Sucre and La Paz, Bolivia

Having wrapped up our tour of the Salt Flats it was a case of "Let's get the hell out of Uyuni ASAP", and the marvelous Gladys sorted out a bargain two part taxi journey to Sucre, the judicial capital of Bolivia. As per normal though, NOTHING is straightforward in South America...

The first taxi took the four of us (Laura and James stayed with us for this leg) to the mining city of Potosi which, it turns out, is actually the highest city in the world! In this stangest of places we jumped out of one taxi and straight into the next. Cabbie no.2 popped a film on his dashboard DVD player (not what you're thinking - it was literally stuck on with velcro). For the next 4-5 hours we were treated to 3 films from the 1960/70s classic Mexican series of La Linda Maria. So, so weird... With about 1 hour to go, the back left tyre burst having finally worn down to the wire!!! The driver made a tyre change any F1 team would be proud of and finally dropped us off at our hotel.

The scenery between Uyuni and Sucre was mind blowing, and we were sensing that this was going to be Bolivia's trump card. However, having entered the poorest nation of South America we were not expecting such a stunning sight when we woke up the next morning...

Here, we just chilled out and enjoyed the sunshine with homemade fruit juices (and steak sandwiches) while recovering from the Salt Flats

We explored the city and it's markets...

Matt: Sucre is a stunning city with the most amazing well-preserved colonial architecture. You could easily be forgiven for thinking you were in the south of France or northern Spain, and none of the extreme poverty that exists in much of Bolivia was to be seen. The people are charming, and the food is excellent. We even had a damned good Bolivian red wine!

After a few days of rest and indulgence, we spent our last day mountain biking in the surrounding hills.

Sarah: Surprisingly I did pretty well and didn't need to get off my bike to get up most of the hills. Considering this was at over 2500 metres Matt has now upgraded me to second slowest cyclist in the world. I'm on the up!

Sarah: Taking a break as usual...

Naturally, it wouldn't have been normal for us to complete a journey without getting a flatty in the middle of nowhere.

Sarah: There are many things that Matt excels at, and driving or riding over the spikiest thorn or rock is definitely one of them!

Sarah: How many men does it take to find a puncture?

The girls got bored... or were pleased for the break maybe?!

Having fully recharged our batteries (and cleaned all of our clothes!) in Sucre, we got on the night bus to Bolivia's de-facto capital, La Paz (the highest CAPITAL city in the world).

Sarah: You would think in Bolivia the night buses would be very basic and we were in fact warned of this by fellow travelers. The seats on this particular night bus reclined fully into beds! However, the toilet was permanently closed for the 11 hour journey. This meant I had my first experience of peeing by the side of the road next to a rubbish bin during one of only 3 stops. When I got back on to the bus a local Bolivian said "This is Bolivia - Welcome!"

Matt: I was fully expecting to hate La Paz. I just imagined a hive of villany and scum (I've heard that somewhere before...) and spending every waking minute fending off muggers and drug dealers... Not a bit of it! Sure, it's a crazy place, but so long as you use some common sense it's an awesome place!

By now we'd been above 2,000m for the best part of 3 weeks and needed some oxygen! So, after a day sightseeing, we booked a flight to the Amazon for some hot weather, exotic food and tarantulas...

Tupiza to Uyuni, Bolivia

   

After a mere 11 hour bus journey we arrived in the freezing cold at the Bolivian border at 5am, somewhat bleary eyed and disorientated. Luckily we met Sophia who was fluent in Spanish and helped us find the way to the border crossing.

By the time the sun was up we'd found a bus to take us to our first destination in Bolivia: Tupiza. It didn't take more than a couple of hours but on the way the bus driver was flagged down by a woman on the side of the road who asked him to stop and fill up his truck with all her luggage. This took about 30 minutes but lots of people helped her as there was a ton of stuff. She may have been moving home...

As Tupiza is the famous place where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had the shoot out with the Americans Feds, we thought we should experience some horse riding in this famous outback...

After five hours of horse riding we booked our Bolivian Salt Flats tour from Tupiza to Uyuni. We asked for an English-speaking guide, but needed two more people to fill our Land Cruiser. With perfect timing, an English couple walked into the booking office. We both recognised them from an incredibly brief encounter back in Mendoza 6 weeks previously, so it seemed a great idea to join forces for the trip...

Matt: Having not introduced ourselves back in Mendoza, we were able to get to know Laura and James pretty well. However, it soon turned out that they both know my cousin, Pete, on a professional basis at Coventry hospital and live not far from him in Leamington! Small world...

Mario (below, left) was our driver and Gladys (right) was our English guide and cook. With our 4x4 loaded up we headed up through the southwest of Bolvia with 3 nights in basic accommodation on route to the famous salt flats. Our first day saw some of Bolivia's most astounding mountains, and we quickly came to realise that it was going to be a VERY cold few days...

The first night we stayed in a little village where the local boys played some traditional music.

Before we headed to bed, we took some photos of the night sky but the moon was so bright this was as good as we got (still pretty good we think!). The thermometer wasn't to creep above freezing for the next 3 days or nights...

The next day we got up early and continued our journey north...

Mario pulled out all the stops to get us through some tough terrain. Every other driver asked their passengers to get out for this bit but Mario was cool as a cucumber and would never have dreamt of asking his passengers anything of the sort. He was therefore crowned 'Super' Mario....

Super Mario then helped some other drivers get through...

We stopped off at a natural hot spa. It was a bit chilly getting out though!

There is always a Frenchman who wants to get his cheeks out!!

Sarah: Much to the girls amusement!

Driving through the mountains...

Reaching 5000 metres! 
(James on the far right, Laura to his left)

The red lagoon. Flamingos everywhere.

Checking out the geysers...

Matt is a geyser...

The very icy lake...

Sarah: Matt testing how thick the ice is... obviously not a stupid thing to do at all.

Visiting the active volcano and looking in awe at the lava formations.

The salt hotel was a saviour on our last night.. we had hot showers! Albeit only for 3 minutes per person!

Finally, after four days and three nights on the road, having experienced temperatures of -20 degrees Celsius we arrived at the famous salt flats! Time to have some comedy fun with the camera...

Sarah: Loving the power! (If only...)

We reached a mature way to settle any differences: dinosaur vs. tank!

 Final day in the car saw the arrival of lollipops. 

Our very last stop before saying goodbye to Super Mario and Gladys was the random train cemetery. Such an odd and eerie place in the middle of nowhere. Apparently all the trains were from England as we sold them to Bolivia. Who would have thought....

Matt: The weird train was something of an analogy for the town of Uyuni: rusty, falling apart and covered in rubbish. Not wishing to mince my words, I would describe Uyuni as a complete shit hole, one of the most depressing towns I ever visited!

And that was the end of our amazing Salt Flats tour. Not wishing to spend a second longer in Uyuni that was necessary, Gladys hooked us up with a local taxi driver to take us straight to the constitutional capital of Sucre. The city couldn't be more of a contrast...