Salar de Uyuni

I've spent the last three days on a tour of Salar de Uyuni (the Uyuni salt flat) and the surrounding region. I arrived earlier this afternoon in Uyuni, and as I can't find wi-fi anywhere, I'm writing this blog post in an internet cafe with one of the slowest internet connections in the world. I'll be here all day if I try to upload any photos now, and anyway the USB ports on this computer are taped up, so I'll add the photos when I can. I always thought it would be more difficult to write this blog once I arrived in Bolivia, and it looks like I was right.

There were ten people on the tour I took, and we were split into two groups of five, with each group going with their driver in a separate Toyota Land Cruiser. There was a variety of nationalities, including British, American, Australian, German and Swiss.

The border crossing into Bolivia was in one of the most inhospitable places I have ever been, with sub-zero temperatures and howling winds. It pretty much set the tone for the next couple of days - this was definitely not a luxury tour.

On days one and two we saw a number of volcanic lakes of differing colours (white, green, red, etc.), several of which were populated by flamingoes, and we saw some interesting rock formations, including the 'Stone Tree'. We also saw some more hot springs and geysers, and the active Ollague volcano.

On the first night we stayed in a refuge with no mains electricity, heating or hot water. The electricity generator went off at about 8pm, so we had little choice but to get an early night. I think the temperature outside got down to about -5C, but I managed to stay warm by sleeping fully clothed underneath six blankets.

The hotel on the second night was definitely a step up in comfort. It was a salt hotel, i.e. a hotel made almost entirely of salt (although in fact I was disappointed with how many non-salt materials were used in its construction). At least it was warmer, and it had hot water so we could have a shower.

On day three we visited Salar de Uyuni, which is an incredible sight. It's the largest salt flat in the world, at 4086 square miles. We got up at 5am to see the sun rise over the salt flat, and spent the next couple of hours there. Later in the morning we visited the salt museum and saw a salt mine, before ending our tour in Uyuni.

Uyuni is a pretty awful place, but I'm forced to stay here for one night because the next bus to Potosí isn't until tomorrow morning. I'm staying in the same hostel as five of the people on my tour, so I may travel with some of them for a while.

That's it for now. I'll try to put some photos up once I get to Potosí.

EDIT: OK, I'm now in Potosí and have wi-fi, so I've put up some photos. There are some pictures of the White Lake, Green Lake and Red Lake, and there's also a picture of me at the Stone Tree and of a flamingo. There are also several photos of the Uyuni salt flat here, here, here and below.

Finally I've put up a couple of photos of a weird train cemetery that we went to, a few miles outside Uyuni.

San Pedro de Atacama

On Thursday I took a 10-hour bus ride (not 20-hour as my map suggests) across the Andes from Salta, Argentina to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. It was a pretty spectacular journey, but not the most pleasant, because I was feeling sick for most of the time. I assume this was due to the altitude, because we were above 4000m for a lot of the journey.

I've spent the last couple of days with Hiro, who's a Japanese guy that was staying in the same hostel as me in Salta, and who caught the same bus as me to San Pedro on Thursday. When we arrived in San Pedro, he knew exactly what he wanted to see, so within five minutes of arriving at our hostel we were booked onto two tours for Friday - one to the El Tatio geysers in the morning, and the other to the Valle de la Luna and Valle de la Muerte in the afternoon.

The El Tatio geysers are 60 miles from San Pedro, and the best time to view them is at sunrise, so unfortunately this meant getting up for the tour at 3:30am. Some pictures of what we saw are here and below.

There's also a photo of me at the geysers here. The temperature was well below freezing at this point. There was then an opportunity for swimming in some hot springs. Believe it or not, I did actually go for a swim, but I don't have a photo to prove it.

After getting back from the geysers, we had a break for a couple of hours, and we then set off for our second tour of the day. The first stop was the Valle de la Luna (Valley of the Moon), so called because it resembles the moon, and it's probably about as dusty as the moon as well. We also made a stop at Valle de la Muerte (Death Valley), which was just as dusty.

This morning (Saturday), Hiro left for Bolivia, and I booked myself onto a 4-hour horse-riding tour in the Valle de Catarpe, which must be the first time I've been on a horse in over fifteen years. Here's a picture to prove it.

I then went for lunch with Lisa, who's a Swedish girl I met at the horse-riding (in the red jacket behind me in the photo). Tonight we both wanted to go on a star-gazing tour run by a professional astronomer who lives here (San Pedro is in the middle of a desert and has some of the clearest skies in the world), but tonight's event had already sold out by the time we went to buy the tickets. Also, San Pedro has had one of its rare cloudy days today, so it's quite likely the event would have been cancelled anyway. Instead I went for a meal with Lisa and the other two in my horse-riding group.

Tomorrow I head into Bolivia, starting with a 3-day 4x4 tour of the Uyuni salt flats.

Salta

On Sunday evening I arrived in Salta, which is another big city, and the most touristed spot in north-west Argentina. I decided to stay in the Youth Hostel Terra Oculta because it's close to the bus station, but unfortunately that's about all it has to recommend it. I probably should have moved elsewhere on Monday, but in the end I didn't.

On Monday I saw some of the sights of Salta, including the Catedral and the Iglesia San Francisco. I also went on a trip on a cable car up to the top of the nearby Cerro San Bernando, from which there were some great views of Salta.

On Tuesday I decided to go on an organised tour to Cachi, which is a small town about fifty miles to the south-west of Salta. I wasn't too happy when I saw that almost all of the other people on the tour were middle-aged Argentinian couples (plus there was one young couple from Sutton Coldfield), but the trip was actually a lot of fun. The road to Cachi is known as the Cuesta del Obispo (Bishop's Slope), and it's a windy one. Here's a picture of me alongside it at an altitude of about 3500m. We saw a few condors along the way, and I also got my first glimpse of the high Andes.

During lunch we were talking about my trip, and one of the Argentinian ladies advised me strongly not to go to Bolivia - she said it's dirty, there are too many flies, the food's terrible, the people are unfriendly, and there are thieves everywhere. Sounds lovely, doesn't it? Well I'm going to go anyway, and I'll make up my own mind.

On the way back from Cachi we passed through the Parque Nacional Los Cardones, which contains thousands of cardons (a type of cactus). Here's a photo of me next to one of the bigger ones.

We hit a delay a bit further down the road, because a lorry pulling a trailer had got itself wedged against the rock face, completely blocking the road. After the driver had spent about half an hour scraping the trailer back and forth against the rock, they eventually managed to free it by hammering off chunks of rock with a chisel.

In the evening I went for a meal and then for a few beers in the hostel's rooftop bar with Ethan (a Canadian student) and Ben (an Australian civil servant), who I met in my dorm. Ethan had just got the bus down from Bolivia that day, and he said he'd had a great time there, so I think I'm more inclined to listen to his opinion.

Today I had a fairly relaxed day. In the morning I went to the Museo de Arqueologia de Alta Montana, which is one of Argentina's top museums. Their big exhibit is the mummified bodies of three sacrificed Inca children, who were found in 1999, perfectly preserved at the peak of the Llullaillaco volcano. Sadly I have no photos, because I wasn't allowed to take any.

Since I've been in Argentina, I've been living largely off empanadas, which are bit like a small Cornish pasty or calzone, although apparently they're Spanish in origin. Here's a picture of my lunch today.

This is way too many empanadas to eat at one sitting (and I'd already eaten one by this point). This is because the waitress misheard my order, causing me to end up with nine instead of six (and in fact five would have been enough). I kept the rest, so it will probably be empanadas for dinner again tonight.

This is my last post from Argentina, because tomorrow I'm catching an early bus to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile.

Cafayate

On Friday evening I arrived in Cafayate, which is a small town known for its wine (it's Argentina's number two wine production centre after Mendoza). I made a good choice of hostel this time - I stayed at Hostel El Balcón, which is named after its balcony (or roof terrace) with a view. On the first night I met some people in the hostel, and we decided to go out to get some wine ice cream, which Cafayate is also famous for. I chose the cabernet, and some of the others went for the torrentés, but to be honest both of them tasted pretty awful - I don't think wine and ice cream are meant to go together.

Unfortunately the wine tasting tour I mentioned in my last post didn't go ahead. The reason we were given was that the vineyards are closed on Saturday, but I think you could call that a blatant lie, because the opening times are displayed at the tourist information centre, and the vineyards are clearly open every day. I think the real reason was that not enough people had signed up for the tour, and I don't know why they didn't just say that!

The good news is that there were enough takers for the canyon hike in the Quebrada de Cafayate on Saturday afternoon, so that did go ahead. The canyon is pretty spectacular, but the photos don't really do it justice.

There are a few more photos in my April 2010 album. There are some interesting rock formations, including one that looks a bit like a train and one that looks like a toad. For some reason the guide also made each of us jump in the air (photo here). Unfortunately the weather wasn't too great on Saturday, but at the last minute the sun did come out, creating a nice sunset.

Then on Sunday I went to Quilmes, which is a ruined pre-Incan city about 35 miles south of Cafayate. I went with Lisa, who's an American girl I met at the hostel. Lisa is fluent in Spanish, having worked for the last two years in Chile and Argentina, which came in very helpful. We could have got a taxi to the ruins, which would have cost AR$120 (£20) and given us only one hour there, but in the interests of saving money, we chose a more complicated route. We got a public bus to the Quilmes turn-off, from where we got a ride on the back of a beaten-up Ford pickup truck the last 3 miles to the ruins. This photo shows one of the views we got of Quilmes.

There are some more photos here and here. After spending a couple of hours there, the next problem was how to get back to Cafayate. Luckily, Lisa soon managed to sweet-talk us a lift with a Brazilian man in a 4x4. She wasn't going back to Cafayate, so we dropped her off at the turn-off, and then I got a free ride all the way back to Cafayate. The Brazilian man's name was Wilson, and it turned out that he spoke fluent English and had two sons living in London, so we had plenty to talk about on the way back.

I arrived in Cafayate in time to catch my bus to Salta, which is my last destination in Argentina before I head to Chile.

Tafí del Valle

This will be just a short post about the day I spent in Tafí del Valle, a small town in the hills near Tucumán.

I arrived around lunchtime yesterday, and in the afternoon I went on a short steep hike up the nearest hill, Cerro Pelado (which I think means Bare Hill). There were some great views from the top, including this one of the town.

And here you'll find a photo of me at the top of the hill.

That's about all I have to report from Tafí, but I'll just mention that I met a German couple in the hostel, who told me that they'd been travelling for five months, and that they'd spent the whole of that time in Argentina and Chile. I think that goes to show how much there is to see in Argentina, but which I won't have time to see on this trip, because my time in Argentina is already almost at an end.

I've now moved on to my next destination, which is Cafayate. Tomorrow I'm going on a wine tasting tour (in the morning!) followed by a canyon hike in the afternoon, of which more in my next post.

Tucumán

I had a second day in Córdoba on Monday, and I then caught an overnight bus to Tucumán, which is another big city in north-west Argentina. I decided I was a bit tired of busy city-centre hostels, so I'm staying in a hostel called Casa Calchaquí, which is in a small town called Yerba Buena, about five miles west of Tucumán. I've even got a private room for the first time, and it's about a million times more relaxing here than at that crazy hostel in Córdoba, as you can see.

However, that was yesterday, because at about 9pm last night there was a massive thunderstorm, which in the space of an hour turned the roads into rivers, and soaked me as I went out to get some dinner. As a result the temperature has plummeted, and today it's hardly got above 15C, whereas yesterday it was 28C.

In retrospect it was probably a mistake to stay at this hostel, because although it's very pleasant, there's hardly anyone else staying here, and it's made me feel quite isolated, stuck out here in a modern suburb of Tucumán, a long bus ride from town, and with nothing here except for a few expensive restaurants. Lesson learned, from now on I'll stick to the crazy town-centre hostels.

Anyway, while the sun was shining yesterday I did get a chance to see some of the sights of Tucumán, including the Catedral, the Casa de Gobierno and the Casa de la Independencia, which is Argentina's equivalent of Independence Hall in Philadelphia.

Tomorrow I head into the mountains for the first time, starting in Tafí del Valle.

Córdoba

I arrived in Córdoba yesterday after a 10-hour bus ride from Buenos Aires. I'm not so impressed with the hostel this time - there seem to be only two showers in the whole place (which has about 50 beds), and the breakfast this morning was almost non-existent. However, they did put on an excellent 'asado' last night, and most of the guests in the hostel turned up for it. An asado is an Argentine-style barbecue, and I have never seen so much meat being cooked in my life.

I spent today looking around Córdoba. There are a lot of historic buildings to look at, including the Iglesia Catedral (below) and the Parroquia Sagrado Corazón de Jesús de los Capuchinos with its missing steeple. I also had a look around the Palacio Ferrerya art museum.



I think my Spanish is gradually improving. I'm having to use it quite a lot, and I'm OK with saying simple phrases, but the difficult thing is understanding what they say back to you. I managed to have a conversation of sorts with the friendly Argentinian man sitting next to me on the bus from Buenos Aires yesterday - when I told him I was travelling around South America for six months, he asked me if I was a missionary, which I thought was a surprising thing to ask.

By the way, I've created a Google map to show the route I'm taking. To see it, just follow the link on the right hand side of the main blog page. I'll try to mark every hostel I stay at.

Buenos Aires part 2

Yesterday I got up early to go on a day trip from Buenos Aires to Tigre, which is about an hour north of BA by train. I went with Surbhi and Eamonn, who are an American doctor and an Irish teaching advisor that I met at my hostel. The interesting thing about Tigre is the delta region that surrounds it - it's a bit like Venice, in that it's criss-crossed by rivers, and the only way to get around is by boat. Here's a pic of Surbhi and Eamonn at Tigre, and below is another of me and Surbhi.

After we got back from Tigre, a group of us met to drink a couple of bottles of Malbec, and we then went out to dinner at a local steak restaurant. There were six of us - Surbhi, Eamonn, two Brazilians called Eduardo and Sandra, me, and a crazy American called Jed, who told us that he's travelling around the world on the proceeds of a law suit that he won against his former employers, who sacked him when he told them he'd been diagnosed with colon cancer. Without asking any of us, Jed proceeded to order two US$100 bottles of wine (the most expensive on the menu by about a factor of six). In fairness to him, he did pay for the wine when the bill came, but he wouldn't have been very popular otherwise. After the meal we went to a tango show, eventually returning to the hostel at about 3am.

Today I had a more low key day, due to utter exhaustion. In the morning I went for a walk around San Telmo with Surbhi until she had to go to the airport to catch her flight back to New York. Then in the afternoon I walked around Buenos Aires for a couple of hours - there are a few pics I took here, here and below.

Tomorrow I leave Buenos Aires for Córdoba.

Buenos Aires days 1 & 2

I've had a couple of days to explore Buenos Aires now, and from what I've seen so far it's a great place. I've put some photos in my April 2010 album. Yesterday I wandered around the Microcentro, and saw the Plaza de Mayo, the Casa Rosada and the Obelisco. I also watched some tango dancing at Avenida Florida.

This morning I wandered over to Puerto Madero and had a look around the Costanera Sur nature reserve. I then got the subway over to Palermo, where among other things I saw the Hipódromo Argentino, Buenos Aires's horse racing track.

I've also had my first experience of some anti-British sentiment. Yesterday I was sitting in the park when I was approached by man, who, when he realised I was British, started talking to me about English football. It was obvious by this point that he wanted money, and when I refused to give him any, his response was "F**k England!", and he stormed off shouting something about Las Malvinas, aka the Falkland Islands.

I haven't been feeling too great since I got here, so I came home early this afternoon, just in time in fact to watch Man Utd lose to Bayern Munich in the Champions League on TV - I can't believe they lost from 3-0 up! However, on the positive side I took a couple of Imodium when I got in, and I'm now feeling a whole lot better.

Tonight I'm meeting up with a couple of girls that I met at breakfast this morning - I think the plan is to go and buy some fresh pasta and a few other ingredients, and cook a meal in the hostel kitchen, washed down with some Argentinian vino tinto.

Cardiff to Buenos Aires

So here it is, the first post in my South America blog, at the start of what I hope will be a six month trip around the continent. I've just arrived at my hostel in Buenos Aires after a mere 28 hour trip from the UK. I'm exhausted and in need of a shower, but I can't check into my room for another hour, so I'm taking the opportunity to start off my blog.

I'm staying for four nights at the Sandanzas Cultural Hostel, which is a friendly place in San Telmo, not far from the centre of Buenos Aires. I haven't even ventured outside yet, so I think I'll report back once I've seen a bit of the city. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the weather's great - blue skies and about 22C.

I thought I'd finish this post with a picture of me setting off from Cardiff Central station yesterday.

I'll try to recreate this photo in six months' time, in a before-and-after style, and see if anyone can tell the difference.