Saturday, 30.01.2010: Start of the tours through the Andes by car.

(pictures to be added from other camera)
Today I wake up much earlier then usual on the trip: 6h45! 😉
The night before, I had stored my bike and trailer in the backyard of the hostal so I just needed to take a shower (possible to be the last of the next days) and grab my stuff I had packed in one of the two bags that are on the trailer.
I went to the tour office (called Pamela’s) an dwaited for departure… As I was a little bit earlier over there, I’ve got some doubts as no one was there.
But in the end we all were in the bus that brought us up to the Bolivian border: The German Charlotte an Thomas in there honeymoon and the three Chilean Paola, Joaquin and Josu from Santiago. After 30min of waiting at the chilean pass control we drove with the bus in direction of paso Jama
Arrived at about 4600m we went to the bolivian “immigration” to get our stamps.
The breakfast was good…announcing a nice day :-).
All of us six boarded on an 4×4 Jeep, drived by the bolivian Richard. First station was the entrance of the national parc for registration and payment of the entrance fee (in my tour price included).
From there we joined the Laguna Verde and Blanca. Their names come from the algues for the first and from the Borax salt for the 2nd.
On the way we saw two cyclists with their Bob trailer (the one I’ve bought as well). It was a long way up to there, but what was in front of them was even more difficult. My thoughts are with them!
Then we joigned the therms where already a bunch of tourist were cooking or bathing in a large stone, warm pool. None of us wanted to get wet…and enyoyed the view around. For me, the air was just to cold.
The next station was the geysir or better the “hot pots” were a lot of fog cames out and a mixture of water and mud was cooking, making nice “blub” tones. Walking between that smelly place (sulfur and ist derivated) was special and you had to be a little carefull, as the “exploded” mud can touch you. Thomas was lucky to wear long throuser (it is cold as soon as you are not in the proximity of a source) as he was hit by a little bit of mud. The weather was not very nice, it as well started to “snow” snow ice cristals.
That place seems to be the correspondant place to the Chilean “El Tatio”(which have geysires in the morning and I plan to visit later): the Bolivians did tried has well to get out some energy out of those warm places, but did not succeed. For El Tatio, a lot of people are scared that the geysiers would stop working and less water would disserve San Pedro.
Then the journey continued in direction of Laguna Colorada and the place to stay for the night.
As the weather was not nice at all and may be because Richard needed some sleep, he proposed to see the Laguna in the morning. We were all a bit hungry and tired of the altitude. So we went directly to the “hostal” for tea time. We took a little rest, went out for some walking around the housing and supper was served. Of course, I could not resist to run a little bit around….
After a nice day, it was time to go the bed. I just hoped that my headache would leave. It was a mistake not to sleep much, make sports and drink wine the day before.