Bolivian Dreamin

Pico Tunari, 5,030 meters

December 11, 2016

Saturday December 11th, a group of Sustainable Bolivia and other friends got together to enjoy the local mountains and hike Pico Tunari, a 5,030 meter peak about an hour and a half outside of Cochabamba. We were afforded clear blue skies for much of the trip, and avoided all rain which began to threaten as we summited and headed for home. John arranged a private van to transport us all to the mountain and we arrived bright and early at SB to start the day. We opted for the lighter version of this hike, driving further up in elevation where the hike takes around 3 hours to summit and 2 hours or so to return. We extended this time as we stopped for a leisurely snacks and lunch with people bringing along much delicious fare. The elevation was quickly felt, with laboured breathing as we ascended. I at times felt very sleepy and lightheaded. The weather worsened and a heavy fog came over after we reached the summit. This seemed almost perfect timing as we captured a few photos before being enveloped in the fog and properly frozen, after which we began our descent.

Group photo left to right: Jaana, Rafael, Marissa, Alex, Josiemar, Charlotte,Sam, Hannah, Tamya, Raisa
Front row: John, Douglas, Qi

We have arrived!

Llama herd grazing along the road

Chewing coca for the journey.
It really helps keep your energy up, fight elevation symptoms
and even improves your look!

Local man with his herd

Look what I found! Llama leg

Tamya

John lending a helping hand

Douglas, Alex, Myself, Tamya and Sam

Our group feeling the altitude on the way up

Taking a breather and trying to keep warm at the top

Celebrating the peak as the clouds roll in

Equivalent of 16,502 ft

El Salar

The Salar de Uyuni is a unique and magnificent place. Desolate and then full of life, extreme, surprising and wildly imaginative. It is located in the south western corner of Bolivian and borders the Atacama Desert in Chile.

From Cochabamba it is 12 hours by bus to the town of Uyuni. It looks much like a train stop or old cattle town with brown buildings rising out the brown dust and stray dogs lounging on the sidewalks and streets. There is also a train that goes from the town of Ururo (home of Bolivian Carnival) to Uyuni, and I hear it is a very nice trip. Amalie, Michael and I went on the three day tour of wilderness area and salt flats that was well worth the tiring journey. The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world at 4,086 square miles. Underneath this salt lies 70% of the world's lithium reserves in a salty brine that draws international corporations to the area for mining and extraction purposes. During the trip we saw a few mining operations which our guide told us was being run by Chinese corporations. Other than these few sites, the landscape was largely barren and untouched outside of a few villages at different points in our travels. The terrain was rough and wild, the weather varying from cool and windy with intense solar rays, to extremely cold as the sun went down. Our guide Crispin entertained us with his unusual laugh and let us play our music on the drive. We spent hours of car rides singing along to Danish pop and Bolivian classics, and I of course fell happily asleep for a few hours each day. We stayed in small hotels at night. Some had electricity and warm water, some had no electricity and heat and only frigid cold water. Our group played cards and chatted after dinner, or sometimes just turned in exhausted. Overall we had an extremely fun and memorable trip.

Amalie, me, Michael

Day 1: Train graveyard, start of the Dakar, Salt Flats, photo time and Isla Incahuasi.

Me hanging out in the train graveyard

International flags on the salt flats

Salt tribute to the Dakar off-road race, now in Uyuni

Couldn't find the US flag?

Crazy size distortions possible on the horizon of the salt flats

Here's how you make these photos!

Wide open spaces

Isla Incahuasi-cactus island, one of the few places that are not flat

My favorite photo of the trip, Amalie's rap cover

Lodgings the first night, electricity and a good dinner

Day2: Llamas, vicunas, ostriches, and flamingos, oh my! Plus lakes of a thousand colors :)

Vicunas are the wild cousins of llamas. Protected in Boivia, they run wild in small herds and are much more afraid of humans. They are said to have softer and more expensive wool than llamas. We also saw a pair of ostriches out on the plains which I have no picture of. They are rare to see but are another of the interesting inhabitants on this varied landscape.

Our group of 6 for the 3 day tour!

Local town we stopped at

Interesting green rock cover in a seemingly barren desert.

Herd of llamas moving away from tourists.

Volcanic lanscape

Llamas grazing on the riverbanks

Lunchtime on the road

Volcanoes make up much of mountains in the area

Flamingos on the lake

Viscachas. Rodents that are part of the Chinchilla family. Surprisingly cute!

The Stone Tree. Actually sandstone formed by strong winds.

The Laguna Colorado. Colored red and white by minerals and salts.

Amalie and our guide Crispin. We will never forget his laugh!

Day3: Pre-dawn start, geysers, hot springs, red lakes, green lakes, the Desert of Dali, the Atacama Desert and the long trek home.

We saw so many different sights our last day on the trek. We drove for hours to get back to Uyuni and there, after a truly memorable and exhausting trip we had a tourist friendly pizza dinner (I think the others had theirs with llama meat on top) and shared a bottle of wine to prepare us for the rest of the long trip home. We then jumped on an evening bus to Ururo, and once there, sometime in the middle of the night caught a van headed back to Cochabamba to arrive back at the house in the late morning hours.