Yes! the hotel in the middle of nowhere was made entirely of salt!! Even the hotel room floors were crushed salt with Pergo flooring over it, as were the hallways. And the salt in the bathroom was hit with the steam from the showers and it showed.
This is where the temps got to 22 degrees at 7 am our departure time — and that WASN’T Celsius!!
I had a wall heater in my room and I kept hitting the remote to bump it upward and it wouldn’t go higher than 30 Celsius. Yes 30C was 86 degrees Fahrenheit, but the maids turned off the heat while I was away and everything in the room was ice cold.
I have to admit, once the sun came out, it heated the world up dramatically and was brighter and hotter than I could believe.
We arrived here as we headed to the salt flats before 10 am and had to get the owners to open their shop. It was all about the salt. They would dig up trucksful of salt, then clean it and put it into little plastic bags with a piece of handmade textile on the back and mix it with all sorts of stuff — peppers, garlic, etc. It was about a buck a bag. I bought three.
We headed up to a burnt out volcano. And behind me is our first view of the salt flats. For all my northern friends, doesn’t it look like snow on a frozen lake?!
Look closely on the left photo. These are llamas — correctly pronounced Yamma, the same way tortilla is pronounced tor tee a; not tor tilla. Llamas spit, so we did not get near them.
The fences demarking property lines were just piled rocks.
Just seeing this photo of Tom again reminds me of the huffing and puffing we did, simply to get to the top. The air was thin and we weren’t getting enough oxygen to our limbs.
We entered this locked cave where mummies had been sitting for hundreds of years. Bolivian ancestors were buried in caves in fetal positions as part of their religion. And anyone who disturbed them were destined to die a long an painful death. Some families were placed together. It was cool and dry inside the cave and the remains were well preserved.
The sun was hot, but I was still not ready to remove my coat.
This was the salt flats. 50,000 years ago, this was an ocean that dried up, leaving behind tons of salt. The ocean was vast and therefore so was the amount of salt it left behind.
There was a mountain in the middle of this ocean and to this day they call it an island. Yes it WAS an island when there was water around it, but without water, I call it mountain; not an island.
The vast expanse of salt was amazing! And the shadows from the sun made it eerie.
We took 15 minutes to take pictures of some flamingos toward shore and when we turned around, our lunch was awaiting us. By then it was hot and the portable seats had awnings for your head!! I was enjoying the heat.
Wine was on the menu and a young ‘un from the group made a special point to ask Tom and I if we knew what the first singing group Harry Stiles was part of. I knew this was going to show what an old codger I was (since I’ve NEVER known anything about bands and music!) So I told them even though I didn’t know the band, I knew exactly who Harry Stiles was, and he was on my list of the people I would like to have sex with. That got a chuckle.
And then Tom, the one who knows EVERYTHING about ANY subject, because he hangs with old Chinese ladies, young teen runners and is smart as a whip, came up the the correct answer!! Even today I think I’ve already forgotten. Is it One Direction?
People continued to drink on that hot afternoon an Gaj brought up my Harry Stiles comment again. I told him loudly, I’m 70! Not DEAD!
My guess is these comments are what won me the vote as to whom would lead the charge in the dinosaur video below.
This was our trek up the ‘island’, and again I was puffing when I got to the top.
The people who got to see the dinosaur footprints said this looked a lot like what they saw.
Probably not though.
When the salt heats up and the water underneath gets nearer the top, the salt gets these 5-sided shapes. Strange!
Fun Forced Perspective Photography on the salt flats!!
Tom getting rid of me.
Karma’s a bitch.
That’s one big bottle of wine!
Yes, his is the same day but the sun is going down. Seven layers kept me warm, but my feet, with double socks, were in rubber boots in 6 inches of ice cold water and that made me cold, along with biting cold winds.
Fun in the setting sun.
Some cute videos of our group. This is Solidad, our tour guide.
This is the dinosaur video
We were standing in 4 or 6 inches of water and Solidad got some great shots of our reflections!
We were so lucky to get BOTH the sunset and the moonrise on the water.
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