The 2018 Blog / September 22, 2018
Alright Halfie Nation! We are just pumping out blogs left and right to finish up the series of Halfies go to South America! So with three more to go, I will get right to the point here is our story of the World Famous Uyuni Salt Flats and how we almost got stranded in Bolivia!
The journey started with getting an overnight eleven hour bus to Uyuni, Bolivia. We arrived to the bus station only to find out that there were no tickets left for the bus company that we had planned on taking. In La Paz, there is one bus station with just a ton of companies that have little stands where you can buy your ticket to where ever you want. But, a lot of the bus companies just do not get good reviews at all. This obviously didn’t matter at all because Sarah and I needed to get to Uyuni tonight and there were no buses available. UNTIL we found one company with horrible reviews on tripadvisor but still had some open seats! So we booked it, and hung out for a couple hours until our bus ride at 7pm!
So once we got on the bus, we tried to fall asleep immediately for what was supposed to be our eleven hour bus ride. BUT, to our suprise this turned into almost a fourteen hour journey because Uyuni was just getting pounded with snow and our bus had to move one mph. But we eventually made it, got off the bus at 9am the next morning and headed to some of the travel agencies to book a tour in the salt flats. See Uyuni is a little town in Bolivia that has nothing there, no service, except for a bunch of tour agencies to go check out the salt flats and show you around.
So we got to the agency that we did the most research on and wanted to book with and asked if they had any space for the same day as most everyone leaves at 10am. But of course to our luck the agency said they didn’t have any space, BUT because one couple was late because of the snow storm, they would let us know at 9:55 if we could fill the spaces. So at 9:55am they let us know that we needed to be ready in five minutes because we would be off on our three day tour through the salt flats and to San Pedro, Chile. So we gathered our money, I got all the money i could out of the ATM to pay for our tour, but then they informed us if the snow was too much, we would need to be carrying an extra 200 bolivianos to pay for a bus to get around the pass and to San Pedro! So I quickly got the driver to hold up for fifteen minutes as Sarah then went to get out extra cash. And fifteen minutes later she came back with nothing… the ATM stopped working and we were leaving! So welp…. lets hope it doesn’t snow because if so, we would have no way of getting over the border to Chile!
And now the journey begins! With the First stop?!?! The Train Graveyard!
Alright so we made it to the place where trains go to DIE! Just kidding. This was originally a place where the people in Bolivia were originally going to build a large train system in and out of the town but I guess decided to give up and left it completely abandoned. This stop was about a short twenty minute drive outside of the town through the dirt. We all got out and it was just below freezing with some pretty crazy winds that made it extremely cold. And since we were in such a rush to get going because we didn’t even know until like 10 minutes before we left, we were not wearing warm clothes and all our clothes were tied up with rope to the top of the jeep.
Needless to say we were pretty cold, but still able to enjoy the abandoned trains! I think I enjoyed them a little more than the freezing cold Sarah who was slowly starting to develop some frost bite at this point in time I think. Here’s a quick detailed shot of one of the trains to the right. If you zoom in closely you can see a wild Jonny in his element exploring and climbing on the abandoned trains as Sarah seeks shelter from completely freezing over into an ice pop.
So the next stop, is Cactus Island! And honestly, I’m not even totally sure why it’s called cactus island or now that I think about it, I’m actually not even entirely sure if its even called cactus island anyways. But lets just say, out of this massive salt flats, as far as the eye you can see is just nothing but flat salt ground. Well there was one thing you were able to see, a small little hill in the middle of the salt flats with a sh*t ton of cacti? (I hope thats how you say it lol). So we got out of our truck and at first Sarah and I hesitated to pay the 20 boliviano (3 dollar) park entrance fee as we were trying to “save” in case we got snowed into Bolivia. But of course, like the un responsible adults we are, we spent them and wandered around this little cacti farm in the middle of the salt flats. I took some pictures on my phone which as we know is long gone and somewhere in Santiago at the moment, so here is the ONE photo that Sarah took.
I mean its not bad huh. Oh and that guy in the pic. Yea thats one of our french friends. He was one of the six in our 4x4 that we rolled around in. I’d like to say we became pretty good friends, i mean he couldn’t really speak english but thats besides the point. Oh and heres some shots of our sick 4x4 ride with our warm clothes strapped to the top as well as the first glances of the awesome mirror we were able to see at first getting there!
So what next?!?! Well the next thing you do in the Salt Flats and pretty much the only reason anyone comes?!?!? DUH
At this point, a little confused we waited around as our tour guide stopped the 4x4 got out and started pulling out some props while mumbling Spanish. I also forgot to mention, in order to save money we were placed with the Spanish only speaking tour and the other four on the tour, well they didn’t speak any Spanish either. So we all frantically ran around as our guide demanded our phones and directed us to do some of the craziest photos that I have seen. But at the end of the day, they were pretty hilarious. And now that we’ve got a full roster shot of the team, I guess I will introduce you to the players again. (This is going to be horrible, and I’ll be honest I forgot all of their names including the guides so all these names will be made up as well!)
· Head Coach (Tour Guide): Alfredo - Alfredo was easily a top three tour guide that we have ever had. He was a true champion and just wanted the best for his players. Honestly he might of been shouting slander at us the entire time but none of us would have known at all. But we liked him. 4.7 stars out of 5 Alfredo. Keep up the good work!
· Point Guard - Canada Girl 1 - So the two girls that were on our tour were both from Canada and pretty much exactly our age which was nice, because that was definitely a first. Canada Girl 1 was going to Med School next year and was a little overly worried about everything.
· Shooting Guard - Frugal Canada Girl - This Canadian Girl was going to nursing school and was 100% the most frugal person I have ever met. I think 85% of the words she spoke was complaining about the costs of EVERYTHING. AND YES I MEAN EVERYTHING. Like a 3 extra bolivianos she had to pay on her stack of Pringles?!?! YES and btw thats like 35 cents.
· Small Forward - Frenchie Girl - She was super nice and super chill and I wish we could have talked more but she couldn’t understand a word we said because she told us that “our accents were too thick and American for her to understand” lol. But ironically she just finished Med school and was starting Recidency.
· Power Forward - Frenchie Man - Little Word for Word above, just switch the pronouns to he.
· Center - Saracha cash money slynch money productions lynch money. Enough Said
· Team Mascot - Yours Truly. I supplied the bumpin tunes in the car and the great entertainment that everyone loves, as well as some snoring while we were all shoved into a six person room, but I’ll get to that later.
So before arriving to the salt hostel for the night, we ate lunch at this salt hut with this world famous sign.
And now, back to wear we stayed for the night. A SALT HOSTEL! Yes, this hostel was made up entirely of all salt. And this is where we stayed for the first night. I’m also grouping this together with the restaurant we went to that same day for lunch which was also only made of salt. And when I say everything I mean everything…. the walls, the tables, the llama statues the beds!!!! HOW CRAZY IS THIS. We slept on a salt bed for the night!
Yep, that next day we woke up to the freezing cold and the awesome celebration that is Bolivian Independence Day!
So that next day we woke up early and drove for hours through the flat desert. As far as the eye could see. I honestly don’t know how Alfredo did it, but he managed to find his way. I’d like to credit my bumpin playlist that consisted of some BIGGY SMALLS and KATY PERRY, but he was pretty good too. Anyways, we rolled up to a few pretty awesome beautiful places. But best of all?!?! We got to see these beautiful WILD flamingos!!!! This was awesome considering I’ve never seen any wild flamingos before. And of course I got yelled at for trying to get to close to them. But that is okay! Totally worth it for the Flamingo montage you’re about to scroll through!
After our little flamingo adventure we then moved on to explore more of the desert where we were able to see some wild Vacunas! Which if I understood correctly, they are just really rare and super valuable llamas basically. But yea, we drove miles through the desert towards Chile, found this giant rock that looked kind of like a tree, snapped a pic and kept rolling.
Alright, so no they are not called blue, green, and red lake but I have the worst memory known to man so that is what I am going to call it. Towards the end of the second day and the beginning of the third day we were able to see these three different Colored Lagunas which was really cool! We learned a bit about the science behind why they are those colors (learned about it in Spanish so really didn’t learn, but hey we put up a good effort so thats all that matters).
So after we finally finished up with the lakes we headed straight to the Bolivian-Chilean Border! But just outside the border we had a few awesome and rare spottings. The first spotting, was this amazing man made geyser! Yes…. you read that right. BUT they redeemed themselves when they had basically a thousand ACTUAL NATURAL GEYSERS RIGHT BEHIND IT. It was a pipe that was just shooting up steam from the ground!?!?! BUT then right before we finally hit the border we ran into this beautiful adorable fox frolicking through the snow!
With that, we got off our 4x4, said goodbye to Alfredo and took a bus to our first stop in Chile San Pedro de Atacama! Little did we know this would be the start to our slow demise. But to learn more about that, you’ll just have to keep on reading the blogs! See you in the next one halfie nation!
Originally published September 22, 2018 / See the Uyuni gallery
