Originally, I didn’t have a very good feeling about being part of an organized tour with GAP-Adventures from La Paz to Santiago. I somehow knew after all this travelling alone and being free from whatever duty, I would find it difficult just to lay back and experience, whatever will happen to me. But I missed the last cancelling deadline 2 months before departure by a very few days. So I knew I would be travelling in a way I became to dislike the months before by looking at travelling groups I met on the way: travelling without much of contact to local people because everything is just organized. Contact to local people is one of the main joys during my travel. Especially now as my Spanish got to a point in which I can talk pretty much about everything without having too many difficulties.

The upsides of the trip I thought of were: convenient and hassle less crossing of Uyuni and Atacama Desert, of which you can hear a lot of horror stories from other travellers (a Dutch group just recently got stuck in the salt lake for a couple of horror nights, due to a driver who was not instructed well) and a fast transport to Santiago. And if there are a couple of good people on the tour, it wouldn’t be that bad after all.

The start of the tour was in La Paz but to me it made no sense to return there and I preferred to wait for them in Sucre to join them. My original plan was to join them on their first day in Sucre as I had a hotel room with them prepaid for me. But I didn’t. I just had too much going on doing farewell things.  Only next day I moved out. But again, my schedule was full of visiting places so I didn’t meet anyone of GAP that day either. I only managed to have a short talk on the phone to Ana Julia, our tour leader, who asked me where the hell I was… She asked me to join the group for dinner, but I had to decline this too, as I already had an important appointment for dinner. So I only met her and the rest of the group the next day. In the group I was already known as the phantom and some of them didn’t believe I’d exist. This was funny… the group, and especially our guide, Ana Julia, turned out be very nice and I had a couple of good talks and we had lots of fun. I couldn’t say anything bad about it. But the downsides of it were exactly as I expected. Anyway, it was on me to adapt and make the best out of it. But I could never drop the feelings of being torn apart between my farewells in Sucre, what had happened at work and the outlook of meeting my best mate in Santiago. So I probably wasn’t the best travelling mate. But they all were very cute to me and I always had someone having a beer with me. Thanks guys! It’s been lovely with you!

Enough about conditions and let’s get to the important things: the nature. And nature was at its very best!

Before the salt flats of Uyuni we went to Potosi. Potosi on 4000 meter above sea level once was one of the world’s most populated city because of its rather easy accessible silver mines. But with silver price dropping and mining conditions in the mountain becoming more difficult, people’s interest of mining silver decreased. But still, today there are about 5000 miners in the mountain every day. The mountain behind Potosi is also called “The mountain that eats men” because it is said that since people started mining it almost 500 years ago a total of 8 million people died in the mountain and of slavery or of direct consequences of working in the mine due to dusk in the lungs, asbestos and other highly poisonous material. A miner normally doesn’t get older than 45 years. One should think the motivation behind it would be a solid pay. But most of them don’t earn much, because prices are low, quality is bad and the big sources of silver are gone. Furthermore, the methods the miners are working with, have not significantly changed during the last 500 years. There is a German documentary I can recommend about the mines, which is called: “The devil’s minor”. The devil refers to the protection power inside the mountain. Outside, the minors believe in God, inside the mine, where they think, God cannot reach them, they ask “el Tio” (the uncle), but it means devil, to protect them by sacrificing coca leaves, alcohol, sometimes llamas… this is not fiction, this is reality! In Potosi you can also learn a lot about the history of money, coin welding and the fall of one of the world’s richest city to poverty.

Potosi and the mine

 

The salt flats of Uyuni are one of the big wonders of the world. I’ve seen so many pictures of it and people told me, how amazing this experience is, my expectation grew incredibly high. And I wasn’t disappointed. This huge flat land of 12’000 square km, also visible from the moon as a white spot, cannot be explained in words and pictures. Due to the rain season, there was a considerably amount of water on the salt flats which unfortunately made it impossible for us to cross it in order to sleep in the salt hotel. But the water increased the mirroring effect and the sun shone back from the endless whiteness of the salt. It was magic to stand and lie there in the middle of the salt and trying to play with the distance effects on photographing (on which my camera of course completely failed).

My game with the chess figures didn’t work out

Salt flats of Uyuni

 

We continued our travel southwards and visited the lagoons with their numerous flamingos in the middle of a stunning landscape.

 

Finally we left the 4 to 5 thousand meter altiplano with the visit at some geysers and came down to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, where we visited the valley of the moon. A landscape so dry and rough, it could be on the moon. Maybe the pictures of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Adren were taken there?

 

Further south in La Serena, we reached the ocean and I spent two afternoons at the beach. Finally it feels like summer with temperatures of more than 30 degrees. We also paid a visit to the space observatory in Elqui valley. The nights there are always clear and there are the world’s biggest telescopes. The place is sold and maintained by scientists of USA and Europe, but Chile gets 10% of the time for their own researches.

At last, we arrived in Santiago, where I was not doing much except for enjoying the summer and wait for Mitchelli to arrive. Santiago is great, open, safe and cultural city and I spent a few great days there. Finally, my friend arrived and we now do some travelling together, which I am really much looking forward too. I think Patagonia will be THE highlight of my trip.