Rocks, Moss and Colorful Mountains

After driving for some time the driver asked if we wanted to stop at a place which seems to be a standard break point for the tourists. We said yes, for the same reason I believe most of the tourists stop at this point. We all had to go to the bathroom and there was finally something which we could duck behind, a wall of rock.

Before I used the "facilities" I was already out of the jeep taking pictures. Approaching this wall of rocks we drove through one of the parts where people make their own lanes wherever they want and this was the perfect opportunity to get up high and get a picture of it. Part of me felt it was a needless disturbance of nature, but this was overcome by the part of me that found this to be artistic and beautiful in some way.

The "facilities". This wall of rocks was interesting in and of itself but the moss that grew on it was impressive as well. These rocks outline the desert and sit at the foot hills of the surrounding red-colored mountains.
Up close you can see that the moss is made up of many green flowers you can also see drops of sap which could be found amongst this moss. Someone mentioned that the Natives of the area had many uses for this sap including as fuel (I believe).
I don't understand the mindset of those who would carve their name into this moss. Who's going to see it? Well I guess we did, but when you're there surrounded by the vastness of the desert it just seems silly.
Hey I was much more appropriately dressed on day two (I had a jacket and pants on). These rocks were fun to climb all over. I was glad we made this stop, in fact I'm pretty sure I used up all my time taking pictures and climbing on the rocks that I never made use of the "facilities".
There were some other tours that overlapped us while we were at this rock, they seemed to always be a bit ahead of us, which was quite to my liking.
More trails on the desert floor.
Where the desert floor meets the rocks.


Coming out of the green "flowers" where these yellow fruits or seed pods. I put my finger in this picture for a reference of the scale of these green "flowers".
"Which path should we take next?"
I'm glad I got at least one good picture of our Land Cruiser, we had one of the newer ones. Sita and I mostly occupied the third row of seats, sometimes switching two the second row of Seats. The lone Canadian was always in front with the driver. That blue container on top is the fuel, somebody needs to build a gas station out there, it'll be real lucrative for like 20 minutes out of the day a few days a week in the summer months.
Shortly after the "facilities" stop we made another stop to get a nice view of the colorful mountains.

This picture was taken in sepia mode, does it make it look more artistic?

"Wow!"

Piedra Arbol

Day two in Bolivia. The first stop Piedra Arbol or Stone Tree. This is one of the advertised stops on the tour, but I was unimpressed by the initial pictures I saw of it and I was unimpressed when we were there. I couldn't understand what was so spectacular about this rock that would make it an advertised feature of the tour, whereas other stops that had impressed me greatly were barely, if at all mentioned, during the initial tour sales pitch. Now that I have looked at this set of pictures, however, there is one that has really impressed me and I see, how from the correct angle this is really an impressive "Stone Tree". I moved this picture to the top of this set (whereas most of the posts go in chronological order).

Sita being dwarfed by the Piedra Arbol.

Just before arriving at the Piedra Arbol, we saw some more wildlife. Once again these look like Vicuñas to me, but they could be Guanacos.
Sita in the foreground with a couple of the others that were in our jeep in the background.
Sita amongst the smattering of other random rocks that accompanied the Piedra Arbol.


This rock reminded me of Camel Rock. For those non-Northern New Mexican readers there is a rock on Tesuque pueblo (between Española and Santa Fe) that resembles a camel which they call camel rock (you can find a picture of it at Prabhu's Blog). This would be the double camel rock or the camel caravan rock. It probably looks nothing like a camel to those who haven't seen camel rock, it just happens that the head of Camel Rock is formed similarly to the upper right feature of this rock. It just doesn't seem to be as impressive from this angle.


The snowy red mountains that surrounded us. Anyone know what mineral would make these mountains red? Leave a comment if you do.

A backside view of the "Caravan Camel Rock".

Dali Desert

This area is called the Dali desert after Salvador Dali, I guess the landscape reminded someone of his artwork.
The colors present in these mountains were amazing.



I thought it would be cool if Sita took a picture of me alone in the middle of the desert. I jogged out only a hundred yards or so but I was out of breath by the time I got there because of the altitude.

Zoomed in.
This was a big surprise for us to see. Just when you think you're in the middle of no where, the only traffic you encounter is doing road maintenance. For some reason we were behind this guy for like ten minutes moving very slow before the road finally widened enough for our driver to feel safe passing. In many of the other places people just make their own lanes driving anywhere they want, but I suppose one of the reasons the road is maintained here, is perhaps it's too sandy to go off the road.

Desert Landscapes

There are so many amazing things about Southwest Bolivia. One thing captured here is the presence of wildlife. I think these are Vicuñas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicugna_vicugna), but they may be Guanacos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanaco). I am pretty sure we saw both of these species of wild South American Camelids, but not having read up on them before we left it was hard to know which was which. (We also so domesticated alpacas, which you'll see in a future post).

These wild grasses are probably the food of the camelids. The next three pics are also our first glances at Laguna Roja.


I wonder how often it rains here to create arroyos this deep.
The road was a bit more defined here than it is in other places.

Entrance into Bolivia - the border

We really had just a very little idea of what the Bolivian experience would be when we signed up for the tour. The minibus that took us to the border was a Mercedes and it was new. So I thought the booking/touring companies must have some dough, so the vehicles on the other side of the border ought to be pretty new, right? Wrong. There was a fair amount of people in the Minibus with us and all of them would be on tours, so we had to wait a while for all of the people to go through the border patrol, so I took pictures while we waited.

Sita next to the Mercedes minibus in front of the Bolivian border station. This station had one wall (in the left of the picture) that was dilapidated that showed the evidence that this building is made out of adobe as well. I was surprised that the Bolivian government would allow for such a ramshackle building to be the first thing that greets many tourists from all over the world. I was especially surprised later when we encountered other more well-built government facilities.

The view was already amazing forget the infrastructure, or lack there of, this giant mutli-colored snow-capped mountain was right in front of us.
Sita needed to go to the bathroom so we asked if they could oblige us in the border station, but they said they did not have a bathroom. So we thought, how can that be, especially since there are no trees or bushes to duck behind. "Hey, I have an idea let's check out that skeleton of a bus a over there."

Looks like we weren't the only ones with this idea.There were some other adobe ruins and apparently a dwelling also at the border. This dwelling was even more ramshackle then the border station, I think this is where the Bolivian officers working there lived.

The fleet of Toyota Land Cruisers ready to take the new wave of tourists. Everybody talks about "Jeep" tours in Bolivia, but you will never find anything but Toyota Land Cruises being utilized in this terrain, this is a testament to the quality of Toyota vehicles. Especially since some of the Land Cruisers were of the late 70's/early 80's variety. We were lucky enough to score a mid-90's model (for the first few days of the tour) that was still in pretty good shape in the interior especially since a properly functioning or clean interior is certainly not a priority for the touring companies or drivers.




I was surprised to find snow in the shade of this adobe wall. After the heat experienced in San Pedro, I thought I would be appropriately dressed for most of the tour in the clothes I'm seen in here. Boy was I wrong...