Well here I am in South America or Potosi, Bolivia to be exact. It has been a pretty busy week since I landed in Santiago de Chile. I spent three nights there and have to say that as a city it was really just another city. There were lots of pretty parks which was nice (and cheap!) but after losing my only jumper on the way to my hostel from the airport, I ended up spending most of one of my days trying to find some fleece. Once that was accomplished, I spent an amusing day in Valparaiso (read: Viña del Mar) which is a port two hours to the north of Santiago. This was a really pretty city.
Despite those two days out of Santiago, I decided to cut my time there short by one night and so headed up to San Pedro de Atacama in the North of Chile in the desert. There I did a sandboarding tour combined with a sunset Valley of the Moon tour. The first was really fun - I got sand in all the wrong places! and the second was visually beautiful. That night I also did a stargazing tour just off the edge of the desert which was really interesting though after a 24hr bus ride and sandboarding, by 11.30 (when the tour started) I was already quite tired as you can imagine. The next morning I was picked up by my next tour which was a San Pedro to Uyuni (Bolivia) tour. This was really amazing. There were three of us in total and we saw so much. Geysers, hot pools, multi coloured lagoons (green, red and white), flamingoes to your hearts content, llamas, alpacas, vicunas (all closely related), volcanoes, salt flats and desert islands packed with cacti. You can imagine I have hundreds of photos and it´s going to take me a while to get them up but I will do my best. The highest we got on this tour was 4950m! Fortunately the altitude hasn´t affected me too much. The most I´ve had to deal with has been a headache.
Uyuni was not so spectacular. I stayed there one night and spent most of it in my hostel room which sadly, was not a dorm but a single...I read a lot of my book. Needless to say, one night there post tour was enough and today I caught (the slow) bus to Potosi. I was going to reconsider coming here and skipping it but I´m so glad I didn´t. This city is just beautiful...a photographers delight (not that that´s what I am but you know), especially when arriving at sunset. It´s at 4050m elevation and much of the city is on a mountain side so loads of hills. Tomorrow I think I will visit the Casa Real de Moneda (Royal house of money...a museum that was the original mint). Potosi was originally a silver mining town though that´s much depleted. There are also mine tours but I don´t think I want to do this. There is no more silver apparently and the conditions are really very bad. So anyway, maybe only one day here and on to Sucre for tomorrow night (a city further east).
So that´s all that I´ve been up to so far. A fair bit for one week I think. Like I said, next stop Sucre either tomorrow or the next day, spend one or two nights there and then to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia.
Despite those two days out of Santiago, I decided to cut my time there short by one night and so headed up to San Pedro de Atacama in the North of Chile in the desert. There I did a sandboarding tour combined with a sunset Valley of the Moon tour. The first was really fun - I got sand in all the wrong places! and the second was visually beautiful. That night I also did a stargazing tour just off the edge of the desert which was really interesting though after a 24hr bus ride and sandboarding, by 11.30 (when the tour started) I was already quite tired as you can imagine. The next morning I was picked up by my next tour which was a San Pedro to Uyuni (Bolivia) tour. This was really amazing. There were three of us in total and we saw so much. Geysers, hot pools, multi coloured lagoons (green, red and white), flamingoes to your hearts content, llamas, alpacas, vicunas (all closely related), volcanoes, salt flats and desert islands packed with cacti. You can imagine I have hundreds of photos and it´s going to take me a while to get them up but I will do my best. The highest we got on this tour was 4950m! Fortunately the altitude hasn´t affected me too much. The most I´ve had to deal with has been a headache.
Uyuni was not so spectacular. I stayed there one night and spent most of it in my hostel room which sadly, was not a dorm but a single...I read a lot of my book. Needless to say, one night there post tour was enough and today I caught (the slow) bus to Potosi. I was going to reconsider coming here and skipping it but I´m so glad I didn´t. This city is just beautiful...a photographers delight (not that that´s what I am but you know), especially when arriving at sunset. It´s at 4050m elevation and much of the city is on a mountain side so loads of hills. Tomorrow I think I will visit the Casa Real de Moneda (Royal house of money...a museum that was the original mint). Potosi was originally a silver mining town though that´s much depleted. There are also mine tours but I don´t think I want to do this. There is no more silver apparently and the conditions are really very bad. So anyway, maybe only one day here and on to Sucre for tomorrow night (a city further east).
So that´s all that I´ve been up to so far. A fair bit for one week I think. Like I said, next stop Sucre either tomorrow or the next day, spend one or two nights there and then to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia.
No comments:
Post a Comment