Journey to another Planet: Atacama Desert and Uyuni Salt Lake
It was only a short hop by bus over the snowy Andes from Uspallata to Santiago de Chile, where we then met Anh-Dao's mother Madeleine at the airport. Since we have a ticket to Tahiti for the end of May, we were happy to leave our heavy kitesurfing equipment in Santiago in order to travel lightly throughout our loop to Bolivia and Peru. After a delicious seafood meal with great local wine in Santiago's central market, Madeleine preferred to leave the hustle-bustle of the big city and immediately add another 26 hours of travelling to her flight from Switzerland. So we rode a comfort bus along the Pan-American Highway north to San Pedro de Atacama.
San Pedro is a neat town in an oasis at 2440 meters above Sea, in the middle of one of the driest places on Earth. This is where we chose to acclimatize for a couple of days before starting an epic 4x4-trip to the world's biggest salt lake of Uyuni in South-West Bolivia, during which we would spend our first night on chilly 4300 meters.
The dry air, strong sunshine, chilly winds, icy night-time temperatures and ever-present dust turned out to have more lasting effects on us than the thin air in the altitude. Nevertheless, we had to manage an unexpected challenge that taught us a great lesson: We'd rented a 4x4 pickup truck for a day and invited the two Swiss guys Raoul and Cyrill (we had met in Mendoza a week before) to join in for a discovery trip South to the Salt Lake of Talar. After a wonderful day full of odd-worldly impressions on the artwork of Pachamama (mother Earth), our rear-left tyre punctured just before we wanted to confront the 200kms back home. Fortunately, Anh-Dao managed to stop the truck safely, but our nerves were seriously tested, when we found out that the reserve tyre didn't have enough air to take us anywhere.
What would you do in the middle of the windy desert at 4500 meters, when the warming sun is about to leave, the two trucks per day from the Argentina border have already passed, the mobile phone network is inexistent, and you're stuck with only 1 liter of water each and a chocolate bar, feeling the first symptoms of altitude sickness like heavy backhead, no appetite, nausea and knowing that the next village Socaire is at 70 kms? Keep cool, give every one in the team a clear task and hope. Hope for the rental company to come and search for us. The question was, when? We can tell you when: 22 hours later!!!
Lucky enough, there was a mine nearby, called El Laco, and some workers passed us on their way to their camp (they were the only ones who would cause any traffic during our stay in El Laco). They helped us kindly on our time-consuming attempts to get back to San Pedro the same day after inflating the spare tyre and alarming the rental company. Well, this let us take more risks than necessary. The spare tyre did not hold and we finally we had to walk 4 kilometers at moonlight to access the miners camp. Not knowing when or if at all the rental company would send immediate help, the miners gave us some food to cook in their kitchen and spend the night in their spare beds. What an adventure for us all! We had a good time in El Laco and found an agreement with the rental company, so in the end this story turned out fine for all of us!
After this incident, we had no worries about the 4x4 trip to Uyuni any more. The 3 day-trip along volcanoes and colourful salt lakes was like a wonderful dream. There are no words for what we've experienced along with our driver Alberto from Estrella del Sur Expediciones, our mates Daniela and Daniel from Germany, Rich from England and the motorcyclist Rolf from Switzerland. Just visit our Foto Albums and dream yourselves!
Uyuni Expedition
San Pedro de Atacama
Santiago de Chile
It was only a short hop by bus over the snowy Andes from Uspallata to Santiago de Chile, where we then met Anh-Dao's mother Madeleine at the airport. Since we have a ticket to Tahiti for the end of May, we were happy to leave our heavy kitesurfing equipment in Santiago in order to travel lightly throughout our loop to Bolivia and Peru. After a delicious seafood meal with great local wine in Santiago's central market, Madeleine preferred to leave the hustle-bustle of the big city and immediately add another 26 hours of travelling to her flight from Switzerland. So we rode a comfort bus along the Pan-American Highway north to San Pedro de Atacama.
San Pedro is a neat town in an oasis at 2440 meters above Sea, in the middle of one of the driest places on Earth. This is where we chose to acclimatize for a couple of days before starting an epic 4x4-trip to the world's biggest salt lake of Uyuni in South-West Bolivia, during which we would spend our first night on chilly 4300 meters.
The dry air, strong sunshine, chilly winds, icy night-time temperatures and ever-present dust turned out to have more lasting effects on us than the thin air in the altitude. Nevertheless, we had to manage an unexpected challenge that taught us a great lesson: We'd rented a 4x4 pickup truck for a day and invited the two Swiss guys Raoul and Cyrill (we had met in Mendoza a week before) to join in for a discovery trip South to the Salt Lake of Talar. After a wonderful day full of odd-worldly impressions on the artwork of Pachamama (mother Earth), our rear-left tyre punctured just before we wanted to confront the 200kms back home. Fortunately, Anh-Dao managed to stop the truck safely, but our nerves were seriously tested, when we found out that the reserve tyre didn't have enough air to take us anywhere.
What would you do in the middle of the windy desert at 4500 meters, when the warming sun is about to leave, the two trucks per day from the Argentina border have already passed, the mobile phone network is inexistent, and you're stuck with only 1 liter of water each and a chocolate bar, feeling the first symptoms of altitude sickness like heavy backhead, no appetite, nausea and knowing that the next village Socaire is at 70 kms? Keep cool, give every one in the team a clear task and hope. Hope for the rental company to come and search for us. The question was, when? We can tell you when: 22 hours later!!!
Lucky enough, there was a mine nearby, called El Laco, and some workers passed us on their way to their camp (they were the only ones who would cause any traffic during our stay in El Laco). They helped us kindly on our time-consuming attempts to get back to San Pedro the same day after inflating the spare tyre and alarming the rental company. Well, this let us take more risks than necessary. The spare tyre did not hold and we finally we had to walk 4 kilometers at moonlight to access the miners camp. Not knowing when or if at all the rental company would send immediate help, the miners gave us some food to cook in their kitchen and spend the night in their spare beds. What an adventure for us all! We had a good time in El Laco and found an agreement with the rental company, so in the end this story turned out fine for all of us!
After this incident, we had no worries about the 4x4 trip to Uyuni any more. The 3 day-trip along volcanoes and colourful salt lakes was like a wonderful dream. There are no words for what we've experienced along with our driver Alberto from Estrella del Sur Expediciones, our mates Daniela and Daniel from Germany, Rich from England and the motorcyclist Rolf from Switzerland. Just visit our Foto Albums and dream yourselves!
Uyuni Expedition
San Pedro de Atacama
Santiago de Chile
posted by Patrick Jeannerat at 5/07/2007 10:45:00 PM
2 Comments:
Hi Anh-Dao and Padi,
it was really nice to break down with you guys in the middle of nowhere. :-)
By the way, I found your note at the salt museum. Thanks a lot. Enjoy your trip!
I can just see myself getting mad and panicky in such a situation. Well, this will be one of your lasting memories of 2007:-}
Lv paps
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