Back into the High Mountains - Trekking Around Sorata

There wasn´t quite time to do one of the classic treks like the Mapiri or The Gold Digger´s Trail, but I got the bus to Bolivia´s trekking capital Sorata with the intention of trying out a couple of day walks from the town. The bus journey there certainly whet the appetite, offering great views of Illampu and Aconahuma, both these giants are over 6300m - Aconahuma has never been climbed or its elevation accurately measured and it may yet turn out to be Bolivia´s highest peak.

I checked into the Residencial Sorata - a crumbling colonial mansion built by a German trader during the countries brief quinine boom. The place certainly had plenty of character. Having arrived direct from the lowlands, I spent my first full day getting used to the altitude again (the town is around 2700m) with a four hour trek along a dusty route up to a nearby village. The road took me up through maize fields and eucalyptus trees - the snow-capped peaks of the Sorata massif towering above. Back in town, I decided to arrange the following days trek to the village of Licathiya. Julio, who was to be the guide, had already arranged to take an Australian girl, Ellie, on the same walk tomorrow - would I like to tag along ? The walk promised some great panoramas but wasn´t going to be easy with the village lying at around 4200m, almost a mile vertically up from Sorata itself.



We made an early start next morning and climbed steeply out of the town towards Illampu and were soon above the treeline with great views of the patchwork fields on the hillsides and out across the valley. It took around 5 hours of constant uphill to get to Licathiya - with the thin air taking an ever increasing toll. As we cleared the village itself, Illampu appeared from behind a ridge - now much closer but still over 2000m above us. We stopped for a scenic lunch, the more inaccessible peak of Aconahuma now also revealing itself to complete the panorama. It was all downhill from there along a much less trodden path past fields of llama and sheep, Sorata eventually appearing almost directly below us. Possibly the best one day trek I have done on this trip.

Back in La Paz I booked a half day trip to the nearby ski station of Chacaltaya. At 5300m, this is the worlds highest ski resort and offers amazing views of Huayni Potosi and the Cordillera Real. From the ski station you can trek higher along a steep 1.5km path to the dizzy heights of 5450m ! The views here were outstanding - it looks like this will be the highpoint of the trip unless I attempt to climb the Cotopaxi volcano in Ecuador. Having had my fix of high mountains for the time being, I got the bus to Copacabana on Lake Titicaca that afternoon - the final destination in what has been a real voyage of discovery through Bolivia.

Into the Bolivian Amazon

Faced with an 18 hour bus journey along a reputedly terrible road, I chose to fly to Rurranabaque. However, rain delayed the flight and after waiting most of the day at La Paz airport, I was lucky to squeeze onto the last flight of the day. The plane hopped over the nearby Cordillera Real and passed incredibly close to 6000m Huayni Potosi before descending into the rainforest and landing on a grass runway.

The next day, I was met by my guide, Ghiovani, and we took a boat five hours up the Beni and Tuichi rivers to the Chalalan resort while more rain fell. Along the way, Ghiovani pointed out river birds such as egrets and kingfishers and we also spotted a few capybararas from a distance. Its a short thirty minute walk from the river to the comfortable wood huts which were to be my home for the next three days. Chalalan is a real eco-tourism success story. Its situated inside Madidi National Park - one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet. The park stretches down from the glaciated Apoploblamba mountains through cloud forest down to Amazon tributaries like the Beni river. Its funded by international conservation agencies and staffed by members of the nearest village, three hours upriver - people who know and love the forest their community lives in. Profits go towards improving health and education facilities for the village and as such it finds itself in a much stronger position than those that have had to rely on the Bolivian Government. The eco-lodge itself is beautifully situated next to a small lake, surrounded by pristine rainforest and the only real concession made to modern life is in the form of the electricity supplied from a solar generator.



The group sizes at Chalalan are kept small to inprove the chances of seeing wildlife and I was sharing my guide with a friendly Australian couple. Later that afternoon, Ghiovani took us on a short walk through the nearby forest, pointing out medicinal and other practical uses for the trees we encountered en route. Two which stood out were the pink flowered may tree and the incredible walking tree which has roots overground and is able to relocate its position in the forest over time. Our return to the Eco-Lodge was by canoe along the lake. Ghiovani, was clearly enjoying himself as he located an acrobatic collection of squirrel and capuchin monkeys taking a late afternoon snack on fruit trees bordering the lake. Pairs of macaws flew overhead, aninguas and herons sat perched at strategic positions in the trees, while the cowbirds (hoatzin) made their presence felt with their own distinctive sounds. Ghiovani seemed to be able to identify each bird species at a great distance and could imitate almost every call. After dinner we went back into the forest to look for nocturnal wildlife. Ghiovani quickly located a tarantula nest and tempted a giant spider out using a small stick laced with saliva for bait. It was an unnerving sight as the huge arachnid lunged for the stick, then scuttled back into its nest. Brief sightings of an opossum and a night monkey (the only nocturnal species in the amazon) followed to round off an amazing first day.



I awoke the next day feeling very refreshed, there is a tranquility to the rainforest which draws you in. It had been a cool cloudy night and the forest was unusually quiet. The main focus of the mornings walk was bird spotting. Ghiovani eventually carefully tracked down a pair of red and green macaws and along the way we also spotted woodpeckers, tanagers, tree creepers, tropical kingbirds and oropendola. Its difficult trying to spot birds in the dense undergrowth and it was the sounds that really brought the whole experience to life. On our return for lunch we came across a large group of white lipped peccaries, who thundered off into the forest, when they became aware of our presence. These agressive wild boar have been known to eat humans when threatened and it was quite an experience to watch them size us up and then beat a noisy retreat. The afternoon yielded sightings of plenty of blue and yellow macaws, as well as some parakeets and we finished the day with another relaxing boat ride on the lake.

On my final day, the cloud finally lifted and the sun broke through and brought the rainforest to life with the familiar sound of the cicada dominating. It was to prove an excellent morning for tropical birds, with parrots, toucans, trogons, hummingbirds, flycatchers and a beautiful red-headed manakin among those seen along with plenty more squirrel and capuchin monkeys. We also saw fresh tracks belonging to agoutis and tapirs and armadillo nests but all of these elusive jungle creatures remained hidden. Late afternoon out on the water, Ghiovani finally spotted some red howler monkeys - a pair sat high the trees looking out over the lake. Howlers don´t tend to move much during the colder weather and clearly the sun had brought them out of their slumber in search of food. They seemed unusually quiet compared to howlers I had previously encountered in Mexico and Guatemala, but I am told they only make a real noise when territorially threatened by other groups of howlers. With no others in sight, they seemed content to continue their siesta. While Ghiovani rowed back to base, a caiman drifted nearby, but kept its distance and overheard a blue-throated piping guan called out.

It was a real shame to leave the next day. The experience had been quite amazing. Ghiovani told me to keep an eye out along the banks for jaguars as we got the boat back to Rurranabaque but of course the Amazon´s top predator eluded us. Sightings are very rare and most guides only see about one a year. The riverbank however, was alive with raptors, with three different species of vulture, caracara and other hawks aplenty.



From Rurranabaque its 3 hours drive east into the tropical savannah to the Yacuma river. Another prime sight from which to see the inhabitants of the Amazon. Here the trips are taken in a motorised canoe and there are plenty of caimans for company - approximately one every twenty metres or so, sunning themselves on the riverbank. The common caiman grows to two or three metres and poses no threat to humans. In fact, most feel threatened by the presence of the boat and slink quietly into the water as we pass by. Much rarer is the black caiman, which can grow to six metres - these are much more aggressive and have been known to attack humans who are tempted to cool off in the water.

Gliding along the river is great for bird watching. Heron and egrets are very common and come in snowy, white-necked, striated and tiger varieties. Larger birds such as jabiru, woodbills, vultures and kites sit high in their vantage points atop dead trees, whilst colourful tropical birds dance between the undergrowth. Some of the more notable among them include kingfishers, tropials, red-headed cardinals, yacumas, caciques and kiskadees.




For me though, the highlights had to be pink river dolphins, capybaras and howler monkeys - both red and black howlers were seen here. The dolphins surface briefly to breathe and never really jump out of the water like their ocean counterparts. As such they prove almost impossible to photograph. Capybaras are the worlds largest rodent and are usually seen on the riverbanks, although they do like to swim also but perhaps not when there are so many caimans about. We got incredibly close to a large group of them, who seemed completely unthreatened by our presence. The black howler monkeys here are different to their relatives in Central America, where both male and female are a uniform black colour. Here a single black male is usually found a harem of yellow females. The howlers were again disapointingly quiet and I left the Amazon having not heard a single howler scream. At night, we were treated to more nocturnal delights - some night monkeys came out to feed in a papaya tree, soon followed by a most unusual sight - a white necked porcupine rustling its way up and down a palm tree while it munched on some leaves. I was left with the impression that a longer stay would have been even more rewarding - anteaters and sloths are also relatively common sightings. However, the days were passing by and I hadn´t really seen much of the Andes yet in Bolivia.

El Choro Trek - From the Altiplano to the Sub Tropical Yungas

I hired a guide and a tent and we got a taxi to take us up to La Cumbre at 4800m to begin the trek. At this height its very barren, just black rock and not much else - the trail drops steeply into the valley and there are fine views looking towards a higher ridge of snow capped peaks. We descended quite rapidly passing a few old inca settlements and reached the first village after a few hours, a small farming settlement of stone houses where llamas graze on scrub grass, one of the few plants to grow at this elevation. The people here speak Aymara first and foremost and are only likely to speak Spanish if they travel outside the valley - its quite an isolated spot.

The trail continued downwards along some well preserved inca stone paving, plants and trees slowly began to appear as we reached the valleys main village around lunchtime. Already we had descended almost a thousand metres and it was now a pleasant 25C. Sergio, my guide, popped into the village to visit his parents (it was his birthday!) and we continued descending steeply into the first signs of forest, with brambles and spiky grasses lining the trail. By mid-afternoon colourful tropical birds had appeared and the valley sides were thickly forested with dense vegetation. We reached camp around 4pm, at a small hamlet by the rivers edge having descended 2km vertically. All day we had hardly seen any other people on the trail, but soon after a few Belgians arrived and Sergio had soon knocked up a tasty soup and main meal. Darkness descended quickly and the temperature dropped sharply - it was to be a cold restless night. I am not a great camper and was glad to see the sun rise and continue with the trek.


The second day was tougher, after a brief climb, the trail plunged sharply downhill again and the inca paving was very slippery. Gradually the rainforest vegetation began to dominate, the insects came out to bite and it soon became quite hot and humid. Nevertheless it was thoroughly enjoyable and good to be able to trek through the rainforest without having to hack out a path as was the case in Amboro. Nevertheless, the weight of the pack with the tent gradually took its toll and the final uphill section was tough going - the scenery a blur of green and purple mayflower bushes. The path finally levelled off and we came to a pleasant banana grove where there were a few basic local dwellings. Sergio decided this was the place to set up camp and I quickly pitched my tent and put my feet up to relax with a good book.



I had a much better nights sleep and we set off in good spirits - the first two hours was mostly uphill through a section aptly named el puesta del diablo, it took a while to get a rythym up through what was probably the hardest part of the trek. This section of the trail is rich in tropical birds - oropendola, parrots and hummingbirds were just a few of those spotted. We took a coca cola break at the house of the eccentric Japanese man and were invited to take a look at his amazing tropical garden. He has achieved a fame of sorts by insisting that every traveller who passes through sign his guestbook, while he rattles through the more unusual visitor entries in his bizarre collection. From there it was all downhill to the finish but with a catch - a forest fire last year has destroyed the forest cover over this final section and the sun was merciless. The first sight of mandarin and lime trees - exotic species in these parts, signalled our arrival in Chairo. Indeed, the diversity of vegetation and landscapes over the three days had been quite staggering. Sergio haggled for ages with the driver who runs the only real transport option to Corioco and we bumped our way along the broken road.


This laid back yungas town has a great location perched on the hillside at 1700m - it has a great climate in which everything from coca to coffee grows and aside from tourism this is how the locals make their money. Here a much needed shower awaited me and I spent the rest of the day lazing by the pool in the hotels lush tropical garden, listening to the calls of the many exotic bird species who frequent it. Theres not much to do in Corioco other than enjoy the ambience, so I whiled away another day in a similar fashion, then got the bus back to La Paz - over 3000m up what is better known as The Worlds Most Dangerous Road.

La Paz - The Worlds Highest Capital City

Bolivia´s capital is quite a fun place to wander around - streets twist up the steep-sided valleys packed with uniform concrete houses, every so often you catch a glimpse of the triple peak of Illimani or the steep cone of Huayni Potosi, a popular montaineering challenge at just over 6,000m. The street scene here is quite lively - bowler hatted cholas wander the streets, baraclava-masked shoe shine boys ply their trade in the cities plazas while the streets uphill from Plaza San Francisco form the travellers ghetto, a dense network of artenesia shops and cafes which intersects the witches market, where locals go to buy herbs, potions and good luck charms. The city´s main street, where the North American influence seems to be quietly taking over, runs downhill towards the richer parts of town. Its a pleasant walk down to Sopacachi, where most of the finest bars and restaurants are located. The main square, Plaza Murillo houses the cathedral, the presidential palace next door and Congress just round the corner. Its been the nerve centre of many a Bolivian coup and the plaza of choice to hang former disgraced presidents.

La Paz is full of lots of small and interesting museums. My favourite is the Coca Museum, which explores the coca leafs fascinating and controversial history, from its use by the native Andean people to the extraction of cocaine and its modern day uses and abuses via coca cola and everything inbetween. Chewing coca leaves is a popular Andean habit, especially among the poorer masses and increases tolerance to heavy workloads (as such is popular with miners and farm workers) whilst producing a detached mild euphoria. Bolivia´s current president Evo Morales was himself a coca farmer turned union leader and he has pushed for the leaf to be decriminalised whilst attempting to crack down hard on those who extract and traffic cocaine. Bolivia´s main coca growing area, the Chapare, is the focus of US crop eradication programmes, whilst that grown in the yungas region is grown on a smaller scale and consumed locally by coca chewers (its also a slightly different crop). Coca no es cocaina, as they say in Bolivia.

I spent a few days here getting used the altitude again and planning my next move. I have decided to first trek down into the lush fertile yungas region, following an old inca trading route, the el choro trail, now used mainly by trekkers. After that I would have to return to La Paz to get a flight to Rurranabaque and further into the Bolivian rainforest. I also like the sound of visiting another mountain area in order to do some more high trekking.

Arica and Parque Nacional Lauca



This part of Northern Chile used to belong to Peru and Bolivia and was annexed by Chile after the War of the Pacific (1879-84), cutting off Bolivia´s access to the sea. Chile has profited massively from the territorial gains - the land is rich in copper and nitrates, which are still in plentiful supply to this day and the Bolivian´s have never really forgiven them.

I arrived in Arica after a hellish overnight bus journey through the Atacama desert during which I just couldn´t breathe at all. It seemed strange as the bus was decending towards sea level and anyway, surely I was used to the altitude now ? In Arica itself, things got even worse, so for the first day there I was confined to bed, feeling very asthmatic, only rising to grab a quick bite to eat. Then I realised, I must be experiencing an allergic reaction to the doxycycline I was taking as anti-malarials. The alarming thing was, this must have started in San Pedro or even Bolivia but the effects were masked because I had thought the shortness of breath was altitude related.

I rose the next day feeling much better having got to the root of the problem and the town too seemed to come to life. I wasn´t really in the mood for the beach so instead walked up to the monument to the heroes to get a birds-eye perspective over town, via some old colonial era buildings desiged by Gustav Eiffel and then back in town, booked up a trip to Parque Nacional Lauca.



The Park is a World Biosphere Reserve and is home to a number of protected and endangered species - guanacos, vicuñas, visacachas and chinchillas, pumas, Andean foxes, condors, rhea, Chilean flamingos, taguas and other rare birds. Top of the food chain here are the condors and the elusive puma, both of which prey on the vicuña - a real success story here. It was once in danger of extinction but thanks to efforts at the Park, its numbers are now much healthier. The tour took us steadily up to over 4000m from sea level and after the extra rest day I felt fine with only a slight dizziness, which was perhaps to be expected.



On the way, up through the desert we passed tracts of the rare and unusual Candlebra Cactus, which somehow manages to grow between 2500 and 3000m in an almost rainless environment. Above this height, the landscape came to life with colourful mineral rich soil and scenic viewpoints at Pucara and Socorama. Guanaco thrive here up to 3500m and above that height the more slender vicuña takes over. A pair of condors cruised low over us, it was the closest I have seen them in the wild.



The Park itself begins around 4000m and is a real Chilean gem - herds of llama and alpaca, amazing altiplano scenery with snow capped volcanos rising to almost 6000m and high altitude lakes, which are home to numerous bird species. We spotted numerous visacachas, lots of very tame vicuñas, rhea, taguas and Andean gulls. Lake Chunagarra is a real beauty spot at 4500m, one of the worlds highest lakes where much of the wildlife is concentrated. Towering over the lake are the twin volcanic peaks of Payachata, part of a chain which delineate the Bolivian border. Dropping back down, I spent the night in the lovely Aymara town of Putre and then had to rise at the ridiculous hour of 3am to get the night bus bound for La Paz.

The bus arrived at the 4500m border crossing at 5am, outside it must have been around -15C and I sat on the bus shivering waiting for dawn. The views of Lake Chunagarra here must make this one of the worlds most scenic border crossings, which was some compensation for the fact that the border did not open til 8am. The crossing itself was a formality and we were soon into Bolivia, the impressive form of Volcano Sajama soon began to dominate the scenery. At 6560m, its the countrys highest point. I began to feel the effects of mild soroche and gasped for air, feeling exhausted from the lack of sleep. Some three hours later, we arrived at El Alto on the outskirts of La Paz and the bus refused to go any further. Cursing the driver, the locals quickly piled out and boarded flotas into the city. I followed suit and we soon arrived at La Ceja, the rim of this incredible city and gazed in awe 300m down to the city below me - the shanty houses clinging to the hillsides. Luckily the flota took me right down to the centre and I soon found a hotel, where I decided that the best plan was to first catch up on some sleep.

Four Days in San Pedro de Atacama - A Desert Oasis

The smaller of two of Chile´s finer towns to be named after the country´s founder, Conquistadore Pedro de Valdivia, San Pedro, was a relaxing end to a hectic week or two of intense travel. Valdivia came through here on his way south from Peru in 1541, in search of more silver and gold. The Spanish appetite for precious metals never was fully sated. He didn´t find much but by the time of his death twelve years later, he had put most of the long strip of land to the west of the Andes under Spanish control.


The first two days I didn´t do much apart from wander the streets, visit the small but excellent museum, buy some souvenirs and eat and drink myself back to top form. The restaurants and bars aren´t cheap here but they do offer something quite unique to this sort of gringo town. One day you can be lunching on an excellent steak listening to some cool house music, later you might be in the internet cafe enjoying classic MTV acoustic sets from the likes of Nirvana and Alice and Chains. The evenings tended to be social affairs, where gathered somewhere quiet and enjoyed some of the country´s fine wines, eating anything from Mexican to French food, whilst the waiter mixed up his favourite Pink Floyd CDs or whatever took his fancy on that particular night. Some mochileros sneer at this, but they tend to be the unusual sorts, who don´t appreciate the rich fusion of Chilean and backpacker culture you get here. This is the sort of town you plan to quickly pass through in two or three days, yet end up staying four or five.

On the third day, I did the two most popular half trips in one long busy day, first rising at 4am, to visit the Tatio Geyser field up at 4300m. Chileans claim its the world´s highest, but sol de manaña in Bolivia is actually about 500m higher even though its a much smaller geyser field and perhaps more of a collection of fumaroles. The sight of the steam rising up from the geysers at sunrise was truly an amazing sight. As well as active geysers, there were dormant ones which have burnt themselves out over time, fumaroles and mud pools - many of which were brightly coloured with orange iron, green copper or yellow sulphurous deposits. These hot pots are home to various varieties of extremophiles, unusual bacteria which can live at high temperatures or in high mineral content solutions, often by using novel biochemical pathways not present in higher organisms. We also had a quick chance to have a quick dip in the thermal waters - definitely the best natural setting for a thermal baths that I have ever seen.






Later that day, I took another tour that visited Chile´s version of valle de la luna, a series of lunar landscapes, where the panoptic vistas really do make you feel like you´re on another planet. Particularly impressive was walking down through the valley of the dead and then watching the sunset from atop a huge sand dune over the valley of the moon. I have seen better sunsets, but as the horizon turned a fuzzy orange purple colour, the realisation dawned that they have not been from such a dramatic setting as as this.

Crossing back into Chile - The Salar de Uyuni and the South West Circuit

An amazing 48 hour journey of incredible diverse landscapes, surreal scenery and enough altitude to make even the most acclimatizated Andean camelid gasp for breath ! The last 2 days have perhaps been THE highlight so far...


I met a few Brits in Potosi who wanted to do the same sort of tour as me, ending in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile and we agreed to meet up in Uyuni. The four of us set off on a 4WD tour with our quiet but reliable Bolivian driver and cook as our guide and the adventure began. The tour started off with a quick visit to the train graveyard. The town used to be an important rail hub for much of the mined metal making its way south, and the lines are still running for travellers crossing between Boliva, Chile and Argentina and journeys north to the capital. The rusted hulks we saw, were the remains of what was once a very lucrative trade.


It wasn´t much of a drive until we hit the vast salt plain itself (its the world´s largest), and it was every bit as impressive as I expected it to be. Villagers nearby have made a living out of "mining" the salt, in practice you don´t need to dig ! The modest sized piles of salt have a sort of geometrical perfection and the sun reflects brightly off the almost icey salt to create quite an effect. Striking out for the centre, we were soon engulfed in a desert of translucent white. Wow !





80km later we arrived at the rather surreal, isla de pescadores, a rocky island, where cacti rule the landscape and visacachas (a latin american rabbit) remain stranded amongst the rocks, isolated from the rest of the altiplano ecosystem. Our driver knocked up a quick and tasty lunch and were off again heading south now towards the lower part of the giant plain, where the water collects to create even more bizarre illusions. We drove onto a land bridge which connected us with the mainland again and the sun began to set as we arrived at the Salt Hotel. I had sort of imagined an igloo type structure but it looked more like a solid brick building. If you have never stayed a night in a salt hotel at 3600m then you have definitely missed out ! It was a strange end to an unusually brilliant day.



After a reasonably good nights sleep, we continued southwards paralleling the Chilean border, past slowly changing scenery and up a gradual dirt pass towards the snow-capped volcanos ahead of us. At the small broken village of San Juan, we bought some drinks and the driver got some coca leaves to chew for the journey and he proceeded to munch quietly away the entire afternoon. We slowly ascended to around the 4000m mark, the scenery constantly changing in colour and form, and the weather began to close in around us creating a small blizzard as we reached the first flamingo-filled salt lake. Its amazing to see these brightly coloured birds here - three of the five types of flamingo breed at these mineral rich altiplano lakes: the Chilean, Andean and James flamingos. As if on cue, the sun reappeared, warming things up to a pleasant 20C, clearing the clouds to reveal the giant volcanos now towering a mile above us. While we were being awed by it all, lunch appeared and a pair of mountain foxes hung in the background stealing pieces of meat when they could.

After lunch, we climbed steadily higher and higher, past more salt-rimmed flamingo containing lakes and past small heards of the beautiful vicuña. Approaching the 4500m highpoint of the day, the remaining hardy grasses of the high plain disappeared - we were now crossing a brown dirt desert and it began to snow gently, the sun still shining through the flakes.


Just when you thought things couldn´t get any more odd, we arrived at the Arbol de Piedra, a selection of eroded rock formations. The sun had reappeared once more but the day was fading fast. How may seasons had we seen now ? Four or maybe even five perhaps. Yet again the weather changed and we reached the largest flamingo-breeding lake, Laguna Colorado, in fading light and increasing cloud. The red coloured water was a sort of petrol purple between white strips of mineral rich rock, which from a distance appeared like ice. The red colour comes from the algae, which concentrate minerals like borax and gypsum along with calcium and sodium salts. Here the thousands of flamingos were communicating to each other in large teams - a truly amazing sight indeed.

Shortly afterwards we reached the rather more basic accomodation for the night at around 4250m. Its amazing how the people survive at this altitude. As were all to find out, it was to prove a rough, cold, old night as the village was engulfed in a vicous snowstorm. Inside we kept warm drinking red wine and feasting on pasta napolitana. None of us got much sleep, the combination of vino tinto and altitude perhaps effecting me the worst and I only got snapshots of sleep. The new day dawned with us all feeling a little edgy, after a long restless night, but glad to see the dawn. After breakfast, all our spirits had improved enormously and we set off for the final leg of the journey.


The storm had left a thick frost and within an hour of our continual gradual ascent, we were surrounded by blankets of snow, covering the rolling hills around us. This was truly a most unexpected surprise. By the time we had reached the geyser field, el sol de manaña, at 4800m, we were amongst probably the most impressive winter scenery I have ever seen. As the sun heated the day up, the fumaroles were really coming to life. Steaming giant kettles and cauldrons created a minefield of boiling holes and a mist of toxic sulphurous gases.


We cleared 5000m, the altitude sickness now strangely a faded memory, and arrived at our final stop, Laguna Verde, surrounded by layers of dark clouds. Its the more poisonous of the giant salt lakes, with rich deposits of sulphour, lead, arsenic and other heavy metals. With no sun, our supposed blue-green lake was more of a dark, oily, military green. No flamingos dared drink from this soup, the mud at the edge is a thick browny-white paint which almost ruined my trainers.

A very short drive onwards, took us to the giant 5960m, Volcan Licanbur at the Chilean border and we were processed quickly and efficiently into the much wealthier country. Soon, we were back on the first paved road I had seen for almost a week and dropped steeply 2500m down to San Pedro de Atacama. The Atacama desert is one of the worlds driest, barely receiving any rainfall. Basic plant life soon reappeared in the richer red soil as we passed Chile´s largest salt lake, a multicoloured affair which also supports flamingos. It was only 45 minutes from the border to the town, a funky gringo packed desert oasis, where the temperature was sitting pleasantly in the high 20s. Despite having the time our lives, we all felt much better after a Mexican lunch, shower and a relaxing afternoon strolling the quiet streets.

I can´t emphasis how highly I recommend this trip if you are ever in the neighbourhood !