Ana_Uyuni (3-day Trip)

The 3-day tour around the salt flats, lagoons and deserts was interesting. Tourist visit Uyuni basically to do the tour. I wasn´t that impressed. Not sure if I´ll change my mind later but at the moment I have mixed feelings.

First of all we had around 20 companies to chose from. We went with one in our guide book "Esmeralda Tours." We did ask around just to compare prices. We tried to ask other tourist coming back from the trip but didn´t find many. I know that ours of one of the cheapeast $65 USD and Tim manage to get $5 dollars of on the second ticket.

This trip consisted of driving around for 800 km in three days. We went in a old, beat up, toyota landcruiser, with a driver and a cook (the driver´s wife).
There were a total of six people including Tim and mua. The other four people were an Israeli girl, can´t remember her name; a French guy, Ben; and two cool English guys,Mark and Matt.

We left at 11am in the morning, our first stop was at the salt flats. Amazing! It looked like snow. Very white and crystal clear. When you took off your sunglasses it would almost blind you. The suckie part was the driver said "10 minutos". It felt really quick. We did visit on the way a hotel built of salt blocks. Very interesting. Not that many people stay there. It´s more for looks.

Off we were back to the town were we entered the salt flats, Colchani. We had our first lunch. Interesting! We had chopped cucumbers and tomatoes with some pasta (no sauce) and milanesa, of what don´t want to know. To be honest I think it was llama. So far I haven´t seing any cows whatsoever and it didn´t taste like chicken. Milanesa, very popular in Argentina, is either chicken or meat very thinly flattened and breaded. Anyway, it wasn´t horrible, it was edible.

Before we left the little town the driver, Franco, interesting guy, asked us if we´d mind if we did the route differently. According to him it was for our benefit that way we´ll be driving less the third day. I was the only one who spoke fluent Spanish, so quickly I became the translator. The rest of the group didn´t mind the change as long we didn´t miss anything that we were supposed to see.

It felt that we drove for hours on dirt roads the whole way until we got to a different town to sleep. We all think it was for his benefit, so he´d a get to spend less money for the room, more money for his pocket. But this time the Israeli was getting on my nerve. She was rude and very picky with her food. She was a koiser(not sure how to spell it)jew, so she had to cook her own food. She spoke a little bit of Spanish but not to much so I kept translating for her when the cook would ask what she would eat. Ms. Princess! It seemed that she didn´t have anything to share just kept asking for stuff...do you have toilet paper, do you have this or that. By the second day I had enough.

What made the trip more tolerable was getting to know the two English guys, Mark and Matt. Very nice guys and just cool to hang out with. We were exchanging information about the places we´ve been to. We´re basically doing the opposite route.Their were headed to Argentina next. It was so nice to hear their accent. I loved it! Matt was so nice to write down the places he visited in Africa. Very sweet of him.

Dinner the first night was the best. We had vegetable soup, chicken, rice and french fries. We thought not too bad. One of the biggest complaints we´ve heard about the trip was the food not being the best. Then after that night it pretty much sucked. The second night was the worse. I never knew you can screw up spaghetti. It didn´t taste right. It was bad enough that neither Tim, Mark, Matt and I didn´t eat barely anything. We had brought some snacks and drank some beer. I must say the place we stayed was weird. It had no water and not showers. Again we stayed in a place we were not suppose to stay. This time the story was that Franco had to fix the tire and this place had the tools to do so. We originally supposed to stay closer to the Laguna Colorada. Here you can see tons of flamengos. We did stopped by on our way to Laguna Verde, beautiful too, but only for "10 minutos." We were promised to returned for dinner and stay nearby to appreciate the flamengos and the beautiful lagoon.
It was not the case, again! So we got to the other weird place around 4pm, with nothing to do other than chat. We had some cards and Tim taught Mark and Matt how to play Texas Holdem. They loved it and were hooked. We played for ours with skittles as money. Mark is going to Vegas with his girlfriend this summer. So he was very excited to actually learned the game. We started having some beer and it became so fun to play. We had a battle going between England and USA. Happy to say USA won! It was alot of fun! Before going to bed the four of us went outside to look at the stars. I´ve never seing so many. It was a gorgeous, cold night.

The night didn´t end very good for Tim. He threw up a few times I found out the next morning. I think it was the combo of the suckie spaghetti with the bubbly beer. He was not a happy camper the next morning.I felt so bad for him. He had to be in the crowded car for like 10 hours. Not fun.=) He barely ate anything.

We finally got to Uyuni around 4pm, before doing so we stopped by the cemetary of trains. It was cool to see really old,rusty, parts of trains just sitting there. I think the guys enjoyed more than me.

Overall the trip felt long. We did see some beautiful country but after driving nonstop for hours and when you did stop was for "10 minutos" it kinda took the beauty out of it. I´m sure I´ll remember the good parts eventually like the salt flats, the green lagoon, seing bunch of flamingos in Laguna Colorada, driving through Dali´s desert, bathing in hot springs in the middle of nowhere, the amazing gysers and meeting the English guys. Good times!

The night ended really well. We went to our hostel took a shower. Tim took a nap. Poor thing! We met the English guys for pizza. The best pizza yet! Yummy! The pizza place Minuteman, own by a really nice American guy from Massachusetts was a piece of home. Tim didn´t eat other than garlic bread. His stomach was still a little off. It was great to see the English guys one more time. This time we were all cleaned and refresh from the long three days. Suprisingly it was somewhat sad to say "goodbye". It´s amazing how fast you can connect with people sometimes. The were around my sister´s age 22 and 23, so I felt like they were my younger brothers. =)

Ana