Uyuni & the Salt Flats

From Sucre we took a bus to nearby Potosi, a small mining town around 3 hours away and spent the night there before continuing on to Uyuni. Potosi is one of the poorest places in Bolivia and has a very sad history with many people dying in the nearby mines (which have been exploited and over-mined for centuries) from accidents, dust inhalation and poisoning. If you have a few hours to kill it is definitely worth seeing the documentary "The Devil's Miner" which follows two young kids who work in the Potosi mines. Unfortunately the reality in Bolivia and other places in South America is that many children are put to work to ensure that there is food on the table for their families. 

Anyways, on to the less depressing stuff!

When we arrived in Uyuni, we tracked down an agency and booked a 3 day 4WD tour of the salt flats and surrounds for the following day. We were pretty keen to get out of town as soon as possible as it looked like a bomb had hit it - definitely one of the ugliest towns in South America!

The first day of the tour started with a visit to a nearby 'train cemetery' for some happy snaps before continuing on to the largest salt flat in the world. When we arrived we were blown away by the blinding white flats as far as the eye could see. We were so surprised to hear that despite the salt that they keep on taking from the flats for Bolivian use and exportation, the flats are actually growing every single year. After lunch, we continued on to "Fish Island", a natural island in the middle of the salt flats that is famous for it's enormous cacti which grow as high as 12 metres tall (1cm every year). There was a cactus there that was more than 1,000 years old. The entire place looked like another planet!

After two flat tyres, we called it a day and arrived at our accommodation for the night - a hotel made entirely from salt - beds, tables, walls and all! It was quite a novelty but soooooo bloody cold with temperatures well below zero and no insulation or heating. We really froze our culos off!

The following day we headed further south through the desert to visit different lagoons and landscapes of the region. The landscapes were crazy - deserts close to 5000m above sea level with snow and unusual shapes carved out of rocks by the strong winds. The lagoons were of the most amazing and strange colours - reds, purples, greens and white due to the minerals in the earth. It was really like nowhere else on earth. The animals also were so unique and it was hard to believe that they survive in such extreme conditions - flamingos, foxes, chinchillas, llamas and vicunas.

That night was by far the coldest night of our lives with temps around -20 and once again no heating or insulation! We slept in our clothes for the following day to avoid having to get dressed in the freezing cold!

The next morning, we were up at around 5am to head to the nearby geysers to watch the sunrise but had a bit of a slow start due to the doors of our car being frozen shut. We refused to get out of the car to see much of the geysers as even our hands were numb with the cold inside ski gloves but eventually ventured out for our breakfast and to take a dip (and defrost) in the natural hot springs nearby.

All in all, the trip was amazingly beautiful but we were more than happy to escape to warmer temperatures!!

Train cemetery & Ben being a stuntman for the morning

 Salt!

Fish Island

At the Salt "Hotel"

Frozen lake

Blood-red coloured lagoon with flamingoes

Famous stone tree

Random pics from the tour including our flat tyre in the middle of the salt flats!

Potosi and at the thermal springs on our last day of the tour

Sucre

The original plan was for us to meet up again in La Paz but I absolutely fell in love with Sucre, Bolivia and was reluctant to leave so soon! So after around 10 days in the US, Ben hopped on a flight to meet me in Sucre.

Sucre is a little like the Antigua of Bolivia - not quite like the rest of the country, but nonetheless a beautiful city  to spend some time in, with gorgeous white colonial buildings, great (and super cheap) cafes, vibrant markets and mountainous surroundings.

Elise found a small but fantastic not-for-profit Spanish school with a small but fantastic teacher called Yashira! She is actually way beyond small and made us both look like giants everyday! We had classes together for a few weeks and were amazed by how much we learnt in such a short amount of time. During Elise's second week at the school she ran some marketing classes for the teachers in Spanish which was a sign of how far we'd come with our Spanish.

During our time at the school we had an awesome time playing Wally (indoor volleyball with walls) with the teachers and other students on weekends and taking part in cooking classes at the school to learn some delicious Bolivian dishes. It doesn't get much better than deep fried potato balls filled with cheese!

After spending a fair amount of time in Sucre it was difficult to leave - the teachers at the school were so sweet and even arranged a little farewell for us with icecream and gifts.

 Mini Yashira in the middle!




A week or so before we left we spent an afternoon at one of Sucre's most famous sites - the dinosaur park. From the centre you can see real dinosaur footprints (there are over 6000 tracks in total - some of which measure up to 80cm in diameter - from over 150 different species of dinosaur.) A pretty nerdy thing to do but we actually found it really interesting!

Chicago & Miami (Ben's Birthday Treat)

Watching the NBA Playoffs wasn't quite in the itinerary, but with our strong dollar, closeness to the US (relative to Australia) and a special on the US-Ecuador flights how could I resist! Back to the US I went while Elise headed to Bolivia to do some more Spanish study.

Note: the following may bore non-NBA fans (the majority of readers)

After a 3 hour pat down by US security (I am now on the watch list for sure after they didn't believe that I was in the US just to see the basketball!) I arrived in Chicago to see Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Bulls and Heat. It turned out to be an incredible game and well worth the side trip to Chicago! Miami won the game so I headed down south to Miami to watch Games 1 & 2 of the NBA Finals against the Dallas Mavericks.

Luckily enough, both games were fantastic with Game 2 being one of the most incredible come-backs in NBA history by the Mavericks. I managed to sneak into the lower section ($2,000 seats!!) for the start of the 4th quarter and all was well for me and my scalper friend but unfortunately with 9 minutes to go, 2 rappers with more money than sense decided to show up and finally claim their seats - back to the nose bleed section for me : (

It wasn't easy on the wallet but it has always been a dream of mine to see the NBA Finals so I'm definitely pleased I took the plunge and made this little detour - it was AMAZING!!

Galapagos Islands

Galapagos is one of those places that many tight ass travellers like ourselves choose to skip because of the out of the way location and the perception that things are way too expensive. Yes, it was a little out of our way and it was definitely on the pricey side versus the rest of South America, but we would do it all over again if it was on the other side of the world and quadruple the price as there is nowhere on earth that is anything like it. Due to the lack of natural predators, the animals have not developed a fear of humans, which means you are able to get extremely close to the wildlife and watch them behave as if you weren’t even there.

We opted for a mix of independent travel and an organized cruise to get a taste of the laid back life on the islands and also be able to see some really unique wildlife in the harder to reach spots. We were extremely lucky to get a last minute spot on a 7 night cruise on a luxury catamaran called Millennium with only 14 passengers (a lovely group of people), our own private bathroom and balcony and delicious food.

We ended our trip with 5 nights on an island called Isabella where we found a small hotel right on the sand - the perfect way to finish up an incredible experience!

We have sooooo many great photos so we'll keep this short and let you enjoy the pics! Click to enlarge if you haven't worked this out yet : )

Albatross taking off and Nazca boobie in flight

Blue footed boobies - one of the most famous sights in the Galapagos Islands

Frigate birds during their mating ritual where they puff up their chests and sing to attract the chicks

Mixture of marine and land iguanas

Our first experience with marine iguanas at Tortuga Bay

One of the most memorable afternoons - a small group on our boat experienced a sunset on an isolated beach covered with hundreds of seals!

Regular day as a kid living on the Galapagos Islands!

Snorkeling with curious seal pups during our cruise!

Giant Galapagos Tortoises in the wild

At the Charles Darwin Research centre

Day trip on our cruise to an absolutely stunning white sand beach. White girls can't jump : (

A selection of some of the amazing landscapes on the different islands

Day trip to see the Sierra Negro volcano reserve where we hiked up to see the world's second largest volcanic crater and lava fields. Pretty exhausting day hiking 16km in the heat but well worth it!

Left to right: Our boat Millennium, view of the beach from our hotel on Isabela Island and our balcony on the cruise

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Santiago & Valparaiso

The reason we are lumping these two very different places together is because after non-stop hopping from one place to another we started to feel a little burnt out. In Santiago, we rented a modern apartment for a week and took to the time to just do nothing, catch up on sleep and relax.

Because of this, we didn't actually take many photos in Santiago! The only real touristy things we did was to visit the main square in town and some of the central parks which offered views of the city, albeit a little clouded by smog.

It was such a luxury to have a nice big bed, cable TV and fast internet for a change! The location was fantastic, only a short walk to everything we needed and the main part of town with cafes and restaurants.

Valparaiso is around 2 hours from Santiago and is the country's main port city. Although at first we felt like we were in the favelas, the charm of the city grew on us over time and we started to enjoy the fact that it is a little rough around the edges.

Being the cultural capital of Chile, the city is full of artsy cafes and street art. Almost every wall is covered in paintings and there are many quirky public spaces with interesting tiling and architecture.

We filled our days with visits to the outdoor art galleries, a trip to the nearby town of Vina Del Mar and plenty of time getting up to date with photo editing!!

So many funny lost in translation moments...