The first day of our four-day tour to the Salar de Uyuni took us from Tupiza to a little village called San Antonio de Lípez. The tour is a quite different from the guided tours I did in Argentina and Chile - and a lot cheaper. There are only four of us doing the tour, and we share the comfortable four-wheel-drive with the driver, who is also the guide, the cook, and her son who got to tag along because school only starts next Monday.
The tour led through the sparsely populated altiplano, starting at 3000 meters in Tupiza, and then quickly climbing to - and staying around - 4000 to 4700 meters. There are only very few villages, mostly consisting of just one to six houses.
The roads are in a condition corresponding to the amount of population. Without a 4WD, you'd quickly be stuck.
Most people live either off llama farming or mining. This, for example, is a gold mine shared by a handful of families:
There are also antimony and copper mines around, all equally tiny.
The llamas living in the area are all domestic. To mark which family a llama belongs to, they wear colorful strips of cloth like earrings:
The vicuña, a relative of the llama, also lives in this region. Contrary to the llama, vicuñas are free animals. Due to a harsh winter a while ago, it is even forbidden to hunt vicuñas right now, in order to let their numbers grow again.
The landscape is really magnificent. Even though the weather wasn't all that great, everything was just beautiful.
This is the view from the Paso del diablo which is named like that because dunes of fine sand accumulate in the road in winter.
Here is some more gorgeous landscape:
Our home for the night, San Antonio de Lípez, has 220 inhabitants. This is a typical house in the village:
Despite its size, the village has a tiny school:
Of course, it makes sense that there is a school - the next village (350 inhabitants) is about two hours away.
The tour led through the sparsely populated altiplano, starting at 3000 meters in Tupiza, and then quickly climbing to - and staying around - 4000 to 4700 meters. There are only very few villages, mostly consisting of just one to six houses.
The roads are in a condition corresponding to the amount of population. Without a 4WD, you'd quickly be stuck.
There are also antimony and copper mines around, all equally tiny.
The llamas living in the area are all domestic. To mark which family a llama belongs to, they wear colorful strips of cloth like earrings:
The vicuña, a relative of the llama, also lives in this region. Contrary to the llama, vicuñas are free animals. Due to a harsh winter a while ago, it is even forbidden to hunt vicuñas right now, in order to let their numbers grow again.
The landscape is really magnificent. Even though the weather wasn't all that great, everything was just beautiful.
This is the view from the Paso del diablo which is named like that because dunes of fine sand accumulate in the road in winter.
Here is some more gorgeous landscape:
Our home for the night, San Antonio de Lípez, has 220 inhabitants. This is a typical house in the village:
Despite its size, the village has a tiny school:
Of course, it makes sense that there is a school - the next village (350 inhabitants) is about two hours away.
