Potosi and Salar de Uyuni

Bit of a catch up!

19.08.2007 - 31.08.2007 20 °C
View Here we go ... on Keaves's travel map.

Right, it´s been a while since I´ve updated this so I´m going for the photo option rather than text!

Or first stop in Southern Bolivia was Potosi, claimed to be the highest city in the world and the site of Cerro Rico - the ´rich mountain´. Silver was discovered here in 1550 and promptly shipped back to Spain ... Potosi in it´s heyday was larger than both London and Paris. Now it´s a pretty colonial town and the mountain is mainly mined for tin, I declined the offer of a tour to go down there but the boys braved it.

Potosi miners at work

Next stop, Uyuni and the largest salt flats in the world. They weren´t lying, there´s a lot of salt! The area used to part of a giant lake, when this dried up it left behind around 4,000 square miles of salt.

A very bad optical illusion ...

We spent a couple of very cold days and nights around the salt flats and out in the Bolivian wilderness, the second night we slept in what can only be described as a shed - we were all in bed at 8pm as the holes in the windows were blowing a gale and we only had one candle between six. Had a great time though!

Probably the coldest I´ve ever been ...