Bolivia Chile - Altiplano to Atacama Explorer

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• published: 27 Nov 2014
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Starting in the country’s largest city, Santa Cruz, the trip first takes us on a journey from the tropical lowlands, via out of the way and seldom visited locations, towards the altiplano. Here we’ll visit the UNESCO World Heritage site of Samaipata, the archaeological ruins of El Fuerte and the interesting village of La Higuera, where Che Guevara met his untimely end. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1991, Sucre is undoubtedly Bolivia’s most beautiful town, and is regarded as the symbolic heart of the country. As the location of the first declaration of independence in the Americas from Spain in 1809, Sucre holds a special place in Bolivia’s, if not the entire continents, national psyche. Today it is a pretty colonial town, with elegant administrative buildings, spectacular churches and monasteries, good museums, and is famous for its silver and chocolate shops. There is also a very interesting dinosaur park on the outskirts of town, where 65 million year old dinosaur footprints can be seen. From here we travel on, along a beautiful mountain road, to Potosi. Out of the giant mountain, or the Rich Hill as its known, that stands above Potosi the Spanish managed to extract enough silver to build an empire. The mine is still in use, extracting zinc, copper and what silver is left and forms one of the more bizarre experiences travellers can take. But if burrowing underground is not to your liking the town, which was at one time reputed to be the richest city on earth, with a population twice that of Paris, is still well worth a visit. It has an excellent museum and some wonderful colonial architecture. This has got to be one of the highlights of any trip to Bolivia, heading out across the Uyuni Salt flats, the largest salt flats anywhere on earth. Formed 25,000 years ago when a seismic shift in the continental plates drained a vast inland saltwater lake, leaving behind a perfect white crystal plane of salt. At 12,000sqkms, it stretches as far as the eye can see broken only by a few dark cactus covers islands. But it's not just the lake itself that is so interesting; it’s also about the people that live, and have lived, around it. Hiking up a ridge below Tunupa volcano to get a better view, you’ll be led into a cave where you’ll find the mummified bodies of two men, two women and two infants. They are thought to be members of the Uruquillas tribe that legend says made their way overland from Mongolia 2,500 years ago. Our guide told us they were a noble family, probably farmers, that lived and died here 700 years ago. Today people still eek an existence out of the land around them. Some farm llamas and quinoa on the lower slopes of the volcanoes. Others make a living from the salt itself, either by cutting it into blocks for the building trade, or for animal salt licks, or by drying it out, crushing it up, bagging it and selling it as table salt. Travelling on to Chile, over the high altiplano you are going to be in for a real treat. On this route you’ll pass by, and visit, some of the most magnificent natural wonders anywhere on the continent. Including geyser fields, dazzling lakes – packed with flamingos – and important geological features… What you can see behind me is the Colorado Fault. This is where the South America plate is crashing into the Nazca plate, the South American one going above, the Nazca one going below, and it causes this huge gash in the earth. And finally you are going to end up here, in the amazing Atacama Desert. Sitting in the rain shadow of both the Andes and the Chilean Coastal Range, the Atacama Desert is renowned as being the driest place on earth. It is also the region that has been driest for longest, with some suggesting a continuous arid area here dating back at least three million years. Some of the soil has no life at all, a situation NASA has exploited to test instruments for Mars missions. And, due to its otherworldly landscapes, it has been used as a location on numerous space films including Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets. Forming the northern chain of Chile’s ‘Ring of Fire’ the region is framed by a spectacular girdle of volcanoes and plethora of fascinating geographical phenomenon. During your time here you’ll go for a good hike though the Salt canyon, visit the Valley of the Moon, the high altitude geyser fields, where you might like to take a swim in a thermal pool, and the Salt Range – perfect place for sunset shots. And if the skies are clear you’ll also do a star gazing trip – the Atacama is known as the best place in the world from which to see space. So the trip ends here in San Pedro de Atacama. From here we drive to Calama, from where we fly to Santiago and home or on for an extension. It’s been an amazing journey.