Day 65 - Don't inhale

San Pedro de Atacama (Chile)  to Villa Mar (Bolivia)

The tour company we picked for the trip from SPdA to Uyuni in Bolivia takes people by 4WD in groups of 6. We were collected by a mini van pretty much on time at 7:30am. Our travelling companions for the next few days were three guys in their late 20s to early 30s - Glen from the UK, Michael from Switzerland, and Derek from the US, as well as Pan, a lady in her fifties from Thailand.

The driver took us to the border, where we sorted out the border formalities (exit from Chile, entry to Bolivia), then taken to meet our driver/guide for the trip, Rudolfo. Rudolfo made us breakfast, after which we moved our luggage to our 4WD, and started our trip through Bolivia.

Nice spot for brekkie, if a little cold

We had read enough to know it was going to be pretty basic, no phones, internet, heating and maybe electricity? We had chosen this particular tour company because of very good reviews (including no mentions of the drivers being drunk, which is apparently happens a bit), and because we were told we would have our own room.

The car wasn't as roomy as we'd hoped, there were seven of us including the driver, and we hadn't put our day packs up on the roof with the rest of the luggage, so space was at a premium. It was all bearable though, just a little uncomfortable at times.

We drove on to see Laguna Blanca and Laguna Verde, with the snow capped peaks of Volcan Licancabur and other mountains all around us. We then stopped at the Salvador Dalí Desert, with lone rocks rising out of sand, you could why it was named after Dali.

No, Dali was not here

The lunch stop was at a thermal bath, only Derek decided he'd give it a go, the rest of us were still feeling the cold and didn't think getting out of our clothes was a good idea, though Derek did tell us it was nice and warm.

Cold air, warm water - but not for us!

After lunch we drove on to Sol de Mañana, a geothermal field with fumadores emitting hot gases (we were told to go no closer than a metre, but that didn't seem far enough to us), boiling mud, and steam vents. At this point we were up around 4850 metres, and although we were fine, some of the others were impacted by the altitude, especially Pan, who ended up being given oxygen.

Glop, glop, glop

Our last sightseeing stop was at Laguna Colorada, reddish in colour due to algae living there, as well as sediments in the water. There were lots of flamingos here, but we also noticed a number of unhatched eggs, and many dead flamingo chicks. Rudolfo told us that there hadn't been much rain this year so the water level was low and this had also impacted the flamingos .... global warming strikes again?

How does that flamingo song go again?

We eventually arrived at our hostel in the small town of Villa Mar (at "only" 3990m) to find that we were the last group to check in, and that's when the issues started. We had been promised a private room as had Pan, however there was only one  empty room left - ours. Pan had been quite sick and didn't want to sleep in a dorm room, so we decided Pan could sleep in our room. Quite disappointing for all of us, although the upside was that we had a private bathroom, meaning we didn't have to use the outdoor toilet at all. We found out the next morning that the couple who stayed in the double room next to us were told on arrival they had to pay extra, when they refused as the tour was supposed to be all inclusive, the owner locked their ensuite and made them use the outside facilities!

Dinner was pretty basic, just some spaghetti followed by tinned peaches, but it was tasty enough and we didn't go hungry. We had initially been worried about what the beds would be like and how cold we would get, and though our bed had a sag in the middle, it had plenty of coverings and we didn't suffer too much at all!