We had been advised against it for many reasons some do to the extreme terrain, high elevation averaging about 14,500 feet, temperatures that drop to below zero at night, the severely rugged single track rocky jeep trail, the isolation from any town or person for that matter, the lack of any services or the lack of anything for that matter. It is incomprehensible to most people, so that is why we traveled the cocaine smuggling trail to the Uyuni as well as for some extreme photographs.

We carried everything we needed in our back pack for this four day and night excursion. As we left San Pedro we drove to a 16,000 foot pass that dropped us down into the Bolivian high plains desert. We cleared the Bolivian outpost – I could have walked around it – I offered him a 10 dollar note to speed the process. This always works and it did again and then we boarded a Toyota Land Cruiser with locking hubs and onward we traveled on this rocky, sandy and dirt single track path.

The “road” reminded me of the Loch Raven jeep trails except we were traveling at 15,000 plus feet for over eight hours per day. Everything was empty; nothing grew here except a few desert shrubs. We traveled between barren active volcanoes that reached for the heavens at 20,000 plus feet. These active volcanoes were covered various hues of minerals and their colors painted the volcanoes in muted hues of browns, reds, oranges, greens and yellows.

Between the mountains was an ocean of golden sand that stretched to eternity. It covered everything and we sailed across it following a serpentine desert track in our lonely land cruiser. This ocean of sand was punctuated by the huge volcanoes, hard pan and the occasional lagoons of color green volcanic waters.

There were geysers that blew steam to the sun, and mud blow holes that stunk of sulfur as well as funky streams that appeared out of nowhere and if you combine this with the blinding piercing sun overhead you have Dante’s Inferno. The blinding sun overhead bleached everything and drained the life out of all the living beings that inhabited this place. We saw the occasion Llama, Vicuña, a huge rabbit like creature, a large flamingo population that called home to these bubbling lagoons as well as predatory raptors that roamed the skis like Ring Wraiths from lord of the rings looking to consume all in its domain.

This awe-inspiring wilderness owned us, ate us, spit us out at its will and we were its prisoners, yet it was beautiful in every imaginable way and we were grateful to witness such remote beauty. After ten hours of brutal driving we saw at the most four vehicles in the vast desert and finally the blinding sun was now closing its tired eye and we finally came across the first structure and it was our hotel, The Flamingo.

We crossed some streams in which water entered the cab, traveled down steep hillsides, and traveled through areas totally devoid of all life to partial shrub coverage. The scrub in the early morning light covered the land in fire flaming red colors and we visited the many lakes along the way to the Salar.

We came across DEAD people that were buried in mud tombs that were now open.

“Dead dudes” that came out of their tombs.  Sign me up for another life.  Flesh still looked attached because it is so dry and the salt preserved it.

We finally reached the Salar, the crystalline salt pond of 4,000 square miles. It was blinding, flat yet beautiful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=cyv6NmUUGf0

The photos are incredible.  We celebrated with the exiler of life Coca drink. A nice taste and good buzz

It was here that the problems started. Drinking the Coca liquor.

Our guides disappeared with everything we owned; we were in a gateway town – prostitutes, crime bosses, cocaine smugglers, scam artists and basically a toilet town to say it mildly. Our hotel here was a roach invested hostel that reeked of insecticide with no toilet paper or food or anything but it was not bad- really. The town was great if you were a smuggler or a military police taking bribes or a crime boss or prostitute.  

So when we were abandoned, with nothing and nowhere to go and little money we thought about the embassy but everything finally worked itself out- it is hard to explain here. After changing drivers we still had over 36 hours of non stop driving through the night and into the next day to make the border crossing – well we made it I am exhausted and totally smoked and so I will finish this later but these are my preliminary notes and we are off to Santiago Chile tomorrow for Mountain Biking before heading out to Argentina.

One of the townies where the dead people are from below

Me with a new friend