A swing through South America

[RooFlyer]

Fabulous pics and landscapes!

There was apparently a joint Russian/Bolivian company up there with a geothermal power plant, but the site is quite some way from major population centres, so I do wonder about the utility.

Coming from the geothermal energy industry, I can say that its a ridiculous proposition!

 

[Scarlett]

Loving the photos and your report. It looks like an amazing part of the world and we're definitely putting it on our list of places to see.

The Viscacha reminds me of the rabbit in Monty Python's Holy Grail.

Highly recommend tour! And for about AUD160 per day, cheap too. Stunning landscapes.

Fortunately for us, these viscacha weren’t related to the terrifying Rabbit of Caerbannog as we had no weapons of any sort, certainly not a Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.

 

[Scarlett]

To wrap up the tour we had a solid five hours of travel to get back to Uyuni, but it was broken up into sensible chunks.

The first was to a village for lunch, where we caught back up to the other car. A couple of llamas were grazing the grass near a mountain fed stream.




Then another rock stop. These formations were about 4-5 stories tall.








The final stop was the town of San Cristobal, a community that supports a nearby silver mine.


The church in the background, along with other elements of the town, was moved about 20Km due to the mine expanding. It was rebuilt in its current location brick by brick to replicate the original.





We got back into Uyuni about 1715 and were dropped at the tour company office. Most others had stored their larger luggage at the office. Some were on night buses to La Paz that evening. I headed back to the Casa de Sal hotel where I’d left my luggage and enjoyed a little more luxurious shower and bed.

No altitude sickness concerns at all during the tour; certainly helped by having already spent a few days in both Cusco and then La Paz. Further aided by having had Diamox tablets available from before proceeding to altitude from Lima.

Final thoughts: I guess the extra USD50 for the full tour was justified, as the 2-day tour offered as a replacement wouldn’t have taken in the full Andes experience. I have seen some pretty significant lines (stretching maybe a kilometre or two) for petrol so I guess there was enough in it for the tour company to suggest what they did.

The other thing to note is that until the middle of this year we were getting ~5 BOB to the AUD. As they’ve removed some currency controls we’re now getting 8-8.5 to the AUD so Bolivia is quite cheap to visit at the moment.

Next was to head down to the tropical Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

 

[Scarlett]

UYU-LPB-VVI OB305/OB668
B737-700
CP-2923
Both flights on time

The same aircraft that had delivered me to Uyuni a few days earlier was operating the return this day and then it continued on from La Paz to Santa Cruz.

An airline finally caught up with my golf bag here and demanded extra payment as I was exceeding my allowed 23Kg. (not sure why I was allowed 30Kg for LPB-UYU?) The cost for the extra bag for the two sectors: BOB115, or about AUD14.50 That is what I call reasonable extra charges!


UYU really is just a small room for a terminal.


We departed over the salt flats.


Quick 50 minute flight to LPB and no long or extended approach. Instead a turn from base at a closer distance.


It’s sad what you see slowly rusting away at some less common airfields.


Still going strong however.
(one for @jase05)


When I was first looking at how to get to UYU, this operator, Ecojet, were flying down there once daily in the morning. At some point they’ve stopped flying it so I guess lucky I stuck with BoA.

There was only a 50 minute transit at LPB and with boarding starting early I only had enough time to fill up my brew mug with a decent latte and head straight to the gate and board. Next leg I was in an aisle seat again and it was an unremarkable 50 minute sector.

Some notes on BoA:
- they consolidated two flights each morning to UYU into one aircraft and therefore it was full.
- luggage was offloaded from the B737-700 on both legs to and from UYU. As I had a window seat when departing UYU, it looked like one full standard airport luggage cart was either not loaded or actively unloaded before we departed. I suspect because I was connecting in LPB that my bags were loaded.
- no seats were available for last minute purchase to/from UYU. One of the other members on the tour had tried to book late and had to spend an extra night in Uyuni due to no seats available on the day I flew out. Yet, I had a vacant middle beside me as did a number of other rows toward the rear of the aircraft. Weight and balance needs I guess.
- BoA have no service on short domestic flights. No water or anything.
- BoA only sent notification of my changed flights (due to the consolidation of two flights into one) 24 hours before the flight, even though they had made the change likely weeks earlier.