 

Looking at the GPS and written directions we realized the trail we followed had taken us north, rather than northwest from town. It was only midday and as we had time we chose to explore up the first canyon we had crossed that morning. Wandering up the canyon our optimism grew as sandstone boulders appeared in the nearly dry river channel. An hour up the twisting canyon we came across a group of long horned bulls drinking from a pools in the dry creek bottom. Intimidated by their size and the narrow passage around then we stopped perplexed.  To our surprise, looking down from the river bank an elderly Bolivian cattle herder watched us curiously from under his wide brimmed wool hat. With nothing to loose we asked him if he knew where the rock climbing was and to our surprise he said in Spanish, "Yes, it's just around the corner, a little ways up canyon." 

Plants growing from the cliffside

The less than inspiring Seven Falls Wall outside of Sucre

More than 2 hours had passed from when the taxi had left us in Villa Alegría and when we arrived at the cliff band rather than the 30 minutes stated in our directions. It was already afternoon when we found the wall, a lackluster cliff band of well vegetated rock. We climbed three routes on steep sandstone grasping at sloping crimp and jugs, suspicious of the rock quality, and surrounded by air plants commonly used in hanging terrariums in the states. Some routes had poorly placed and bent bolts while others simply lacked hangers necessary for protection. Bushes were scattered throughout the vertical cliff face and our second climb was shared with an army of ants climbing a vertical crack and constantly falling into my shirt and hair. It was not the most fun I have ever had. 

The sun was fierce and sweltering in the narrow canyon as heat reflected off the golden walls. As the afternoon grew late we left the mediocre crag. We did not know how long it would take to return to Villa Alegría, as we had no intention of returning from whence we came. Fortuitously, three Bolivians directed us to the most direct trail following stonewalls and farmers fields, reducing our hike back to a meager 30 minutes. As several sources described the Seven Falls Wall as "the best crag in Bolivia" we decided there was no need to seek out other climbing destinations in Bolivia.

From Villa Alegría we caught a minibus back to Sucre. The five mile drive took over an hour to travel as traffic clogged the narrow streets and when the roadways were clear the minibus never seemed to shift out of first gear. As we entered the city, the minibus crawled through a busy outdoor market where women sold deep fried intestines, hot french fries, bread from huge baskets, and raw chickens from wheelbarrows. People hurriedly moved through the congested streets completing their shopping for clothes, food, and everything else imaginable. 

A woman passes one of the numerous colonial churches in downtown Sucre

After our disappointment with the climbing, our final days in Sucre were spent lazily exploring the city's central market, green parks, gigantic old churches, and beautiful overlooks. We spent a morning writing postcards to friends and family, and chatted with the French couple who had arrived to share the apartment.  We ate salteñas, decadent meat and vegetable filled pastries similar to empanadas, before ascending the steep pedestrian only road, Ichumoco, to an overlook of the city called Recoleta. From the overlook we admired the steep cobblestone roads, red tiled roofs and white washed archways of the city. 

On our way up to La Recoleta in Sucre

A view into the courtyard adjacent to La Recoleta

Looking down the steephill into downtown Sucre

Cody is all smiles at La Recoleta

On our way down the hill we made a necessary stop at "Chocolate Para Ti" (Chocolate For You) and enjoyed thick creamy drinks made with molten chocolate before buying half a dozen different chocolate bars. Sucre is the chocolate capital of Bolivia and after tasting only a fraction of its fare I find the name well deserved. In the central market we drank a blended fruit smoothies made of chirimoya and blackberries and shared a Chuquisaqueña Choizo, a spicy chorizo sandwich, from the best chorizo stand in Sucre. 

Delicious blackberry and chirimoya smoothie

Chocolate para mi, chocolate para ti

From the market we walked to Parque Simon Bolivar, a children's park filled with statues and play structures shaped like dinosaurs. Dinosaur footprints, slides, tee-to-totters, fountains, and jungle gyms were covered in giggling children and I wished for once to be a child again. 

The dinosaur themed Parque Simon Bolivar

Before leaving Sucre, we bought plane tickets from Lima, Peru to Bogota, Colombia for September 1st. Colombia will be the final stop in our South American odyssey and it feels both exciting and terrifying to consider what awaits us when we return home to the United States.

Another overnight bus took us from Sucre to La Paz winding up steep mountain roads as we climbed from 9000 ft asl to more than 12000 ft asl. The air was cool and clouds filled the sky as we found a taxi to our hostel.  I had carried a bottle of wine from Sucre in my small day back.  We had switched backpacks while getting off the bus and Cody, forgetting the wine dropped it on the pavement as we loaded backpacks into the taxi.  The bottle shattered and my waterproof backpack acted as a bucket, collecting the cheap red wine and soaking everything inside. It would not have mattered except my Kindle; the Kindle that had survived a dunk in the bathtub in Seattle and a swim in the river in Cochamó had finally met its match, a bottle of vino tinto. Cody and I now get to practice sharing our remaining Kindle, a testament to the strength of our marriage.

A view of the aerial tramway from our hostel in La Paz

A hot shower and ride in aerial tramway slowly brightened my mood. The end of the line brought us to a mirador overlooking the sprawling red city that overflowed the impossibly steep hillsides that once contained La Paz. Riding the tram we looked down on half constructed houses and others fully occupied with clothes drying on their rooftops. Beyond the city lie the breathtaking snow capped Cordillera Real containing more than 600 peaks over 5000 m (16400 ft). 

Cody in the aerial tram above La Paz

Looking down on La Paz from the top of the tram

Even stray dogs get jackets in chilly La Paz

Our first stop in La Paz was brief as the next day we were to catch a flight to Rurrenabaque, Bolivia's gateway to the Amazon. Nonetheless, a short stop provided a small taste of the many flavors La Paz has to offer. 

Sucre was the perfect city to refresh our travel weary bodies and minds and our stop in La Paz finally provided a look into the expansive, chaotic South American cities we have so far avoided.  Our next adventures in Bolivia take us far from busy city streets and into the lush jungles and wetlands of the Amazonian basin. It is impossible to feel luckier than we do now, nearly five months into our travels. 

Villazón - Uyuni, Bolivia

We crossed into Bolivia on foot, walking the windy and dusty streets of La Quica, Argentina from the bus station to a small bridge demarcating the border. Unlike Argentina and Chile, Bolivia requires a visa for US citizens so for the first time on our trip we were required to pay to enter a country. At $160 per person, the visa felt expensive. We waited patiently in the narrow walkway of the pedestrian border crossing, our massive backpacks impeding the way no matter how we stood. A border guard handed us two forms and little other instruction. While not unfriendly, the guard was far from warm, and was aghast we did not have passport photos, copies of our passports and yellow fever certificates at his disposal.  We asked where to obtain passport photos and photocopies and he seemed confused, as if no other traveler had asked the question. Another guard was more helpful and told us we could get copies and passport photos in town. So, without a visa or passport stamp we walked into Bolivia to gather our documents from the dirty streets of Villazón, Bolivia. 

The incredible Salar de Uyuni

A row of flags in the border city of Villazón, Bolivia

Passport photos we taken and photocopies made several blocks from the border station. In less than an hour our documents were in order and we returned to the window of the Bolivian border station.  Waiting ensued as the guards slowly stapled each document together and we watched European, Australian, and Chilean travelers pass quickly following a simple stamp.  Two hours after receiving our Argentinian exit stamp, a ten-year Bolivian visa decorated our passports allowing us to officially enter the dismal border town of Villazón. 

Less than a block into the town we caught a taxi to the bus station intent on taking the first available bus to Uyuni, Bolivia. The bus station lay on the outskirts of town. Beautifully built with two stories and a massive domed atrium we arrived to discover it had only been christened that morning. As it was new, the building held no ticket offices. Cody asked one of the few lonely employees wandering the empty halls how we were supposed to catch a bus. She told us we just had to wait and maybe one would show up going where we wanted to go. Unwilling to deal with a new level of uncertainty we caught a taxi to the train station and bought tickets for the afternoon train to Uyuni. 

Boarding the Wara Wara on our way to Uyuni, Bolivia

The Wara Wara del Sur, was old and slow but comfortable and direct.  Night fell as we lumbered across the southern Bolivian desert stopping briefly in the cities of Tupiza and Atocha. To the gentle rocking of the rail car we fell asleep, exhausted from our day of travel, and anxious for the adventures awaiting us in Uyuni. 

At 1:15 am the Wara Wara slowed and screeched to a stop. We awoke to a steward calling out "Uyuni", and with bleary eyes stumbled up from our seats. As we gathered our belongings I noticed one of my earrings had fallen from my ear while I slept in the cushioned seat. I looked briefly but it seemed lost and I was too tired to care. Cody was more determined and asked the Bolivians seated behind us for help. The elderly man behind me found it within minutes.  

Prepared food and vegetables in the central
market of Uyuni

Without a plan for accommodations we followed the pack of gringos disembarking the train to a nearby hostel. It was cheap and adequate so without further ado we crawled into our bunk beds and swiftly fell asleep. Morning found us well rested despite a cold night spent in the fetal position. 

After breakfast we set off on our only missions for the day, to find an ATM and sign up for a tour of the famous Uyuni salt flats, the Salar de Uyuni. To our surprise the ATM was the more difficult task of the two, but after trying four different machines and a call to our bank we finally had bolivianos in our hand. We chose our tour company, Red Planet Expeditions, based on reputation despite the slightly higher cost and knowledge that 20 others had signed up to leave the same day. 

More delicious vegetables for sale

A casual afternoon in the city was highlighted by sliding down a tall bumpy slide, buying an alpaca wool sweater dress and purchasing ten postcards for ten bolivianos ($1.40). Dinner was an amazing dish of curried llama accompanied by the most delicious light and fluffy quinoa that has ever graced our lips. 

Uyuni is a rather bland adobe town with brick roads, adobe construction, and bustling streets strewn with trash. A military outpost and relic of the mining boom of the 19th century, it today relies on mining and tourism to support its 30,000 residents. 

A woman selling dried fruit on the street in Uyuni

The people are ancestors of the Aymará, conquered first by the Inca in the 15th century and then later the Spanish. Their skin is the color of polished copper and deep lines surround their weary eyes and weathered mouths. The women wear long skirts, colorful shawls and wool bowler hats with thick black tasseled braids reaching past their waist. Many carry boxes or children on their backs, wrapped securely in a colorful wool blanket tied around their shoulders causing them to walk in a hunched and stooped manned. Most of the people are short and even I frequently tower over the men while Cody appears gigantic. 

The fleet of Land Rovers

Our tour met at 10:30am and load into newer model Land Rovers complete with leather seats and seat belts. Despite our excitement we felt unsure of our decision to join such a large tour group. The first stop heightened our misgivings as the six Land Rovers in our tour arrived at the first stop, the Cementerio de Trenes (Train Cemetery). Located only a few kilometers from Uyuni it looked like a scrapyard crawling with hundreds of tourists. The rusty collection consists of historic steam locomotives, brought to Bolivia to move minerals from the mine. They were engineered in England and assembled in Uyuni in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. The operators quickly found the boilers failed to operate properly due to the decreased atmospheric pressure at Uyuni's 12000 ft asl. To reduce the boiling temperature of the water, salt was added to the engine boilers increasing the rate of corrosion and adding victims to the train cemetery. We used the short stop to explore the rusting steel carcasses, climbing on top of and through the skeletal frames.  Much of the useable steel had been cut away and scrapped leaving graffitied locomotive engines and remnants of the cars that followed them waiting to be swallowed by the desert sand. 

Cody exploring one of the many locomotives

The train cemetery outside of Uyuni

 Returning to our vehicle we learned one of the six Land Rovers was returning to Uyuni as some people did not show up for the tour. New seating arrangements were made and we moved to a different group. Our new compatriots were jovial Australians, replacing the dour Americans and Europeans in our previous car. At last our tour felt like it was heading in a better direction.

Bagging salt for sale at the salt refinery

We stopped in the small village of Colchani on the edge of the salt flat for lunch and toured a small salt refinery.  Refining salt from the Salar is a simple, ancient and fascinating process. Only the top layer of the salt is dry and underneath it lays hypersaline water that resides within the crystalline matrix of the salt.  Refining involves drying salt at 100 degrees F  to remove moisture and impurities, adding iodine, crushing and grinding it into a desired size and bagging it by hand. Small scale salt refining operations such as this are far from lucrative. In addition to mining salt, the small villages on the outskirts of the Salar farm quinoa and potatoes in the rocky altiplano soil and raise llama to survive in the harsh landscape. Cody later learned from our indigenous driver that many Bolivians suffer from respiratory chemical burns due to gases produced while drying salt in the refining process adding further hardship to their tenuous lives.

The pile of salt waiting to be processed outside the refinery

 After lunch we headed onto the salt flat. The Salar de Uyuni is the worlds largest salt flat covering 12,106 sq km and sitting nearly 12,000 ft asl. The flat white ocean is evocative and surreal. Formed between 42,000 and 25,000 years ago, Lago Minchín evaporated and lay dry for 14,000 years. The short lived Paleo Lago Tauca appeared and lasted for 1000 years before drying up to leave behind today's Lagos Poopó and Uru Uru to the north and the Salares de Uyuni and Coipasa. This portion of the altiplano in southern Bolivia is drained internally with no outlets to the sea. The salt deposits are the result of minerals leached from the mountains and deposited at the lowest available point containing large amounts of sodium, magnesium, potassium and 50 to 70% of the worlds lithium.

Flags left by travelers on the eastern edge of the Salr de Uyuni

The white salt plain became blinding as the sun crept from behind the clouds warming the cold, high altitude air. We broke from the caravan of Land Rovers to make several stops on the Salar. With the Australians and one Korean we took silly and mesmerizing perspective photos, made a laughable video with a Pringles can and enjoyed many smiles with our new friends. 

We found the American flag!

Looking out onto the Salar

Finding that my new llama friend likes to snack on salt!

Cody does a hand stand...

... while I jump for joy

We met a nasty dinosaur. I defended us while Cody ran for help.

The incredible hexagonal tiles of the Salar

Driving across the Salar was amazing. The perfectly smooth terrain and white expanse made distant vehicles appeared to fly over the landscape like hover crafts. 

A map of the Salar de Uyuni 

As the afternoon waned we approached our final stop of the day, Isla Incahuasi, an island of fossilized stromatolites peaking through the middle of the Salar. A place of refuge for the llama trains of old, it now provides an incredible perspective of the vast white landscape surrounded by distant towering volcanoes. Cody and I hiked quickly to the top of the coral peak (12,140 ft als), impressed with the towering Trichocereus cacti covering the island.  The cacti, standing up to 30ft tall grow only half an inch per year and live to be nearly 1000 years old. They die leaving behind beautiful wood that is used  for building and handicrafts. 

Cody standing next to one of the many impressive cacti on Isla Incahuasi

Cacti and the Salar

Cacti cover the island of fossilized stromatolites in the Salar de Uyuni

Cody enjoying the impressive view

In returning from our hike we found ourselves stranded on the windswept landscape because our driver had locked the keys in the vehicle. While people from the tour company tried to jimmy the lock we wandered onto the Salar. Hexagonal tiles formed by evaporating water extended to the horizon. As our shadows grew long and the sunset behind mountains we escaped in our solitude on the Salar.  The car door opened as pinks turned to reds in the sky above us and wistfully we left the unparalleled Salar de Uyuni.  

Watching our shadows grow long in view of Isla Incahuasi

A view of hexagons of salt surrounding Isla Incahuasi

Waiting for sunset on the magical Salar

Catching the sunset on the Salar de Uyuni

A Land Rover heading out at sunset

Our final glimpse of sunset on the Salar

We drove an hour across the Salar to our accommodations for the evening, a salt hotel. The building was constructed with salt bricks held together and chinked with salt mortar. The tables and chairs were made of salt slabs, as was our bed frame and night stands.  The floor of crushed rock salt felt cool beneath our feet and the ambiance felt remarkable. Dinner was shared family style at long salt tables before we retreated for a restful nights sleep in our chilly salt chamber. 

Our room in the salt hotel

Packing the Land Rovers for day two

Day two of the tour started early. We left the salt hotel as the sun rose heading down dusty roads through the Salar de Chiguana, a smaller salt flat that is more sand than salt.  Along the way our driver pointed out the fallow quinoa and potato fields perched above us on impossibly steep mountain slopes, patches of light tilled soil amongst the dusty yellows, reds and browns of the rocky slopes.  Ancient stone corrals formed a network of spiderwebs up these same hillsides, a marker of the Aymará people who have tilled these soils for uncountable generations.

Stopping briefly along the old and still used train tracks connecting Chile and Bolivia we gazed at the mountains rising above us. Our long drive continued with a brief stop at an overlook of the active volcano Ollagüe, emitting wisps of steam into the sky.  The route turned south to the beautifully colored altiplano lakes, Lagunas Cañapa, Hedionda and Honda to watch flamingos feed in near frozen water. 

An apachete next to the train tracks

Being silly in the train tracks, thankfully the train only comes twice a week

An altiplano lake beneath snow capped mountains

Flamingos feeding the in near frozen waters

Yellow grass on the lake shore

Enjoying the sunshine above an altiplano lake before the weather turned

Altiplano lakes are fed by hydrothermal, mineragenic spring water allowing large evaporite deposites of borax, gypsum, magnesium and sodium to accrete along the shore. Some deposits are mined to make the chemical borax. Native birds and mammals use the white minerals as natural insecticides, rolling in the deposited to kill mites and other parasites that live in their feathered and furred bodies.

Pre-lunch flamingo watching

Pink flamingos feeding along the shallow lake shore

Lunch was enjoyed next to Laguna Hedioda, before continuing our long drive to south. We stopped briefly at a series of wild rock formations, carved from ignimbrite deposits by wind and sand. Mangy foxes begged for food along the road as we drove through the vast high desert while herds of golden fleeced vicuña grazed on stiff yellow grasses. We stopped at a cliff band to view vizcacha, rabbit like rodents, climb effortlessly up the steep rock despite their long, curly cue tails. 

Some of the many ignimbrite boulders in the altiplano

A rock formation called La Arbol Piedra, the stone tree

A Land Rover crossing the dusty altiplano

A fox begs for food in the desert

Vizcacha scampering amongst the rocks

The wind was strong and the air cold as we climbed in altitude to our final stops of the day. As we entered the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve we gazed down on the rust colored Laguna Colorada, disappointing clouds hid the true beauty of the lake, famous for its otherworldly sanguine color created by blooming phytoplankton. 

The red waters of Laguna Colorada

White deposites of evaporites surrounding Laguna Colorado 

Our long day ended as the sun went down at the highest altitude geyser field in the world, Sol de Mañana. Sitting close to 16000 ft asl, if you jumped really high you could almost touch the elevation milestone. The evening air was cold and thin. Around us steam geysers whistled, fumaroles smoked and mud boiled in sulfurous pits. The geyser field, unaltered by walkways and safety barriers was exotic and intoxicating as we wandered between the boiling pools careful not to steep to close to any edge.

Steam geysers and pools of mud

Tredding carefully between pools while I wear 3 puffy jackets

Prismatic pools...

... and pools of boiling mud!

Cody in the geyser field

The last dinner of the tour with our new friends

The second night accommodations lacked nearly everything but walls and roof over our head. Cody and I were lucky to get the only private room, a literal cupboard tucked off the dining area complete with a dreadfully concave mattress. The marginal dinner was tempered by wine and laughter shared with the Australians in our tour group. 

Following dinner we braved the icy wind and below freezing temperatures to visit an outdoor hot spring, Termas de Polques, located several minutes from the accommodations. Enveloping our bodies in the 100 degree F waters our stiff limbs relaxed as our faces grew chapped and hair froze from the steam rising off the waters surface. The stars were marvelous above us and again we were grateful for another incredible night under a South American sky. We set our belongs along side the pool far from the hoards but an inebriated bystander wandered by and kicked Cody's towel into the pool.  Despite my best efforts to wring out the water it froze almost instantly into a comically stiff board of cotton and ice. 

We slept remarkably well at our highest altitude to date, 14,500 ft asl, and awoke for our final morning in the dark. The accommodations were powered with solar panels and to conserve energy, electricity was turned off at 10 pm and did not turn on by the time we left at 7:30 am. The weather was dismal and our final stops of the tour, the Valle de Salvador Dalí, a sandy hillside strewn with ignimbrite towers, and the dampened green lake, Laguna Verde, while beautiful were somewhat less enjoyable in the biting wind. 

The rather unimpressive Laguna Verde

Departing from our traveling companions as they were heading south into Chile, while we returned north to Uyuni. The jovial group of Australians were replaced by a grumpy Austrian, a self proclaimed summer child, suffering the cold and altitude and a kind Brit who was trying to make the best of everything despite GI problems. 

Trying to dig a Land Rover out of a hole with one shovel 

As we backtracked to the hot spring it started to snow. The stop grew prolonged as our driver tried to help another tour agency dig out a Land Rover that had been backed into a hole nearly 8 ft deep. With only one shovel and no rope or chain we could see their attempts were utterly futile. After 30 minutes of waiting we left other Bolivians standing around the stranded car, scratching their heads, and working through their limited options. 

Our long journey north was beautiful. A dusting of snow blanketed the rolling hills, highlighting the clusters of golden grass peaking through. As we dropped in elevation the snow lessened until it finally disappeared.  Descending into a narrow ravine we passed llamas grazing along a grass lined half frozen stream, their red tasseled ears twitching as they chewed their cud. 

A late lunch was held near the Valles de Rocas, an incredible hillside of volcanic rock that seemed to have nearly unlimited climbing potential. We walked a short ways into the maze of rocks but could not venture into its depths. It was bittersweet for us both to not have time on the tour to explore vast expanse.

The hummocky landscape on the way into Valles de Rockas

Feeling hangry while we wait for our final lunch

Stopping in the pueblo of San Cristóbal we welcomed a chance to stretch our legs and forget the monotonous and barren landscape that accompanied us after lunch. A brick and adobe village like Uyuni, its only highlight was the beautiful 350 year old stone church standing proud in the center of town. Reconstructed stone by stone after the village was moved from its original location next to a mine by a American-Janpanese mining project that took over the area to search for lead, zinc, and silver. 

The stone church of San Cristóbal

The stone church and its thatched roof

We returned to Uyuni at 5 pm and wandered the streets to stretch our cramped legs, buying tickets for and overnight bus to Sucre, Bolivia. As we waited to board our bus stray dogs dug through the mountain of garbage piled in the center of a nearby intersection.  Content with our time on the Salar we were anxious to leave the dusty city and its filthy streets smelling of rancid garbage. 

I wish my words were adequate to explain the unexplainable. Exploring the Salar de Uyuni was an experience of a lifetime. Watching flamingos feed in prismatic altiplano lakes, standing in the sulfurous steam rising off bubbling pools of mud, seeing ancient corrals and fields still in use, and feeling small beneath the innumerable volcanoes rising from the altiplano was insight into a unique place in the large and changing world. 

Flamingos in Laguna Hediconda under Cerro Cañapa

Smiles at the highest geyser field in the world, Sol de Mañana

Leaving Uyuni it is difficult to believe that its surreal landscape has supported life for millennia. Most Bolivians have a hard life and as Americans we have so much privilege and luxury. It is privilege that allows us to be one of many tourists cruising across the Salar. We may not have enjoyed every aspect of a group tour but it took us to places otherwise inaccessible by two gringos living out of backpacks. Uyuni provided an exquisite first look into Bolivia's landscapes and culture. Moving north to Sucre is simply the next chapter in our Bolivian adventure. 

Continuing our adventure through Bolivia