Uyuni rocks!

After spending previous night in a bus I slept very well today. Our group got 2-bed rooms, but those coming after us got bigger. Great, we still need our new friends to help us with Spanish and they would not applaud to my snoring whole night. Zuzka somehow got used to it, but it took her a lot of time.

I slept well enough to sleep over sunrise, but it was more cloudy than yesterday evening, so I think it was not very nice. Instead of sunrise I spent some time to take photos of passing llamas. I liked most the baby llama on the left. It was still quite dark, so most photos are blurred. But I will certainly have more opportunities later.

Valle de las Rocas

We packed our backpacks after breakfast, helped the driver to put all supplies on the roof and we could continue with our trip. He told us the first stop will be at condor-like rock. Piedra de Condor or something like that. We headed to west to those nice mountains we have seen yesterday.

After some time we arrived to valley bordered with orange rocks. They were weathered to complicated shapes, but we did not stop. That's the biggest problem with a shared trip. You cannot stop any time you would like to make a photo.

We nearly reached the end when we finally stopped. The driver pointed back to the right and we spotted it. A rock in shape of wings. We got 10 minutes. That's the 2nd problem with shared trips. No stop is long enough. It would be enough, if we wanted to look only at that rock, but I wanted to take photos of other rocks too!

A truck passed shortly before taking this photo.

Surrounding mountains

Wonderful mountains were everywhere around us. The first one is volcano Ollagüe at Chilean border. Steam raised from fumarole near the top making it even more attractive.

Cerro de Siete Colores

Short stop in the middle of nowhere just to take pictures of distant colourful mountain. Previous stops at lagoons (see the next page) made out expectations high.

Interesting thing about whole this place is there are not fixed roads. You can drive anywhere in general direction of your destination. We were always crossing tracks going to the right or to the left, they together looked like ski tracks on hill after only a couple of skiers went down in the morning. Only the colour was not white.

Viscachillas

We stopped here to have lunch. It was ideal place. Private corner for eating, rocks to explore while lunch is prepared or after (for those who eat quickly). I would say this is favourite place for all drivers, because many stopped here.

The place is named after animal named viscacha - rabbit like rodents. We have not seen any around, but they should be. Instead we had a mouse trying to join our lunch. Women were screaming and I was making blurry photos (of mouse, not women).

Lunch is going to start soon.

Detail of strange moss covering the rock.

Little visitor to our lunch break.

Zuzka having fun.
    

Other group having fun.

Arbol de Piedra

After fantastic lunch at Viscachillas we stopped at place we really hoped we are going to visit. We have seen it at Uyuni poster, but we were not sure it is in our agenda. Nobody told us.

But it was and I think this place is a must for every tour going around, because the beautiful Arbol de Piedra is there. There are other rock formations around, but after short exploration (we had again only 10 minutes) they did not seem very attractive. On the other hand Arbol de Piedra does not look attractive from sides too.

Arbol de Piedra from side.

Arbol de Piedra from other side. This one is slightly nicer than other one.

Our cook resting in shade.

Other rock formations at the place.