The wake-up call came very early — 4:30 a.m. — for the final day of our tour. We ate a simple and quick breakfast, used the bathroom, then headed to the 4×4.
Jafet took us to a place near the Sol de Mañana geysers to watch the sunrise. The landscape was very Mars-like: red and orange dirt, small rocks, and distant mountains. The stars were still out, and gold-and-pink glow began rising over the mountains on the horizon. This, Jafet said, was the highest point we would reach on the tour: 5,000 meters (16,400 feet) above sea level. Down the road we could make out the tops of the vapor streams of the geysers.
I had been shooting photos with my trusty old Olympus E-PL5, a micro four-thirds camera I purchased about 10 years ago before a previous trip to Bolivia. Recently the camera has been showing it’s age — the bracket holding adjustable LCD screen to the body is nearly disconnected, and the shutter button is missing. They don’t make replacement buttons anymore, so I have to touch the LCD to take photos.
On this cold early morning, all of us were bundled up. I was wearing fingerless gloves so I could continue shooting photos with the camera and video on my phone. But after setting up my metal tripod and attempting to shoot a few, my fingers were very cold, and that led to a mistake.
Throughout the trip, I was shooting in JPEG + RAW format to get the highest quality images possible (the first time I’ve ever done that). But while setting up the camera to take a longer exposure of the stars, apparently my cold, clumsy fingers also changed the photo quality setting to the lowest possible quality. I didn’t know I had done it until later while editing my photos. I got some good images — but they are low-resolution. What a disappointment.
Anyway, after watching the sky change color and shooting some photos, we drove down to see the actual geysers. Wow, were they loud, and neat to see.
The landscape changed as we got to the main area. With vapor clouds everywhere, some more diffuse, and others tight and conical, the undulating land before our eyes looked like a scene from a “Spaceman Spiff” adventure in the “Calvin and Hobbes” comic strip.
Small colored rocks were arranged in lines around the geysers, a border we shouldn’t cross. Jafet said a French tourist had fallen into one a few years ago and died.
It took a while before we could actually see the sun, because of the mountains around us. But once it finally emerged, it lit up the distant red hills, and brightened the vapor.
Our next stop, and perhaps the highlight of the trip, was a visit to the aguas thermales. The kids particularly were very uncertain about changing out winter gear into swimsuits and dipping into the water. But it looked warm: we could see the steam rising. In fact, the landscape here with marshy bofedales, pools of water, and steam, reminded us of the Dead Marshes as depicted in “The Two Towers” film.
I was the first one in. The water was fantastic. It was warm, and just the right depth: I could sit on the bottom and keep most of my body submerged. The others joined eventually, though Joseph took quite a bit of urging before he finally got in all the way. But all of us loved it. After a cold night and short sleep, plus the extreme dry air and all the dust, this was so relaxing, refreshing, rejuvenating … basically any other re- verb you can think of. It did wonders for my nose, which had been wrecked by this point. We spent more than an hour here before we reluctantly got out and dried off.
The rest of the day we spent mostly driving with just a few stops. Along the way we saw the volcano Udurunco, and increasingly more bofedales with little streams, as well as llamas and vicuñas.
One of our stops was in the town of Villa Mar, where we ate lunch at a nice comedor and used the bathrooms. Here a trip to the bathroom cost only 3 Bs, compared with 5 Bs throughout much of the earlier part of the trip. While we waited for lunch to be prepared, we walked along a stream from one end of town to the other, past a big soccer field and ending at a field full of llamas.
After another hour or so of driving, we reached the Laguna Negra, or black lagoon. This area again reminded us at first of Elephant Rocks, and the kids quickly began clambering up to the top. Jafet had mentioned we could see vicuñas here, and I hadn’t yet gotten any good pictures of any, so I asked him where I could find them. He point around a corner, and told me he’d take me there. He immediately took off and I followed, leaving Yoli and the kids behind.
Jafet set a very quick pace, and though I was doing okay at the high altitude, I found it hard to keep up. Plus, every so often I wanted to stop and take pictures. We were walking through a wet bofedal. It required careful steps since it could be muddy and wet. And, of course, at one point I stepped wrong, slipped, and fell, sliming my left leg and drenching my foot. This was turning out to be a much longer walk than I had anticipated, though it was very beautiful.
Then, suddenly, I could see a dark lagoon in the distance, well below us. Was this the actual Laguna Negra? Yes, Jafet said.
He brought me to the edge of a cliff with an amazing view of the lagoon. On the far side of the water was a large herd of llamas. What a spot. And I was the only one who got to see it!
I spent a good while taking photos of the llamas, the landscape, and the various birds and ducks around. As we walked back, I ran into Joseph and Ludi, who told me they had seen me from the tops of the rocks.
This was the last highlight on the tour. We spent a few more hours driving back, and thankfully some of that was over good highway. Each of us nodded off along the way. Unfortunately for me, I missed a second llama crossing.
Once back in Uyuni, we had just enough time to eat a meal before catching a bus to take us to Potosí.
The bus ride was mostly uneventful, and we got to Potosí before 10 p.m. Unfortunately, things went awry here. We had hoped to stay with one of Yoli’s cousins who lives in Potosí. But there was a miscommunication about when we would arrive, and it didn’t work out.
After spending nearly an hour trying to reach him, we bit the bullet and purchased two rooms at the somewhat pricey Hotel Nobleza after the people at the front desk had helped Yoli try to connect with her cousin. The hotel was well-maintained with a nice lobby and hallways. The rooms were clean, and featured a shower with the hottest water I have ever experienced in Bolivia. The mattresses were old and misshapen and the rooms were not heated, but we were still able to get a good night’s sleep after a late-night mixup following an exhausting and eye-opening three-day adventure.