Day 133 – Into the wilds of Bolivia

It's truly surprising how many songs lend themselves nicely to llama-risation.

For example, there's Llama-Mia (sung to the tune of Abba's Mamma-mia), Llama Poo (sung to the tune of Abba's Waterloo), Walk Like a Llama (sung to the tune of The Bangles' Walk Like an Egyptian) and Llamas a la Playa (sung to the tune of Righeira's Vamos a la Playa).

And that's before we even touch on cross-species hits like You Can Call Me Alpaca (sung to the tune of Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al).

I think the real point here is that four days in a 4WD, traveling through some of Bolivia's most beautifully rugged and isolated terrain, is a long time. And the quality of your journey really does depend on who you share it with.

Most people choose to base themselves in the town of Uyuni when exploring the Salt Flats of Uyuni- it's the obvious choice. Although it's the cheapest way of doing it, there are one or two downsides to this option.

As Max (the all-knowing barman at Oliver's Travels in La Paz) explained; the problem is, Uyuni is a shithole. And because Uyuni is a shithole, the people who live in Uyuni, such as the guides who run the tours, tend to be somewhat unmotivated, uninterested, unscrupulous, unhappy and just plain drunk. Not really the most comforting ingredients for a great four day trip into a what is, for all intents and purposes, a huge and dangerous desert wasteland.

Instead, Max suggested, better to stay on the southbound train for another six hours and get off at the small town of Tupiza. Whilst we would probably pay more, we'd end up having a much better time, both in the Tupiza itself ('not a shithole') and on the tour.

Whilst he may look like Keith Richards' little brother, there can be no doubt Max is a wise, wise man. Tupiza is to Uyuni what Cameron Diaz is to the ugly guy out of the Goonies.

It's one of those small towns where everybody seems to be terminally happy. The sun always seems to be shining. People seem to be stopping in the street and having conversations. It's like the Bolivian version of Stepford, but without the eerie feeling something strange is going on.

We spent the night at the Hotel La Torre. It's a fantastic place, which at one time would have been an amazing home for someone. Again, Stepford style, everyone there was super-friendly and ready to bleed a stone to help.

Within an hour of arriving, we'd booked our excursion into the wilderness with the hotel's tour company, La Torre Tours. The next morning, we met our travel partners. Not for the first time this trip, we found ourselves partnered with Dutch travel companions; this time Yolanda and Sebastiaan. Making up our group, was our (yet again) two incredibly friendly guide and cook, Juan Carlos and his childhood friend/ lover/ girlfriend/ wife/ ? (we never did find out), Espernaza.

So, off we set into the wild. I'd love to tell you about all the landscape we passed along the way, but the truth is it would take up pages and pages and pages. Every valley was completely different from the last, ranging from rugged spaghetti-western terrain to desolate desert landscape to green mountain tundra. The only consistent throughout was the llamas and vicuñas (wild llamas that look a but like gazelles) that could frequently be seen on the roadside It was beautiful and really brought home how diverse Bolivia really is.

Juan Carlos kept us informed along the way in kindly basic Spanish, enabling us all to add Spanish-practice to the list of tour benefits. Esperanza kept us well fed. And we did the rest.

I can't recall a four day period when I have laughed so much. The kilometers – all 1000 of them – fell to the wayside like confetti. Seb and Yolandi were awesome travel companions and I was genuinely disappointed when we had to part ways at the end.

Then, on the final day, we arrived at the Salt Flats of Uyuni. They really are quite a site. Salt, salt everywhere and not a sight of green. 12,000km2 of brilliant white nothingness, stretching as far as the eye can see, and interrupted only by small islands inhabited by 12m tall cacti.

Scaling one of the islands before breakfast that morning, Rachel pointed out that the rocks we were walking on looked a lot like coral. She was right. It is spooky to think that the whole place used to be a great sea, and the spot we were stood in was previously meters underwater.

The truth is; little is known about this place, officially the worlds' largest salt lake. However, one interesting side effect of the lack of vegetation is the lack of perspective. As a result, photographers flock to the Salar de Uyuni to take trick photos. We spent a good hour and a half mucking around and coming up with ideas for photos, only interrupting events with the occasional game of football in the empty expanses of the Flats.

We arrived back in our little town in Tupiza at around 7:30pm, after a marathon drive from Uyuni, happy, tired and sated.

Funnily enough, its one of the few times I've ever seen Rachel not ask for salt with her dinner.


You can find all the photos from the Salt Flats here