Lauren: Beth and I walked to the Pamela Tours office at 8am to begin our 3-day tour of Southern Bolivia. We met our other traveling companions, Katia from Spain (currently living in Ireland) and Brendan from Ireland who we had previously run into on our Valley of the Moon and Valley of Death tour, and our infamous torture-fest geyser tour. We met Marcus, from Germany, for the first time and the 5 of us all piled into the van bound for the Chilean border.

Once there, there were two large tour buses in front of us waiting to get their exit stamps. Our guide went to check things out and came back to inform us that the border patrol exit official was still asleep and we’d have to wait for him to arrive. We chatted in the car for over an hour while cars and tour groups piled up behind us. Finally, the immigration official arrived (Beth: He was pretty obviously hung over), we got our stamps, and took off to the Bolivian border control, an hour away and several thousand feet higher.

As we climbed the mountain on a straight road at a medium grade incline, we watched behind us as Chile became smaller and smaller. Beth and I noticed that we were getting short of breath, even though we were just sitting. We arrived at the Bolivian border, where we met Matias, our Bolivian tour-guide who would take us the rest of the way. We ate the breakfast he prepared for us, and drank coca tea to combat the altitude.

The border control was a dinky little building in the middle of nowhere. We learned that Chile owned all the land we had just crossed between the two border controls, but that Chileans didn’t want to set up camp at 12,000 feet. I didn’t blame them. Over the course of the day, we would be climbing to 16,000 feet, and then going back down to “only” 14,000 feet where we would spend the night gasping for air (and freezing our tails off).

After breakfast, we went to buy our entrance passes for the lake district. We were told there was a bathroom, but got there and were told that we had to pay the equivalent of 50 cents to use it. We didn’t have any change, and stubbornly set off to use the great outdoors. We found an outdoor, hole-in-the-ground “toilet” blocked from view by a low stone wall, and decided that would do. This would be the first of many interesting bathroom options along the way, though this one had the best view. (Beth: Lauren wrote this because she took a picture of me using the toilet with a great landscape, but I’ve forbidden her to put the photo online. Yes, I’m a party pooper, but I deserve at least some dignity…)

We then headed out for the first of three lakes - White Lake. Minerals made the lake appear to be a bright white color, and because it was the beginning of winter, a top layer of ice finished off the job. We all walked along the shore, taking pictures and testing the strength of the thin layer of ice.

Beth: Next came the Green Lake, a lake tinted a bright green also due to particular minerals that filled the water. Around the lake was yet another moon-like landscape files with rocks. While we weren’t close to the salt flats yet, salt was everywhere, and it rimmed the edge of the green lake.

We then drove off into the desert, where there was nothing — no roads, signs, or buildings — except for mountains in the distance and sand for miles. The only sign of civilization was dozens of tracks from 4×4 vehicles. Disconcertingly, they didn’t all head in the same direction, and Matias seemed to be choosing tracks to follow at random.

Finally we arrived at the Salvidor Dali desert, which looked like it came straight out of one of his paintings. The land was totally flat with smooth mountains, completely void of vegetation, jutting up in the distance. There were also these weird Dali-esque stones that seemed to have come out of no where. Off in the distance was a mountain called Sol de Manana, or morning sun, because its bright orange, red and white coloring made it look like a sunrise.

Next, we came to another thermal pool, for which we had been advised to bring our swimsuits. Although the air was a lot warmer than the last thermal pool we went to (it was probably above freezing here), Lauren and I weren’t interested. There were a bunch of people swimming in this one, though, but the bathroom for changing was several dozen feet away. As the people got out to get into their close, they started cursing as they ran for the bathroom, visibly covered in goosebumps.

Instead, Lauren and I decided to walk around the area by ourselves, exploring the rivers and vegetation surrounding yet another lake. There were yellow plants covering the landscape that our last guide had called a “blond devil” plant , which I think was a joke we didn’t quite get.

Next was a huge lava field, similar to the geyser field we had visited the day before. The field was filled with large craters, which were filled with bubbling grey magma. It was clear that one missed step could be fatal.

Some of the craters were more than a dozen feet deep — others had the magma bubbling right on top. One crater had lava and bubbles shooting up to five feet in the air while another one hissed so loudly, it hurt ones ears to stand to close.

There were no bars or fences to prevent people from wandering around, so Lauren went exploring. I used the opportunity of the thick smoke to use the great-outdoor-toilet again, since I’d been drinking a lot of water because we were at such a high altitude. I didn’t have a rock to hide behind but as long as the wind didn’t change direction, no one more than 3 feet away from me would be able to see anything.

There were no bars or fences to prevent people from wandering around, so Lauren went exploring. I used the opportunity of the thick smoke to use the great-outdoor-toilet again, since I’d been drinking a lot of water because we were at such a high altitude. I didn’t have a rock to hide behind but as long as the wind didn’t change direction, no one more than 3 feet away from me would be able to see anything.

Lauren: We finally made it to the third and final lake, the Red Lake, or Colorado Lake. This, too, was oddly tinted the color of its name, but this time it was due to organisms that flooded the water. Our approach to the lake was pretty stunning, descending onto it after cresting the top of a mountain.

We arrived around 3 and set up camp for the night. Back at the tour office, we were told that our first night’s accommodation would be “muy basico”, or very basic. Though there was a definite charm to the place - traditionally dressed women bustling about alternately feeding sheep and chickens and serving tea, llamas feeding on the grass outside, and dorm-style rooms with mattresses set up on concrete blocks - it was certainly muy basico.

We all dropped off our bags (in typical overly cautious style, the two of us pad-locked our 6-bed room and gave all our travel companions a key) and then set off for a walk to the lake to see the famed flamingos.

The short jaunt turned out to be a real hike for 14,000 feet. We walked across a large field filled with the “blond devil” plants and volcanic rocks, crossing rivers, stepping around huge mounds of llama do-do (it’s odd, but they seem to all go in the same place), and stopping every once in a while to drink water and suck in that precious oxygen.

We made it across the field and then slowly climbed up a hill that afforded us a great view of the lake. Below, we could see several types of birds with their beaks in the water, presumably slurping up all those delicious red organisms. We went down to get a better view hoping to see the flamingos, but all the pink flamingos were far out in the distance in the middle of the lake. Instead, we stood at the water’s edge and watched some other type of white and grey flamingo-esque birds prance around with their twig legs with their beaks in the water.

We saw that the sun was about to go down, so we took off for the hotel. We were already freezing, and were terrified about the impending temperature dip after sundown. We moved slowly, and made it back to the hotel where Beth promptly jumped into bed and threw the covers over herself.

I went in to the main eating area and found the rest of our crew shivering under sleeping bags and blankets and getting ready for tea time. I went and got Beth, telling her that hot tea was to be served.

We all drank Coca Tea, ate cookies, and swapped stories about our respective countries. After the warmth of the tea had worn off, I went to go grab a sleeping bag for Beth and me. I wandered out the door and found myself not more than two feet away from a tiny, baby llama - so young that it just had little bits of hair and fur sticking off of its body. Unfortunately, he ran away before I could get a picture of him.

Not long after tea time, we were served dinner - a really good vegetable soup and some spaghetti with home-made tomato sauce. After dinner, we decided to play a game to keep our minds off the cold and entertain ourselves before a reasonable bed time (that would be 9pm, since that’s when the generator and lights went off). I remembered the rules of “Asshole”, which I taught everyone, slowly, and with a few rules remembered in the middle of a game or two (sorry, Marcus!).

After a few hours of cards, we all went to bed. Beth and I didn’t take off many layers, and even added our sleeping bags below the several heavy blankets the hotel provided. Brendan went and took some more blankets from another room for the others, and everyone huddled under their layers. By the time we were all settled in, we could barely move from all the weight. The conundrum then became, “do I put my head under the blankets where there isn’t enough oxygen, or do I breath in the freezing cold air and freeze my nose off outside the blankets…”