Dynamite and Deserts

Hi everyone and Happy Christmas. I am now in San Pedro (Chile) having spent the last week traveling through Bolivia from La Paz. On the way I visited the mines in Potosi, exploded dynamite, crossed salt flats in a jeep and celebrated Christmas in the desert!! Read all about it here:

Potosi

After buying some last minute Christmas presents in La Paz we took the overnight bus to the city of Potosi. Potosi is the worlds highest city at over 4000 meters and its history is rooted in silver mining. Today the mines are much smaller but in its day the city was the richest in South America and was the second most populous in the world. After checking into the hostel we went for a tour of the mines. First stop was to kit ourselves out with miners boots, clothes, helmet and head torch and then off to the miners market. Here we bought presents to give the miners (coca leaves, soft drinks etc.) and I also bought a stick of dynamite!! It is openly available for anyone to buy and we were allowed to detonate it (under our guides supervision) at the mines.

After visiting the processing plant where the raw mined material is extracted (today this includes silver and zinc) we headed into the mines. It was not a pleasant experience - hot, smelly, dangerous and very claustrophobic. We descended down 4 levels (the mine has 17) which involved us crawling on hands and knees at times. We eventually reached one of the faces where two miners were working:



The whole experience was very humbling to see the conditions in which the they have to work. The miners know the mines are dangerous and even put up shrines to the devil as they believe they are entering his domain! We made our way back out having to avoid the constant flow of mining trains whizzing inches from our feet:



After leaving the mine we had the opportunity to let off some dynamite. This involved inserting the detonator fuse into the dynamite, packing it into ammonium nitrate (this makes the bang bigger!!), lighting the fuse and running!


Dynamite and fuse in one hand, ammonium nitrate in the other!!!


The crater after the bang!!

Uyuni

The next day we took the bus to the town of Uyuni in the desert. Uyuni would be the starting off point for our jeep trip across the Bolivian salt flats and desert to the Chilean border. The journey to Uyuni took about six hours and the landscape changed dramatically from high Andes to desert landscape. We arrived in Uyuni about 5:30pm and after checking into the hostel we all headed into the desert to the train cemetery. This is a graveyard for old trains that have been dumped. It was great fun climbing over all these old steam trains and also seeing the sun set across the desert.


Everyone aboard!!



Desert Jeep Trip

The next day we rose early to pack all of our kit onto three Toyota Land Cruisers, which would be our transport for three days across the desert. Day one of the jeep trip took us out onto the Salar de Uyuni or salt flats. It is a strange landscape - bright white, perfectly flat and incredibly beautiful. Here are some shots I took on the flats:









After lunch we got back into the jeeps and headed off the flats towards our hostel for the night. The hostel was in a small village in desert but was really comfortable and a great place to relax after a dusty day in the jeep.

The next day (Christmas Eve) we set off at 7:30am for the next leg of the trip. We had left the flats now and were heading south across the desert. It was hot, bumpy and very dusty in the jeeps - a real tribute to Japanese engineering that these vehicles didn't fall to pieces!! The landscape here is dominated by volcanic mountains which gives all the land a reddish/browny colour. Our first stop was at a view point where we could see one of the volcanoes still smoking. We then stopped for lunch at a lake which was populated by flamingos!

Active volcano behind us!!

Flamingos on the lake

The afternoon involved more dust and bumps as we drove to our hostel for the night on lake colorado. Along the way we saw lakes of different colours - red, blue and green all containing flamingos. The colour of the lakes is due to the minerals and algae within them and creates stunning views. We also stopped at some rocks in the desert that have been carved by the wind over the years into strange shapes:

Christmas Day and we all got up at 5am for an early start to complete the trip to the Chilean border. It was a bit of a strange way to spend Christmas Day but great fun as we all wished each other Happy Christmas in the desert. Our first stop was to some geysers and thermal vents, we then stopped for a brief paddle in some thermal springs before arriving at Laguna Verde (Green Lake) for lunch. The colour of the lake was stunning and it was the perfect way to end the jeep trip.


Putting my head into one of the geysers

James and Mike relax in the hot springs - complete with santa hats!!!

Lake Verde on Christmas morning - fantastic

Chile

We crossed the border into Chile and I was immediately struck that this was a more wealthy country as we were treated to tarmac roads!!! With a new stamp in the passport we made our way to San Pedro in the Atacama desert. This was to be our base for 2 nights before heading south to Santiago. San Pedro has a real frontier "desert town" feel to it. At 7pm we all gathered for the grand opening of the "Secret Santa" presents. We had a fantastic time and after opening the gifts we headed into town for food and drink.

A Santa hat - just what I've always wanted

Boxing Day started a bit later than usual after the events from the night before!! In the evening a group of us rented mountain bikes and headed into the desert to see the sunset in the Luna Valley. This is where NASA tested some of its luna vehicles and is an incredible desert landscape.

On my way out to the Luna Valley

View from the top of the dune over the Luna Valley

That's all for now folks. Next stop on my trip is to Santiago, the capital of Chile. Have a great New Year and come back soon to read all about my adventures in Santiago and our New Year celebrations!!