Brittni’s Blog

Michael and I did a 3 day tour in the south of Bolivia known as “The Uyuni Tour” since that’s the city most people start in, or “The Salt Flats Tour” since that’s the main highlight of the tour. In an SUV with 2 other couples and a driver we did a loop through the south of Bolivia, stopping at many natural, fascinating attractions along the way.

Day 1

We got into Uyuni by train the night before, got a good night’s sleep, booked the tour in the morning, and set out at about 11am. First stop was a train cemetery where there are many retired trains to climb on. Next stop was a hotel/restaurant made of salt and full of statues all made of salt. Then we went to an island in the middle of the salt flats, which we climbed to the top of. Then we did all the optical illusion photos on the salt flats, had lunch, and walked around on the flats for a while.

I brought out a deck of cards before dinner and that night we all stayed up late playing a fun and apparently pretty well-known card game called President. Then again, maybe it was just fun for me ’cause I was winning so much

Day 2

We were warned well in advanced about the horrible roads on the second day, but boy they were bad. We even had to get out and walk for part of it.

And it was another late night playing President.

Day 3

I know the salt flats are the main part of this tour, but to me and Michael the glaciers where even more fascinating. I think they’re really one of the most interesting things I’ve ever seen. I got good photos and video, but I can’t even describe the strong, almost sickening, smell of sulfur coming deep out of the earth through the bubbling blue and orange pools all around us. It seemed straight out of a sci-fi movie. Then we relaxed/bathed in some natural hot springs and road around the dessert close to the boarder of Chile.

It all started when we somehow missed our bus from Potosi to Uyuni. But it turned our to be a blessing in disguise. Many people have told me not to take overnight buses in Bolivia because the road is so bad, but since we were short on time and there was no train from Potosi, we booked a bus ticket anyway. In the end, missing our bus did add an extra day to our trip, but the train ride was a lot of fun and well worth the extra time. So, we caught a bus back up to Oruro, and amazingly got one of the last seats on the train the next morning. Plenty of bear on the train, a nice dinner in the dinning car, a lovely smooth and scenic ride and a breathtaking sunset. I took a million pictures of the sunset, but after many attempts, I believe its impossible to capture the beauty of a sunset in a photo, even with my magnificent camera.

After parting with Cydney and Sarah in La Paz I took a very detoured ride (the bus broke down) to Potosi, the highest city in the world at 4090 meters, where I met up with Michael, a friend I did the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu with. The first thing we did was walk around the city center where there was a parade with local music, traditional costumes and dance, and the biggest water fight I’ve ever seen. It looked like everyone in town was there and everyone was soaked, throwing water balloons, and shooting water guns and foam. We learned quickly that the tourists were an especially hot target and we were getting pounded constantly by stinging, point-blank blasts. I like to think we got some good shots in ourselves, though.

The next day we went on a tour of the Cerro Rico Mines. Its an active mine and even though it was a holiday we still came across miners working away. 45000 tons of pure silver were mined from Cerro Rico from 1556 to 1783. There are 8 levels, we visited 3 of them, which was plenty because it got extremely hot and cramped crawling through the narrow passages. Its amazing that the miners work 12-13 hour shifts, 6 days a week, and some even start at 8 years of age. At the beginning of the tour we bout dynamite, some we gave to the miners and some we blew up at the end, which was awesome.

Getting the gear	.
Dynamite!	.
The Museum.	The Mountain.
Help! I\'m stuck!	Making the hole for the dynamite
.	.
The group.	Making the dynamite.

Oh, and a random side note: Yes, I died my hair dark brown. I think these are the first photos of it. Cydney and Sarah were the masterminds and convinced me to do it. I was a little shocked at first, but am getting used to it and liking it more and more. Of course, Michael didn’t even notice. hehe.

Its the most dangerous ride in the world. 70 km (43.5 miles) from La Paz to Coroico, starting at about 4600 meters and descending to 1700. The most narrow part of the road is 3 meters wide, although a lot of it is wider. But the dangerous part is the 500 meter drop that you can look straight down most of the ride. 25 people have died on it in the last 30 years. Many people come to South America just for this ride and it had been at the top of my list for months. It wasn’t easy, but I was so glad I convinced my friend, Sarah, to do it with me. We went to 3 different shops around La Paz searching for a place that had bikes small enough for her and which she felt comfortable on.

Getting ready...	.
.	From the start
.	.
Getting the safety speech	First dangerous part
The trail	The trail
.	break
skinniest part	.
.	.

Sarah, Cydney, and a group of friends from the hostel went on the famous San Pedro Prison tour. It was definitely an unforgettable experience. One of the most unique prison’s on the world. There are only adult male inmates, but their wives and children are allowed to move into the prison and live with them.

After the Jungle tour ended in Cusco I took a bus to Arequipa to meet Cydney (my roommate from Buenos Aires) for her birthday. We walked around town a bit, I bought and baked a cake, and we celebrated with a bunch of people at the Point hostel.

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Just a little video on my motorcycle trip from Calca to Cusco.

Not to imply that Cusco is hell, I just like the song. Enjoy!

I did a 4 day Jungle tour in the Manu Rain forest, 100 miles west of Cusco, in the south-west of Peru. Unfortunately, the first and fourth days were basically driving there and back from Cusco, which where adventures in their own, but I really only had about 2 days in the Jungle. But to be honest, that was enough for me. Although I had a fun time, I got plenty of bug bites, didn’t appreciate the humidity, and after the Inca trail, the food wasn’t up to par.

I did get to meet a lot of fun people, though, do a lot of fun things such as river rafting and zip lining, and see a lot of exotic plants and wildlife. Some of the wildlife we saw were monkeys, caiman, toucans, and many other exotic birds. Although the tour guide and I butted heads a bit, he was very knowledgeable and passionate about…well…pretty much everything. He especially got excited getting us all up at 5am to go bird watching and fungi hunting, which, I hate to admit, I actually thought was pretty fun. Fungi is actually pretty interesting stuff. Did you know that shelf fungi plays an important role in the jungle because it rots the dead trees, helping them to decay and once the fungi infects a tree it can’t be killed?

If the trip was anything, it was definitely an adventure. From the get-go we had quite a few unfortunate mishaps and equipment failures, but the crew always managed to pull something together to get us through. On the way to the jungle the axle on our van broke and we were stranded for a bit, but the crew managed to tie a stick to it to “fix” it. During the river rafting none of our life jackets fit properly and we noticed our raft had a leak, but they assured us that we would probably make it to our destination before it sank. Then we got lost on our first hike in the jungle as it was getting dark, but we eventually managed to find our way back to the campsite. In face, throughout the whole trip I was always hearing things like, “Yeah, sure, you can swim in the river, I don’t think there are any piranha or snakes in the water. And if there are some snakes, they certainly wont be anything as big or deadly as an anaconda” and “I’m pretty sure this is the way back to the camp” and “You might run into some spiders in your rooms, but as long as they don’t have bright colors on them they probably aren’t poisonous, just let me know right away if you get bit by anything.” They were probably pulling our legs, but they sure sounded dead serious. But I can’t complain, because I was looking for an adventure, and that’s what I got.

Manu Rainforest from Brittni Daley on Vimeo.

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