Altiplano - Bolivia
9/17/05
We finally left San Pedro, the pass was still closed due to snow, so we had to go back to Calama and then head north and enter Bolivia through Ollague before reaching the Altiplano, which literally means high plain, in this case above 3000 meters.
Because the pass had been closed for so many days the number of people waiting to leave San Pedro was also higher. We were twenty in a mini-bus that did part of the trip through nicely paved road and then entered a dirt path through the middle of the desert.
Our driver made a stop at 9:30 a.m. in Chiu-Chiu and served breakfast to everyone. In this tiny town, there was a church from 15th century made entirely of adobe...
... and cactus wood. Here is the door...
The walls are one meter thick. It is the oldest church of Northern Chile.
The mini-bus kept going and before we reached the Bolivian border we crossed two small salars...
Click here for a panoramic of the salar
and passed by a smaller version of Laguna Colorado (a famous red lake South of Bolivia). Some flamingos were standing in the redish water.
Ollague is the name of the town at the boarder, but it is also the name of the huge volcano (5865m) next to it In that region the are several new volcanos popping out of the desert. Here is one of them with our bus...
At the boarder, in Ollague, a real ghost town in the middle of the absolut nowhere.
Click here for a panoramic of the ghost town
After we passed the Chilean immigration, the big group splited and we ended up being only four, plus the driver, in a Toyota Landcruiser. The other two people were Alex and Nancy, a very interesting German couple.
We had lunch in the Bolivian customs house next to a strange train stop. Indeed, the train from La Paz to Calama transporting mainly minerals from the mines on the way makes a stop here in the middle of nowhere.
It is open to passengers but with a very irregular schedule.
The views through the way were awesome and one can feel how inhospital this environment is.
At each stop of the points of interest, we had to fight the strong wind and the flying sand. In some parts if you do not know where to go, you can get lost easily since the are no signs and the dirt pathes are not obvious. In some areas, there is some vegetation like dried grass or yellowish small bushes. In these areas we saw some wildlife like viscachas...
... and the vicunas, the wild version of the lamas.
We then crossed an area called Valle de Rocas with weird red rock formations.
At the end of the day we reached the town of Alota where we spend the night. Our hostel was a very basic house made of dried mud blocks.
Before dinner we wandered around the cute town with its colored houses...
and mud houses.
There is a 'mirador' next to the church
from where you can see the small group of roofs in the middle of the desert.
We entered a little side road where a military base was located.
According to our driver it is because it is close to the Chilean border and we never know.... actually they haven't forgotten the Pacific War and it still creates tensions once in a while between Peru, Bolivia and Chile. Indeed these last days Peru is discussing with Chile about the sea limits of both countries.
Back in our little guetshouse, we tried the local soup made out of quinoa, a cereal that grows only at high altitude. Bolivians eat a soup before each meal and most of the time it is a quinoa soup made it different ways.
We finally left San Pedro, the pass was still closed due to snow, so we had to go back to Calama and then head north and enter Bolivia through Ollague before reaching the Altiplano, which literally means high plain, in this case above 3000 meters.
Because the pass had been closed for so many days the number of people waiting to leave San Pedro was also higher. We were twenty in a mini-bus that did part of the trip through nicely paved road and then entered a dirt path through the middle of the desert.
Our driver made a stop at 9:30 a.m. in Chiu-Chiu and served breakfast to everyone. In this tiny town, there was a church from 15th century made entirely of adobe...
... and cactus wood. Here is the door...
The walls are one meter thick. It is the oldest church of Northern Chile.
The mini-bus kept going and before we reached the Bolivian border we crossed two small salars...
Click here for a panoramic of the salar
and passed by a smaller version of Laguna Colorado (a famous red lake South of Bolivia). Some flamingos were standing in the redish water.
Ollague is the name of the town at the boarder, but it is also the name of the huge volcano (5865m) next to it In that region the are several new volcanos popping out of the desert. Here is one of them with our bus...
At the boarder, in Ollague, a real ghost town in the middle of the absolut nowhere.
Click here for a panoramic of the ghost town
After we passed the Chilean immigration, the big group splited and we ended up being only four, plus the driver, in a Toyota Landcruiser. The other two people were Alex and Nancy, a very interesting German couple.
We had lunch in the Bolivian customs house next to a strange train stop. Indeed, the train from La Paz to Calama transporting mainly minerals from the mines on the way makes a stop here in the middle of nowhere.
It is open to passengers but with a very irregular schedule.
The views through the way were awesome and one can feel how inhospital this environment is.
At each stop of the points of interest, we had to fight the strong wind and the flying sand. In some parts if you do not know where to go, you can get lost easily since the are no signs and the dirt pathes are not obvious. In some areas, there is some vegetation like dried grass or yellowish small bushes. In these areas we saw some wildlife like viscachas...
... and the vicunas, the wild version of the lamas.
We then crossed an area called Valle de Rocas with weird red rock formations.
At the end of the day we reached the town of Alota where we spend the night. Our hostel was a very basic house made of dried mud blocks.
Before dinner we wandered around the cute town with its colored houses...
and mud houses.
There is a 'mirador' next to the church
from where you can see the small group of roofs in the middle of the desert.
We entered a little side road where a military base was located.
According to our driver it is because it is close to the Chilean border and we never know.... actually they haven't forgotten the Pacific War and it still creates tensions once in a while between Peru, Bolivia and Chile. Indeed these last days Peru is discussing with Chile about the sea limits of both countries.
Back in our little guetshouse, we tried the local soup made out of quinoa, a cereal that grows only at high altitude. Bolivians eat a soup before each meal and most of the time it is a quinoa soup made it different ways.
posted by Adriano and Angie | 3:50 AM
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