SUEDAMERICA

After some enjoyable days in San Pedro the Atacama we decided to head to Bolivia. We did so with a 3-day tour ending in the Salar de Uyuni, probably one of the most famous attractions Bolivia has to offer. Quite ironically, the actual Salar de Uyuni was not even the highlight of the tour, even though it was highly praised as the main star of the show. Little did we know we would meet our travel partners for the following 2 weeks in Bolivia in the van driving to the opposite side of the town while looking for the wrong Hostel. Almost an hour later, we got into the car with the wonderful Aussie couple, Dec & Shev. It didn't take us long to bond with them and the adventure began. After crossing the border on 4200m above sealevel, Dec having to bribe his way into the Country because they wouldn't accept his Australian nor his American passport, we made it to Bolivia. The Scenery was out of this world and we passed by many beautiful Lagoons, crazy rock formations and colourful mountains. We even stopped by some hot springs with a crazy view and ended up in a remote village in the Bolivian mountains for our first night. We really started to feel the Altitude during the night, since we were still on 4200m. We got to meet some lovely locals, got served an amazing dinner and were absolutely amazed by this place itself. The next day we were once again stunned by the beautiful scenery of the Bolivian Andes. Some of the viewpoints really blew our minds and it felt like being in a Movie. After a long day of travelling and marvelling, we reached our second hostel. This one was fascinatingly built out of salt from the salt flats. Very funny Australian card games, a jam session with Declan and his travel-guitar and a very pleasing dinner later, we went to sleep to be ready to get up at 4 in the morning to head to the salt flats for the sunrise. We got there just in time and the sight was absolutely breathtaking. A white nothingness to get lost in, feeling like we're in a Simulation. We enjoyed the sunrise and breakfast and afterwards did the mandatory photoshoot.
We drove through the endless salt flats and arrived in Uyuni for lunch. Uyuni itself was no place to stay but unfortunately the next bus was not leaving until 8 hours later, so we made the choice to set up our camp at the bus station, together with our Aussie friends and another Swiss guy who we stumbled into couple of times during the tour.
After enduring a third of a day of torture at the bus station (we did not think that it would be this bad sitting inbetween yelling Bolivians, trying to sell bustickets to LA PAZ LA PAZ, COCHABAMBA COCHABAMBAA or SUCRE SUCRE SUCRRRREEE) We finally got into the bus to Sucre. ,,Never in my life would I have liked to kill an elderly woman but today was definetly the day." - Declan Edwards.Read more