Mar 21 - Onwards to Bolivia !

Onwards to Bolivia 21 March 2017

Border to Bolivia...
Hopefully there was someone on thje other side

This morning we left the hotel in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile to cross the land border with Bolivia.

We drove into downtown and entered a tiny office where the border formalities for us leaving Chile were completed.  We then climbed back into the truck and drover another 20 minutes inside Chilean territory to the land border. 

Welcome to Bolivia...
we know the going is going to get tougher

We passed on the way near the border post a modern Chile customs building but when we asked why they did the formalities in town and not here at the border, our guy laughed and said its cold up here, there is nowhere to get food or drinks so they keep the office downtown !! You’ve got to love this place.

We pulled up in our truck on the Chilean side of the border barrier (which had seen better days) and completed the border formalities to enter Bolivia, slightly more relaxed and about 9 hours shorter than our last land border crossing between Chile and Argentina !

Expedition truck loaded   and we are off,
where, we are not quite sure.
Our suoer experienced drive on the roof.

Our Bolivian guide David and driver Serapio came over to meet us and we walked round to the Toyota Landcruiser 4WD that was to be our transport across Bolivia for the next week. Our luggage was lashed to the roof next to the drums of petrol (no gas stations on this route) and oxygen, in we climbed and off we set across the desert. It was to be 3 days before we saw a tarmac road again.

Bolivian view - like our truck and everything
we needed on the roof including petrol

Everyone had told us Bolivia was wilder, less developed than Chile but with absolutely stunning scenery and all we can say is they were not wrong. 

The White Lagoon

Our route after leaving the border area took us through a spectacular national park with beautiful lagoons surrounded by snow capped mountains and volcanoes. Tour first stop was the White Lagoon and then just 15 minutes later the beautiful Laguna Verde which is a stunning green colour which lights up in the sun.

The small number of expedition trucks leaving the
border...we would see very few again...

.

Expedition trucks meet at the border for some loose paperwork and off they go.  There are no roads so onlyh big beasts will do the job and over the next 3 days, we would see why as even tracks turn into 4wd challenges on occasion.

Not possible to overstate the scenery
that Bolivia immediately unfolds

From there it was on to a valley of sand on which were deposited huge rocks by one of the early volcanic eruptions. It is the most eerie and unusual landscape and they call it the Rocas Dali as it looks just like the background to many of Salvador Dali’s paintings

Our lunch stop was at the Aguas Termales de Polques which is a natural hot spring on the edge of a beautiful lagoon.

The colours are made by the algae that thrive on the salt water conditions and make for some stunning pictures.

Pink flamingos have made a home here...oh and of course one of the many hundreds of volcanoes.

Pink flamingo picture got Steve a "rollocking" as they
though he qas a pro photographer...clearly not !!

From there it was on to the just spectacular Laguna Colorado. This lagoon is completely red which against the snow capped mountains and the sand was just a most beautiful place. The red colour comes from algae and it is this algae that also attracts huge flocks of flamingo.

What a place !  Every corner we turned another spectacular or weird vista was in front of us.

Constant 97 degrees centigrade  mud...everywhere

Unlike everywhere else, lack of health and
safety allowed us tp get close to these
and we were actually in the mouth of a volcanoe

Next on the route was Arbol de Piedra a live volcano mouth with mud geysers. What we didn’t expect was to be walking around inside it  amongst them at nearly 4,800m with no restricted areas or warnings. 

The closest we got was “watch your step” slgn , it was just fantastic. 



Thank goodness health and safety hasn’t quite made it to the wilds of Bolivia just yet ! 










Bouncing across unmade desert roads strewn with boulders, we went from one stunning view to another climbing all the time. Our destination tonight was to a simple eco hotel high in the desert with nothing for miles around. 

First sight of the desert hotel ..
truley in the middle of nowhere

Is this the highest hotel in the world?  breathing
 and walking at this height for some was very difficult

Our first sight of it across the desert at the foot of a mountain was something else

We checked in to this rustic hotel entirely powered by solar and wind turbine where the electricity goes off at 10pm and you need to shower as soon as you arrive as the water gets cold once the sun goes down. It had a small restaurant where everyone eats a set meal together at 7pm but with the most fantastic view you could ever wish for. 

Steve had always had his eye on this
picture and the 200 yard  walk took
about 40 minutes after stopping
every 10 yeards

We went for a walk down from the hotel to take some photographs and realised on the way back up just how high we were. It took us 40 mins for a slight incline walk that would normally have taken 15 mins and when we got back to the hotel we couldn’t get our breath back at all.

The hotel is at the highest point yet for us 4,950m. It has an oxygen cylinder in reception.
So little oxygen here that Steve had misty eyes when he woke up in the morning.

From now on, there was to be some kind of price to be paid in order to see the beauty of Bolivia.....Paul on the other hand appeared tp be imune and bionic whilst the rest of us had lists of things going wrong. 

Off we went to bed to find that we just couldn’t sleep due to the altitude. Not only were we not hungry with a slight feeling of nausea but we couldn’t bend over to upack a case without our heads swimming. When you try to sleep all you can hear is your blood pounding in your ears and you can’t get a breath – This was to be our worst night yet.

Please dont leave us here !!