A Life on Mars

Flamingos on the Altiplano

Feeling exhausted from the harsh climate of the Andes and eleven months on the road we decided to head south quickly through Bolivia to the world famous Uyuni Salt Flats.  Having researched the option of taking a train through the Altiplano we headed three hours south by bus to the former mining city of Oruro and the start of the rail network.   After a peaceful journey however we encountered one of Bolivia’s regular protests a few kilometres outside of the town where wagons had crudely blocked the road south.  To the untrained eye the blockade seemed like a standard working day for many of the workers of Latin America as they lounged about complaining about long working hours whilst accomplishing the sum total of bugger all (I love Latin American culture but having spent a total of nearly three and a half years here over the past decade I have become a little cynical about their everyday productivity).  Luckily we had spare time and we were able to walk the few kilometres through the protest, catch a minivan through town and make it in time for our train south – nothing is ever as easy travelling as it appears in the planning!

Llamas on the Altiplano

Our Chariot

The train through the Altiplano came with luxury that we thought did not exist in Bolivia and reminded us of good times on the Trans – Siberian some eight months before.  The Altiplano is the highest plain outside of Tibet and as we travelled between the two towering Andean ridges that flank the plain we passed huge lakes full of flamingos.  After dinner in the restaurant cart and a spectacular orange sunset we arrived in Uyuni at around 10pm.  The ice cold town is set 25km away from the Salt Flats in a wind sheered expanse of land.  It seemingly only survives due to the mass influx of tourists using it as a base and eating in the numerous pizza restaurants!  The wind chill was almost painful and thankfully we had only one night to survive before we set off the next morning with Red Planet Expedition on a three day tour of the area. We ended up in a Toyota 4x4 with a couple from Lithuania and a young man from Singapore, two of our favourite places on our trip so far.  After brief introductions and a slightly strange stop at a graveyard for trains that have been left to rot we headed off into the Salar de Uyuni (Salt Flats).

The graveyard for trains

The vast plain covers over 10,000  square kilometres and was created when a giant prehistoric lake (Lake Minchin) dried out.  This left behind a thick layer of salt crust that covers a pool of brine which contains 50% - 70% of the world’s lithium.  Flat as far as the eye can see and glowing white due to the mirror like effect of the salt in the intense sun it was one of the strangest and most captivating places I have ever seen. It felt like we had left earth and ended up on a uninhabited planet!  Although flat the salt crust is not smooth and it is covered in a hypnotic hexagonal pattern formed by convection currents.  After spending time taking strange perspective photographs that were made easy by the absence of landmarks we headed to some former islands in the centre of the lake.  The Inca Wasy Island was covered in giant cacti and provided us with a panoramic view of the flats and the mountains beyond.  These views proved a little too enchanting though and I looked around in time to see Hannah pirouetting with surprising grace having twisted awkwardly on a rock before hitting the ground like a sack of potatoes.  After initially making sure the camera was ok attention quickly turned to Hannah who was in a lot of pain but she manfully got up and hobbled down the steps in some discomfort back to the 4x4.  Thinking she would be able to sleep it off we set out to the small hamlet of Atulcha where we stayed for the night in a hostel made of salt bricks, a new experience for both of us!

Inca Wasy Island

The Siloli Desert (AKA Mars)

Waking up in the morning Hannah’s foot had swollen to seemingly impossible dimensions and was almost black from her toes to half way up her calf.  With no option but to carry on and armed with a vat of ibuprofen we headed off into the freezing cold.  Passing valleys filled with grazing llama we headed higher leaving the salt flats behind as we rose into the strange Chiguanna Desert.  This area was surrounded by distinctive volcanoes which rose to 6000m, some of which were smoking.  We carried on south through the desolate landscape that seemed to be full of only small shrubs until we spotted a Lesser Rhea (a mini ostrich) and herds of what looked like deer.  During our lunch we were invaded by a gang of Squirrel – Rabbits (a rabbit with a squirrels tail) who apparently wait every day for the tour to arrive before eating the inevitable scraps.  From here the scenery grew even more spectacular as we reached the highest and apparently driest desert in the world.  Siloli Desert is at 4500m altitude and looks like every film set on Mars that has ever been produced.  It is a part of the Atacama Desert and its amazing rock formations and mountains seemed to contain tens of different colours that streaked down the sides of them to the red sand below.   We stopped at a dried lake which had been made white due to the high levels of Barium and provided a spectacular vantage point for photographs although by this point the winds had reached 70km/hr making it a little chilly outside of the 4x4.

Hannah being blown away

The fumaroles in the creator

Our final hour of the day saw us enter a national park that contained a red lagoon (due to the sediment and algae) which should have contained hundreds of flamingos but it was a little cold and there were only about half a dozen stupid birds remaining.  From here we climbed even higher to the summit of a volcano just over 5000m high where we dropped down into the crater to see fumaroles (openings in the earth’s crust emitting gases) and pools of mud bubbling at nearly 200ᵒ.  We descended 600m to our ‘accommodation’ for the evening which proved to be a freezing cold series of rooms where the other 18 inmates had bought wine to keep themselves warm.  The wine turned out to be port and due to the altitude the drinking pace was slow leading to many generous offers to share.  Sitting in the middle of the table this put me in prime position and within an hour I was suitably merry (but at least very warm) and we set off down the hill a few hundred metres to some natural hot springs.   Surviving the short dash from the changing hut in the arctic conditions we continued to enjoy the port in our 40ᵒ pool under a sky lit up by the Milky Way in the most amazing display of stars I have ever seen.

Life on Mars

Waking up with a banging headache that was definitely due to the altitude we checked on Hannah’s ankle only to discover that the hot water had not helped.  In fact it turned out the opposite was true and the increased blood flow had made her ankle swell like a balloon.  Thankfully a nurse was in the group and was fortunately carrying a sports bandage for her ankle which she kindly gave to Hannah to help with the swelling.  Our final day was spent heading back north but only after a final stop at a green lagoon where testing for the famous Mars Rover took place before it was launched into space.  After a 7 hour drive through the incredible landscape we finally made it back to Uyuni where we said our goodbyes to the other members of our tour before holing up in a restaurant with the Copa America where we waited out of the cold for our overnight train to the Argentinian border.