4. Bolivia - The SW Bolivian Altiplano Desert

covering 29 Dec -30 Dec 2018

desert which still has some vegetation

the Colchani main line

Now we headed south west into the mountainous desert and despite the wonder of the salt flats they were certainly no anti-climax.  Within only ten minutes or so we stopped at a desolate tumbledown collection of houses in varying states of disrepair and this was the last chance to buy snacks or water before we hit the desert proper.  It was called Colchani.  The village, and I use the term quite loosely, has a single railway line through it and enjoyed three freight trains a week to add to the excitement of living here.  Our guide told us that graduates of the school are given 200 Bolivars by the government as a reward, that’s about £22 ($28).

wind-sculpted rock

Once we’d set off we were almost immediately in the desert.   It was very varied with strangely worn rock formations, vibrant reds and greens in the rocks and occasional water and rarely, greenery.  We were on dirt track almost the whole time and huge plumes of dust were thrown up by every vehicle.  Most drivers, including ours didn’t seem to have the sense to drop back four hundred yards or so to let it blow away, so we would find ourselves quite regularly driving in a man-made dust storm.  We encountered a lovely little green valley, Sora Canyon at a little over 13,000 feet with a stream running through it being grazed by llamas which Ian and Eric kept trying to achieve a selfie with.  They were like a couple of kids, really enjoying themselves with regular utterances of “oh my gawdd !”.  Great fun.   As we drove off we saw an ostrich-like bird with a large group of chicks.  “Anyone know what they are ?” said our guide.  “They’re Rheas” I said.  “No, they’re Emus” he countered.  Now Emus are only found in the wild in Australia so unless it had flown here, doubly unlikely as they’re flightless birds, they were one of the two species of South American Rheas.  One of his ‘opposite of facts’.

Heather at 'Dinosaur Rock'

a relative of the Chinchilla

This is an area of huge mineral deposits and I assumed that the green colours on the hillsides was caused by copper and the various reds, possibly iron.  I’m very weak on rock stuff (I believe that it’s called Geology) so that is a guess.  What was striking was that the colours were often in horizontal bands on a cliff rather than always being one green area, one red area and so on.  Rocks were very much wind-carved, on regular occasions being thinner at the bottom and supporting an irregular bulbous top.  I imagine this is wear by sand and gravel blown at low level wearing the bases away.  We saw rocks that looked like dinosaurs and some others so undercut it was a wonder they were still upright.  One place at which a number of vehicles congregated had a collection of intricately worn rocks, one called Tree Rock because it had an improbably narrow base compared to the top.  It looked as if it would topple in a breeze.

this one is called Tree Rock

rush hour

Occasionally, we’d come across a lake set in an otherwise bare and arid valley dotted with several species of flamingos.  Some lakes were rimmed with salt and other were odd shades of greenish blue due to mineral seepages.  One in particular stands out on what was still only our second day of this trip.  Called Laguna Colorada, it was big, white in parts but much of it was red, very red.  This had a RAMSAR designation, meaning it was a wetland wildlife site of international importance.  It really did look like some sort of sci-fi film set, very otherworldly and unlike any lake I’ve ever seen before.  There were lots of flamingos here, certainly in the many hundreds and I remember at this point feeling enough was enough for the day.  We’d been driving across the desert for nearly eleven hours, with stops of course and most of the time between 12,000 and 14,000 feet.  However, there was another hour to go where we topped 15,000 feet to see volcanic steam vents (fumaroles) dotted over a relatively small area each pumping out sulphur stinky steam which was whipped away by the very stiff breeze.  It was certainly cold.  

these three - all Laguna Colorada

volcanic fumaroles at 15,000 feet

Overnight was in a much better hostel than we’d been led to believe but it did have shared facilities, so showers were not taken by us.  We woke to a wonderfully coloured dramatic morning with the sun rising behind a large lake dotted with more flamingos and the whole landscape set off by a selection of snowy mountain tops. 

three very early morning shots on our third day

We were still up at about 12,000 to 13,000 feet and had not had any altitude problems on the whole trip through Peru or Bolivia apart from being a bit breathless on hills.  I also had appetite loss which I gather can be due to altitude.  We put the ‘no problem’ down to gaining height fairly steadily which we were able to do because we had plenty of time.

So, our third day was to be relatively short with a stop at a greeny-blue lake called unsurprisingly Green Lake.  I’m getting a bit flamingoed-out to be honest as they seem to outnumber all other birds about a hundred to one.

Green Lake

One of the reasons we chose this salt flats/desert trip was that the guide would shepherd us through the Bolivian/Chile border and onto the bus to San Pedro de Atacama where we were to spend New Year.  To exit Bolivia we handed our passports to our guide who disappeared into the wooden border post shack for twenty minutes or so and that was that.  Nobody saw us and compared us to the passports.  Eric and Ian were less fortunate because they’re US citizens and had had to pay $160 each for their visas on entry.  When they flew in and did so, the visa stamp wasn’t put in their passport so the $320 was undoubtedly pocketed as a ‘bonus’.  So they had never officially entered Bolivia.  They had to pay the border guard a further $50 each under the counter for him to turn a blind eye and let them out.

Then we had a ten minute bus ride to the much smarter and woefully inefficient Chilean entry point where we sat for a couple of hours while nothing happened.  When we did get in to the building everybody had to get their passports checked and have their luggage searched in a cursory sort of fashion.  I put my rucksack with all the electronics on the floor, exchanged a few pleasantries with the searcher and was waved on without him even noticing that I had a rucksack with me.

exit Bolivia

We arrived at San Pedro which was only at about 7,500 feet about four hours after arriving at the Bolivian exit post so sometimes there really is something to be said for crossing a border in the air.


Overall, the last three days have been one of life's GREAT adventures. 

your Andes correspondent, 14,000 feet,
wind-chill factor - brass monkeys

***  for any photographers amongst you, none of these photos have had colours enhanced by hue or saturation changes.  Some have been cropped, some lightened or darkened a little but that's all.  The colours really are outstanding.