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Altiplano Boliviano / Salar de Uyuni |
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The tour through the
Salar begins in Uyuni, that is a small city near to
the salar. Uyuni is a pleasant city, with wide
avenues, some restaurants and several tourism
offices. In Uyuni, all hotels are very simple,
however they are very cheap. In the picture, our
breakfast on the central square of the Uyuni
downtown, Lina, Daniela, Leandro, Leliz, Sandra and
the cook Margarita.
You can go to Uyuni
by train from Oruro or by bus from Potosi and Sucre.
Warning! Don't go by bus starting from La Paz. It
has only a bus that leaves at 4:00 pm from La Paz
and it arrives in Uyuni early in the morning. The
trip is very tiresome, about 15 hours without stop.
The bus doesn't have heating and the temperature can
reach to -10 Celsius at night. If you choose train
from Oruro, check the schedules, not every day. Only
Tuesday and Friday at 3:30 pm and Sunday and
Wednesday at 7:00 pm. About 315 km in 7 hours. First
class, costs 10 dollars.
 Although you can
find several tourism offices in Uyuni, we preferred
to contact it previously from Brazil. We choose the
Andes Salt
Expeditions.
We traveled with a Toyota 4x4, having Greco
as driver and Margarita as cook. Both are very nice.
The steak of llhama that we ate lunch at the salar
was very good. She also prepares vegetarian food.
Prove the soup of quinua. The tour costs 90 dollars
per person. As we are in six, a total 540 dollars
per 4 days of adventures. We recommend this tour
operator. 
Today is July 31,
2005. In the entrance of the salar there is a small
villa, Colchani. The economy of this place is based
on the mining of salt and rudimentary craft.
Starting from now begins a wonderful tour. Please
put your sun glasses and go. This is me, in the
picture. 
Located at 10 km
from Colchani we find the hotel of salt, showed in
the picture with Leliz, my cousin Leandro and
Sandra. Except Leandro that lives in Salvador,
Bahia, all of us live in Porto Alegre, south of the
Brazil. 
Continuing the tour,
going to west direction about 18 km, found the
hexagons. Here you will begin to feel in another
planet. This place is really very wonderful.
Although I have never traveled beyond of earth
planet, I think that this place seems with Europa,
the Jupiter satellite. 
Looking to the north
you can see the volcan Tunupa (5400 m), located on
the edge of the salar. The salar has altitude of
3660 meters above sea level and it expands on 12000
km2, thus it is larger than Titicaca lake. 
At 75 km from
Colchani you will find the island Incahuasi
(latitude 20º14'30, longitude 67º37'35). A very
exotic place. This place is also known as island of
the fish "isla del pescado". However "isla
del pescado" is another island, more distant
than it, and it is not part of the tourist route. 
Anyway, if you love
to photograph, here it is the paradise. Therefore,
be sure of having brought a lot of films for your
camera. For best results, you should use only ASA
100 films, and don't forget to use ultraviolet
filter in your lens. Incahuasi is covered with
gigantic cactus, up to 12 meters. 
The island is formed
by fossils of sea shells. In other words, this place
was, a long time ago, deep of the sea. Fantastic,
probably the altiplano andino was a big sea. The
Poopo and Titicaca lakes were what remained of that
primitive ocean. 
We spent the night
in a lodging showed in the picture, at the little
vila San Juan, located at about 50 km at the south
of the salar border. As have no hotels in the tour,
it is necessary to like adventures.
In the morning of
August 1, 2005, after to drink our
"chimarrão", that is a hot tea, typical of
the south of the Brazil, we go into the Chiguana
desert. At 7:30 am the temperature was -5 C. 
Did you bring many
films for your camera? I recommend a minimum of 15
films of 36 pictures, for the 4 days. You will use
them. In the picture we are leaving the desert and
approaching of the imposing volcan Ollague, showed
in the next picture. 
This is Ollague
volcan, which is in Chile. Here, we already
surpassed the 4000 meters of altitude (latitude
21º21'40, longitude 68º03'44). We are at 14 km, in
straight line, of the Ollague peak that is at 5865
meters above sea level. 
The humidity of the
atmosphere is very low, It never exceeded 12 %. Here
it is the driest place of the world. Thus, although
the temperature was low, we didn't feel very cold.
Starting from this
snow-covered mountain there is the lagoons region,
and this place will be shown in the next page, see
the links.
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