151218: "Weve come a long way but we're not too sure where we've been."

As Howard Donald sings in that classic Take That song, Never Forget: "We've come a long way, but we're not too sure where we've been" Today we asked our hotel to book a taxi to take us to the Kari Kari lagoons - a series of lagoons and aqueducts constructed in the 16th and 17th Century to dewater the mines around Potosi. The guidebooks say that you can see birds here.

 The taxi picked us up at 10.30 and immediately headed off to the petrol station, where there was no petrol.   The dashboard of the taxi was typically garish.


We then headed towards Cerro Rico, the mountain that overlooks the city where there are many co-operative silver mines.  








Initially our young taxi driver took us to the wrong lagoon as he thought we wanted to go trout fishing. On the way we passed some llamas grazing by the road. The lagoon was called Lacka chaka and our arrival sparked some interest.



We were offered a trout by a local fisherman who looked confused when we said we were vegetarian. Joan then explained we wanted to go the Kari Kari lagoons and weren't that keen on fishing. After consulting his phone and a three year old child, we ascended into the mountains on a narrow, bumpy road that at times resembled the Yungas death road that was featured on Top Gear. 

 We did find some lagoons but they were empty. We continued higher and higher with the road getting ever more bumpy and high. After passing more empty lagoons or lagoons with puddles, our car got stuck in the sand,Kevin and I got out and pushed and we decided to head back. 












On the way down we saw a mine entrance and I took a photo of it. We were glad to get back to our hotel, safe and sound. 



Luckily Joan's camera - a present from Kevin - has both GPS and an altimetre. Using southings and westings we were able to deduce where the mine was and realised we were in the wrong valley. Having located where we were on Google Maps- the satellite images on Google showed the lagunas we visited were full of water. Not today! So Howard, we are sure where we have been, but it wasn't where we thought we were. (And by the way the altitude was 4600 metres.)

We were here....honest!

After a bit of a siesta, we caught a cab up to the Tourist Information office where they explained how we could get a minibus to Tupiza, rather than catching a slow coach.  Next we collected our washing from the laundry.  We then headed to a nearby restaurant, 4060, in reference to the altitude.  Despite ordering vegetarian, Joan got burritos with meat.  Luckily this was corrected with grace.




We hailed a cab and we're not sure the car we got in to was an official cab, but the driver and his wife kindly dropped us off near our hotel for the usual fare.  We will be careful, we promise.

Back at the hotel we unpacked our laundry to find it had been stitched together.  Weird!



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday 13th January 2026: Up to Cotopaxi

Image
A faint rainbow where a volcano should be! We're sad to leave Quito as there is so much more we could have done.  However our whistlestop tour won't let us linger for long. Today we are moving on to Cotopaxi which is one of the highest active volcanoes in the world.  We're staying in a lodge in Chasqui which is reknowned for its views of the mountain.   Chasqui isn't really a town and our hotel is 500m off the Pan-Americana, so the thought of catching a bus and then having to walk with big suitcases to the lodge did not appeal.  So we messaged the hotel and they arranged a lift for us. Cotopaxi is in an area called the Avenida de los volcanes, a name given by Alexander von Humboldt.  It runs for 200 km and has several active volcanoes en route.  Situated in Ecuadorian altiplano, Joan imagined a bare and desolate landscape, with barren snow capped volcanoes, like those in the north of Chile and Bolivia.  It was nothing like it. Our driv...
Read more

Saturday 11th and Sunday 12th January 2025 - - Whaley to Salta

Image
We dropped off Fuchsia at 4 Paws and the Meezers at Mrs Harris' on Friday.  Our friens, Anne and Nick are looking after Clementine. Having packed, we left home at noon.   The roads were icy and the fields were still covered in snow. The journey to Heathrow was uneventful, except a 30 stoppage near Luton. We are leaving our csr at the Sheraton Skyline.  Built in 1971, it was one of the first hotels to cater for mass tourism by plane. In its heart is what was called El Caribe Paiio, a whimsical fake tropical garden, replete with bamboo shack and pool.  It features in the Status Quo video for Marguerita Nights. The area was closed for cleaning, but Joan got a few snaps. We booked an Uber to Terminal 3 for £15 via a machine in the hotel lobby.   It was several hours before our hysical chevk- in opened but there were machines in the terminal where you could print off your own baggage labels. We cleared securit...
Read more

Saturday 10th January 2026: Ecuador - finally

Image
A few days ago a Facebook memory came up from January 2020.  We,d just got back from a three week holiday in St Kitts and Joan had already bought guidebooks for Ecuador, planning our Christmas 2020 adventure. Well, what a year that was, and little did we know world travel for us would be put on hold for four years. Since then, Ecuador has destabilised due to narcotic gangs and some areas are no longer safe to go to, but the lure of the smoking Andean volcanoes and the magical Galapagos Islands was still there. So, in June, we took the plunge and bought flights to Quito.  In between there have been some petrol blockades, four controversial referenda and night time curfews to muddy the waters, but our resolve was steadfast. For the record the four votes were: - to allow foreign countries (read the USA)  to have permanent military bases in Ecuador, including the Galapagos - ending state funding for political parties, which would disadvantage parties from poorer communitiess,...
Read more