Welcome to the Jungle...the Gringo Jungle

Pure fear --- that is what I am feeling after seeing the same tourists at every Gringo Trail stop throughout Bolivia. It´s insane. Honestly. We travel in packs. Herded along by the slick quasi-bi-lingual tour guides and travel agents along the way!

The traveling has become insanely touristy since entering this land-locked nation (thanks to Chile taking away the sea exit via the Atacama Desert quite a few decades ago!)

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The Uyuni Circuit

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I finally have travel partners thanks to me joining the tons of other travelers making their ways up through Bolivia.

I joined an Australian/New Zealand couple, a gangly British chap, and 2 French Canadian girls in a very crowded jeep to make our way around southwestern Bolivia over 4 days.



Alex, Iblis, Chloé and I.



This country offers the most striking geography I have ever seen.

We started with El Salar de Uyuni, the world´s largest salt flat, and made our way up toward lakes around Volcano Lincancabur high in the Andes where NASA tests to compare this terrain with that on Mars...and the potential for finding life on Mars because there is life up here in these high Andean lakes.



El Desierto de Dalí



Spewing geysers were alongside El Desierto de Salvador Dalí. I asked what the desert was called before Dalí came to paint the frighteningly bleak landscapes...it didn´t have a name before Dalí came and made it famous!

We spent hours each day in the jeep and followed it up by shivering around small stoves (if we were lucky in that particular alojamiento). The temperatures at night reached -20 Celsius.

That´s like -10 or -15 Fahrenheit.

And while everyone at home was busy enjoying the longest day of the year...June 24...we came back to Uyuni to partake of the San Juan festival. Which unfortunately celebrates the longest and coldest night of the year in the southern hemisphere!



Very little salt is produced industrially because it is so cheap that little money can be made. It takes the man about 20 minutes to shovel together a mound of salt...which is then left to dry. In the middle of the field salt is 30 meters deep!



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And mummies are preserved quite well at such high altitudes. These are a thousand years old - and very well protected as can be noted! There is a baby in the lap of the one on the left in the lower photo.





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Some other photos. You might see a pattern...