06/09/2019 – Day 3 of the Uyuni Salt Flat excursion, Bolivia

I was awake by 0400, I think both the cold and sharing a room with 4 strangers meant that sleep was light, but still, I was actually warm enough in all my layers thankfully! Our alarms all went off at 04:30 and everyone seemed to pretty much already be awake and in a funny way relieved to just get up and out, as if we had all been pretending to sleep for a few hours! We had a breakfast of pancakes with dulce de leche and yoghurt and coffee. We used the communal bathrooms and packed up our stuff and were ready and waiting for when our driver let us know he was ready to load the car. The driver hopped onto the roof of the car and we threw up our luggage, water and the sleeping bags, and then he wrapped it in an orange tarpaulin and tied it all to the roof. It was dark and freezing cold, but the stars were pretty impressive! We got ourselves into the car and started our journey at about 05:30, ready for some heating and maybe a doze! First off we drove to some amazing geysers. The first one we came across was shooting out the ground with such force, it was pretty amazing to see! It was about 06:30 by this point and -10°C and snowing outside, so we were only getting out of the car for 15 minutes or so at each stop, until we were too cold! The landscape was pretty otherworldly, and the steam from the geysors made it even more dramatic. We went to another area of geysers and ran through the thick sulphur smelling steam, which was nice and warm!

Next we drove down to some thermal pools. We bought our tickets, absolutely freezing waiting outside in line. Then we went down to the changing room which were some basic huts, got into our swimming stuff and into the small thermal pools. It was pretty surreal, our heads freezing in the snow falling from the sky, but our bodies nice and warm in the 29°C water. To be honest I would have like it a few degrees warmer! We could see out across a beautiful lagoon and were surrounded by mountains and volcanoes.

We got out and tried to get into our dry stuff as quickly as possible to stop getting too cold. Then we got back into the car and drove to the Siloli desert. The Siloli desert is referred to as the Salvador Dali desert, and it truly does look like the barren desert landscapes painted by Dali! On the way, and throughout the 3 day tour we saw lots of vicunas. Vicunas are animals related to the llama, and look a bit like deer. We also saw a Culpeo, or Andean fox, that ran right up to the car and seemed to hover, I guess waiting for some food. Unfortunately I only had an apple on me and the others thought he probably wouldn’t like that! He was absolutely beautiful though, thick fur and a big bushy tail.

Next we drove to laguna verde, a beautiful green salt lake. Apparently it has arsenic and other minerals in it that make it the beautiful colour. It can also get to temperatures of -56°C but not freeze due to its chemical composition. It was stunning! The backdrop is a 5868m perfect cone shaped volcano, that we were later told has a small lagoon at the top – and is the highest lake with living organisms in the world!

Next we got driven to the frontera, or border, to exit Bolivia. We got out of the car and queued outside a hut in the freezing cold, in what felt like the middle of nowhere, it was quite surreal! We paid 15 Bolivianos (about £1.50) and got our exit stamps before using the ‘Inka toilet’ as out driver called it (the great outdoors pop-a-squat technique!) We unloaded the car and joined a bus full of others making the transfer to Chile.

We got driven for about 5 minutes when we got to the Chile border. It was a small hangar in the middle of the desert! We drove in and got given some luggage declaration forms to fill out. As we offloaded the bus I remembered we had some apples in our snack bag so grabbed them so as to ditch in the bin, as they are prohibited to bring into Chile. As we got off the bus Josh, who was holding the apples, got stopped by an official. We tried to say we didn’t want them and were happy to throw them away but the official insisted Josh declare them on his form so as to not get fined. Josh quickly changed his form and then we went and waited in the little room to get our Chile entrance stamps. As Josh walked in holding the apples lots of other passengers started asking us questions and realising they too had to quickly change their forms and declare stuff. We got our entrance stamps and were given little receipts of our 90 day visa which we folded into our passports. Then we went out of the room in the hangar and our bags were searched. I landed with an absolute joker who was joking I had brought too many clothes as he searched my luggage, and shook my hand to welcome me to Chile at the end. Chile is the most efficient and professional border crossing we have come across since we left England! As I was putting the plane cover over my rucksack and locking it up I heard Josh call me over. I looked down to the other end of the table, a few people along, where Joshs bag was being searched, and there were three officials looking puzzled, with all of Joshs bag contents on display. I went over and there was a man holding the saline syringe up and asking what it was for. I explained it was salt and water and I was a nurse and that I had brought it to clean a cut or wound. They checked through the rest of the advanced first aid kit, and the more important man was happy with it so we were waved on, but two more junior members of staff stood behind him and continued to look confused! Josh also explained to me later on that a big bag of herbs had been found in our snack bag that actually weren’t ours and must have been dumped there by a fellow panicking passenger (luckily as Josh had already ticked the declaration form for the apples it was ok!) After the kerfuffle we jumped back on the bus and were driven down to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. We could genuinely feel the warmth returning to our toes as we drove down from the altitude to 2408m of San Pedro. It was about an hours drive until we were dropped just a two minute walk from the main square. We carried our stuff to a café on the square to eat some lunch and use the WiFi to find out how to get to our air bnb. It quickly became apparent at how much more advanced Chile is than Bolivia – we could pay with contactless card for the first time on our travels! Although we were also reminded of the much increased prices, lunch was 4x the price of lunch in Bolivia! We walked a few roads down to our air bnb and were let in by our host to drop our bags off. At the property we were also met by two very excited dogs and seven cats! We dropped our bags and then wandered into town as our official check in was not until 16:00. We went for a coffee (my tummy much better but definitely still sensitive!) and then wandered around some of the shops. We went to the ATM to withdraw some Chilean money and changed up the leftover Bolivianos. A whole other currency to get our heads around, it usually takes a few days to get used to! At 16:00 we checked in and gave our host our laundry. There is a washing machine outside in the garden - the Atacama is one of the driest places on earth so I guess it is pretty safe to keep anything outside in that way! We showered and then when we were hanging up our wet clothes outside spotted the bright pink clouds of the sunset, it was glorious. One of the dogs is bigger than me and called ‘killer’ and I think is their kind of security dog. It sort of looks like a black german shepherd. It is friendly and means well, but also young and playful and keeps jumping up and is so much stronger than me I have to keep running behind Josh when it gets too much! We spoke to mum and dad on a whatsapp video call, and excitedly told them about the last amazing few days. Then we went a few doors down to the shop and made some dinner. We cooked rice for the first time ever and it worked out well, game changer! We got into bed and both fell asleep within a few minutes of starting The Crown, absolutely knackered.