The Salar Trip

Left to right Dan Dyer, Dianna Crayk Jack Hoopes, Christy Dyer, Lynn Crayk,Farron Harrison,Alene Harrison, Lee and Connie Crayk, Lorna Hoopes, Dawn Hurst, Eldon Hurst

 

The Temple was closed for their two week cleaning so the temple missionaries invited us and the Dyers to go through the Eduardo Avaroa National Reserve and the Salara. Since we were already at the gateway, Uyuni,  for the branch conference,we decided to take the four day trip with them.

Dawn and Eldon  Hurst are from  Bonners Ferry,Idaho. He's a retired border patrol agent and both are life long scouters. And Dawn is always prepared. The Harrison's, Farron and Alene from Laverne,California. He is a retired California Gas man. Lynn and Diana Cracyk, the temple president's brother and sister-in- law. Lee Crayk,Temple president and his wife Connie, all from SLC and our mission president Dan Dyer and his wife Christy from Reno.

 

 

 

 

About 45 minutes out of Uyuni you hit the Salar. It is the largest salt flat in the world, about 10 times larger than Bonneville Salt flats. We stayed in one of two Salt hotels.

 

Christy and Dan doing their best snake imitations

 The floors in the lobby and hallways are loose salt that looks like water softener salt. The walls are salt bricks and the bed frames are built out of salt bricks. Lynn Cracyk hoped he wouldn't wet the bed. There are really nice sculptures out of salt and salt art work on walls.

 We took a smaller room to have a better view.....

Didn't know we would be looking at construction debris. This could easily be a five star hotel except for no hot water and the heating system didn't work. They did bring us hot water bottles. Dawn didn't need one because she was prepared and brought her own and it was a good I told you so for the rest of us since she had told us many times to sure and bring one!

The next morning we visited the salt museum which consisted of the first salt hotel actually on the salt flats. The hotel is ancient, built in the 1990's. Below are some of the sculptures. As usual Lynn can't keep his hands to himself.

Connie and Lee

Further onto the Salar you can see holes where the water is underneath. During the summer months and rainy season there is up to a foot of water covering this. The movement of the area makes these pentagons.

We ate lunch at Fish Island. Over six thousand cacti grow here. We had a tasty lunch of llama and fried bananas in the skin. Our cook was from Uyuni. She has 3 children an older daughter and two sons,so we traded parenting stories!   We then took some perspective pictures.

 

That night we stayed in a rock eco-lodge  about 13,000 feet elevation. A nice rustic place that the community built with Italian foreign investors.

 

 The place was great except the heat didn't work (can you see a pattern developing?) and the hot water was solar. Luckily Lorna and I hurried and took a shower before the sun went down. I looked out the window to see this lady herding her llamas up the road.

That night they took us into the village into an adobe hut  ( not heated) where dinner was prepared. A sort of half warm lasagne made with leftover llama from lunch.  Yumm!

our hotel room

 

We visited 3 lakes. The White lake, Red lake and Green lake. Most of the lakes had pink flamingos. They are pink because of the red algae they eat.

The red lake had the most and pinkest flamingos, due to the high algae content.  It was a cool sight to see.

We stayed that night in Avaroa Park at about 14,000 foot elevation. The hotel  looks much better in the pictures.
We rode in 3 land cruisers, each with about 200,000 miles of ROUGH use. They carry the fuel on the roof rack with a garden hose to fill up. After the vehicles are retired from the Salar, they are then probably sold to taxi companies in Cochabamba and are good for another 15-20 years there!

The hotel is not quite five star, even though our driver Eddie said with a laugh, "Cinco Estrellas" as we drove up. He had been there before! We knew we were going to be sharing a bathroom with two other couples. But to our surprise we had a bathroom in our room. However it was locked. Come to find out the toilet bowl was frozen. The community bathroom was flooded. It had a fifty gallon barrel with water and a cut out anti-freeze jug to pour down the toilets to flush. The only problem is the water in the barrel was half frozen. The shower head wasn't hooked up to any water. After a couple of hours they fired up a generator which ran a few lights.  After watching them prepare dinner, we wish we could have skipped it. We shivered while we ate. They fired up this little wood stove. Dan and Connie entertained us with some good stories as we tried to get warm before going to bed. We each took turns trying to get warm by the stove and heating water in plastic bottles to put in our beds. All four Cracyks pushed their two twin beds together and decided they would survive better by all sleeping together ( I know, sounded kinky to me) As Diana left the stove she exclaimed "Come on Lynn, let's hop in bed, Lee is already there and I'm hot!

 

 

 

The lobby was breathtaking  (literally)

 

Rock Tree

Harrisons

 

 

 

 

The guide told us a storm was coming in and the drivers would make a  check at two am if we had to escape. They said if we were trapped we would be there for 3 days. The thought of rationing llama stew for 3 days wasn't very inviting. We hoped we would be able to leave. Lorna and I slept in a twin bed, with our home made 2 liter pop hot water bottle. The sheets were filthy and the blankets really stank. I don't know how many back packers had slept in them. When morning came we jumped out of bed to go to the kitchen to stand by the fire. Except the staff thought it wasn't necessary to start a fire. The table was set with a stack of pancakes. Unfortunately they had been cooked hours before and were frozen. After a quick game of frizbee with the pancakes,we bid adeu to the place promising never to return and each agreeing we had never stayed in a worse place.

The viscacha are interesting animals, they look like a cross between a rabbit, kangaroo and a raccoon

We arrived at these geysers and hot pools a short drive from the hotel. The Italian government had abandoned a joint geothermal project here to sell energy to Chile. We all wondered why in the hell the Park hadn't built the hotel here with hot water and electricity potential. It is Bolivia !  We arrived at the hot pools and Pres Crayk, Lynn Crayk and myself were the only brave ones to get in.

 Mostly because we had to change in the car. It was great and we didn't smell like the rest of them the rest of the day. I paid to change in the shower stall and thought how great it was until I looked down and saw that someone had taken a big dump on the floor, that I was stepping in!

We saw more flamingos and three ostrich. We had lunch at another hut in a small village. That was clean relatively speaking. A small plane had crashed on an adjacent hill some time before and the town had made use of the doors for gates and the tail as an art piece. The streets were a little wider than most and they had street signs. Christy remarked that The town looked "Quite Salt Lakeish" She's been in Bolivia too long!

Christian, one offer drivers stopped at his grandfathers farm and wanted to show us the country behind his farm. It was spectacular!!!

 

 

Even though we took 4 days off to play, we really do work! After our trip to Uyuni, the President decided they need to put two more missionaries there, so today we are in a scramble to make sure they have everything they will need for a new apartment that we got set up with the landlord before we left Uyuni on Monday. We are looking forward to another eventful week. President Dyer has asked us to take the AP's to Chapare and Villa Tunari this weekend to try and locate 30 lost members and hold a Sacrament meeting. We are going to the opposite in weather conditions. 90 degree days in the jungle with monkeys and a lot of coca fields. Check back and see what we have been up to!