After a quiet new year’s eve in Tilcara we took the bus to La Quica at the Bolivian boarder. We read many stories about the complicated and time-consuming boarder crossing. Seems we were lucky, in less than 2 hours we were in Bolivia, bought our ticket to Tupiza, the next bigger city in Bolivia, and ate a nice meal. Funny story at the side, in Tilcara we met another Swiss couple and during our time in the line we discovered, that we already knew each other. The bus ride to Tupiza was surprisingly unspectacular. The bus did not break down, the road was newly paved and nobody carried livestock.
We expected to arrive in a poor, little town with unfriendly people. None of it was true; so far the people in Bolivia were welcoming and friendly. The infrastructure is not comparable with Western Europe but it is good and it is getting better. In many places construction is ongoing. However what is still true, Bolivia is very cheap. We went on a 3-hours ride to a canyon, paid less than 30CHF for both and had the best gear of all our rides so far. Another true fact is that the Internet slow or not available. Maybe it is so slow because the whole Bolivian youth seems to spend their free time in Internet cafes gaming or surfing on Facebook.
After Tupiza we went to Uyuni, the main starting point to visit the famous salt flats. The bus ride was definitely more spectacular this time, mainly because the road was not paved, seemed to be one-way and the driver was an aspiring racecar driver. We had the front seats on the upper level. The view was great but sometimes you really do not want to see everything.
Uyuni is a small town in the middle of nowhere which mainly exists for all the tourists wanting to see the salt flat. There is one main place where most of the restaurants and tour agencies are gathered around. The place is always full of backpackers waiting for their tour to start or their bus to leave. Since the South Africans we met in Brazil also wanted to see the salt flat we decided to meet them there to go on a tour together. They brought along an English couple and so the six of us looked for a nice and cheap tour. All the tour operators offer the same 3-day tour; they mainly differ in price, car models and drivers. Luckily a fellow traveler in Cordoba recommended us a good operator and in no time we had booked our tour. For less than 100CHF a person we had a 3-day tour including meals and hostels.
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