March 25 crossing the border into Bolivia

I was almost beside myself with excitement at the prospect of heading into the extremely high country of Bolivia. It was to be a long day so we had to make a pretty early start. The drive to the border was uneventful and the border crossing was as most border crossings are and involved a fair bit of waiting but we were eventually met by our Bolivia guide, Alfredo (Freddy) and our driver Eddy. 

We didn't see too many 'oldies' like us!

Terrific border!

Like driving through dunes only flatter - our driver was excellent.

That morning's drive was a crazy mix of Gibb River Road, the Tanami Track and the Dakar Rally. Roads across the Altiplano are non-existent. It’s just a series of wheel tracks winding across the sand, volcanic 'dirt', lava plains. Not for the faint hearted but for us it was like outback Australia on steroids. Wrap-around silence, snow-capped volcanoes (mostly dormant), ancient, ancient Andean mountains/volcanoes. At 'lower' altitudes the slopes were dotted with ‘straw grass’ very similar to our spinifex, and adorable vicuña grazing in small groups. It was heaven. 

Laguna Verde

We drove on through this remote almost hostile landscape to visit the tranquil turquoise waters of Laguna Verde at the base of Licancabur volcano. The 6000m cone of  Licancabur is crowned with a large crater lake which is among the highest lakes in the world.

Volcanoes? Active? This afternoon we wandered through clouds of warm sulphur-scented steam from Sol de Mañana (Morning Sun). It was otherworldly, what I imagine Hell might look like if …. The area is volcanically active, which of course gave our visit a tingle of scary excitement. It is part of a huge underground lava lake that extends into Chile. What we don’t know about the Earth would fill volumes! 

Freddy got Eddy to stop the car and said "let’s walk". Waa? Whoa! We edged past craters of boiling mud and steam geysers. Mud and other subterrainean material resplendent in rainbow colours were a brilliant artist's palette. My glasses kept steaming up making it difficult to see but Eddy shadowed me to kept me safe. The whole place was indescribable. You just had to be there. It was a never to be forgotten experience.

We went right to the very edge and peered into deep cauldrons of boiling mud and gushing steam vents.

Finally, we collapsed back in the car and headed on. Not far from there on this breathtaking Andean Plateau, we reached the astonishing altitude of 5000m, more than twice the altitude of Mt Kosciuscko. According to our guide this region is sometimes called the Tibet of South America because outside Tibet, it is the most extensive high plateau on Earth - which I know I've told you already but being there and being able to walk around was an astonishing, surprising experience.

Scenes like this made us hanker to just pitch a tent and stay

We stopped for lunch at some hot springs which we could have plunged into but it wasn't for us this day. I have to tell you that midday meals in South America are huge.  Always three courses and this one included a huge thermos of hot water and a large bowl of coca leaves for us to make tea which is supposed to help with altitude wonkiness (sadly it didn't work for me!).

Lakes and flamingos - there were more to come. Laguna Colorada (Red Lagoon) was our next stop. And I should say here that as we drove we didn't stop oohing and aahing, so spectacular was the scenery. But to Red Lagoon .... Lindsay was in heaven watching flocks of flamingos trawling for food in the shallows.  The lake, with its rich supply of plankton attracts huge flocks of flamingos, was once believed to be the blood of the Gods. In reality it derive its red hue from red sediments and microorganisms, including types of algae. These pigments colour the feathers of the flamingos.  

All the while we were there dainty vicuna just wandered around us

Threatening storm clouds persuaded us to head for lower territory - we were to stay in a 'cave hotel' that night so we pushed on. We descended a couple of hundred metres to our destination to spend the night at Villa Mar. This is a small village built on the side of a lava flow - our hotel was built into the volcanic rock. Along the way we stopped at a couple of places beside riverbeds where we found an ancient arrow/spear head as well as multi-coloured jasper and obsidian. Some of the obsidian pieces we figured may have been cutting tools or arrow heads. You can imagine I was in my element.  But we had a date with a hotel so we pushed on passing on the way a large herd of llamas being rounded up into their nighttime enclosures - although there are few pumas remaining in the region, there are foxes who would love a meal of tender young llama.