Previous Post: Revisiting Salta
Photo Album: Crossing border into Bolivia and the town of Tupiza
Traveling to Uyuni and the township
Traveling to Uyuni and the township
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Day 29 - Salta - Bolivian border - Tupiza (511 Km )
We started early with a cloudy sky, and whiskered out of Salta town before the heavy traffic. A 100 Km out, the sky started to clear up, and everyone tried to unload their Argentine pesos at a YPF Service Station.
From that point onward, the sky cleared up, and beautiful landscapes of northwestern Argentina started to appear, and they are great.
From that point onward, the sky cleared up, and beautiful landscapes of northwestern Argentina started to appear, and they are great.
It was just after 1:30 when we arrived at the border post of La Quiaca – Villazon ( Bolivia side).
It took about 1.5 hour to clear the truck and most of us, except for our Hong Kong couple, who had trouble with changing from their Hong Kong Passport exiting Argentina to using their Australian Passport. It took another couple of hours or more for the border post’s boss decided a US$50 “collaboration” money would alleviate the difficulties. How easy can it be !
It took about 1.5 hour to clear the truck and most of us, except for our Hong Kong couple, who had trouble with changing from their Hong Kong Passport exiting Argentina to using their Australian Passport. It took another couple of hours or more for the border post’s boss decided a US$50 “collaboration” money would alleviate the difficulties. How easy can it be !
Whilst waiting for the all clearance, I walked into Villazon of Bolivia, to change some money, and noticed many old ladies (mainly) wear a little Charlie Chaplin hat, too small for their head, with two braids behind, and a big fat skirt, really cute! However, they are very shy for photos, unfortunately.
We left the border just before 5 pm. ( Bolivian time, one hour slower ).
An hour later, our truck was stopped, apparently for exceeding the local speed limit, fortunately, they police were not too difficult, and let Will go, for the reason that we just arrived from Argentina, which has a higher speed limit...that was lucky !
Before we get to Tupiza, we were stopped by another police checkpoint. A can of peaches was confiscated” because its expiry date was unreadable. Their rationale, was to protect us tourist...anyhow, whatever! And they shall have desert tonight.
Before arriving Tupiza, there was a valley surrounded by tall mountains, it was all red during sunset, made the arrival very warm.
But it was a cool night, we went out for a walk around town and had some dinner at a local Italian restaurant run by an old local gentleman, who was very polite. But the service was very slow, with him being the waiter, the cook and the father of an active kid.
Day 30 Tupiza – Uyuni ( 469 Km )
We left Tupiza very early in the morning with a 470 Km drive
ahead of us, through some very winding
territory at high altitude.
Along the way, we
passed through some villages which appeared to be quite poor.
When Potosi first appeared through the window, we just went
through a high pass, looking down onto it.
It took a lot of slow driving to snake through all the narrow roads to
pass through Potosi.
The final 200 Km from Potosi to Uyuni was as breathtaking as
the first half, with a wide valley of wetlands, where a lot of Llamas were
grazing.
It was later afternoon when we got into Uyuni, the gateway to
the World’s Largest Salt Flat.
In the little daylight left, we walked around the town, and
ran into a wedding held in one of the local churches, very interesting
Tonito Hotel is quite a comfortable hotel, with a nice
restaurant serving, amongst other selections, a great selection of pizzas. So it was vegetarian pizza for the night.
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