Salt Flats Tour (DAY 2)

Day 2 began with a bang, as 6 AM rolled around, Louis our guide was missing with our breakfast. We walked out front to find the jeep was moved, the driver´s side mirror was smashed, beer foam ran in streaks down the door with empty beer cans littering the ground. Come 7 AM, the lady running the hostel took pity for us as our breakfast was locked in the jeep, so she stole some bread from another group for our breakfast. Come 7 AM with the Hostel nearly empty I found him sleeping in one of the rooms, not looking like he was in good shape. As we loaded up the jeep a couple of the other drivers were STILL drinking having not gone to bed. After determining it was safe to get in the car with our driver, we departed. (More on the other drivers later in the post)

First stop was a cave full of ancient mummy tombs, a bit creepy but very interesting. From there we moved into the mountains which are full of active and dormant volcanoes. Many of the volcanoes were smoldering small amounts of smoke and steam. As we moved further southwest into the mountains we climbed to 4500m finding many hidden high altitude lakes which were plum full of thousands of Pink Flamingoes!!! In Bolivia they are born white, but as they eat the Red Algae in the water they turn Pink. (Renee took 436 pictures of Flamingoes…)

Later in the afternoon we stopped at 4800m close to the Chile border where there is a continuous wind close to 100 km/hr. We took our ´´King of the world´´ Titanic pictures facing into the wind then returned to the safety of the jeep as our shins were being sandblasted with sand. While we were taking pictures, one of the guides who were drinking in the morning had pulled up, but empty (no tourists).  The other guides quizzed him finding out the tourists had confronted him with driving drunk, which he didn´t appreciate. During a stop where they got out for pictures 20 km earlier, he ditched them and drove off. Long story short, he eventually went back and picked them up as they arrived later in the night at the Hostel. (Unfortunate darker side of Bolivian Culture)