And the wedding day itself, was…perfect. It really, really was. The sun was shining. Ash and Dom couldn’t have been happier. Their friends and family couldn’t have been more excited and thrilled for them. Zack Delaune, my incredible second shooter for the day, and I were talking about it and we decided it was just one of those rare weddings where everything just clicks and magic happens.

I felt such joy being a part of it and looking back at the pictures is making me want to relive the whole day!

Point being, we were reaching civilization. After two full days of driving through nothingness in the middle of nothing, we started seeing signs of other human life. And picking them up on the side of the road. I took this shot of the guy riding in front of us, but we also had a hanger on riding up top with our backpacks. I was appalled! Once Johnny told us there was somebody up there I wanted to stop so we could squish together and this poor guy could actually sit inside our jeep. It was SO COLD.

The area of Bolivia we were in here has a lot of mining activity so some little towns have sprung up where the workers make their lives. This particular place is called Culpina K.

I was excited because I thought sleeping in a real town meant that we’d be warmer and maybe have better bathrooms. Not the case. The bathrooms were outside and the rooms were still freezing. To our hosts credit, they did light a fire for us in the living room and supplied us with wine so we could get drunk and forget about the cold. 

The funniest thing though, was that when they lit us the fire, one of the little old ladies, who spoke some mix of Spanish with a dialect, maybe Quechua, started leaving us with strict instructions. First she told us to be careful not to burn the backs of our chairs. Then. THEN. She pointed at the one all wood chair in the room and shook her finger at me and said we had to make sure not to use that one for kindling. She was being serious! And if she warned us about it, that’s because it’s happened before! Too funny.

When we arrived I went walking around a little bit to take some pictures. I was dying to get some cool shots of Bolivian women in their typical dress.

Unluckily for me, our Chilean guide hadn’t been kidding when he told us that Bolivians are shy. The women basically ran away from me as soon as they saw my camera. 

But I still enjoyed taking pictures of the decorations on the houses and stores. Everywhere in Bolivia looked like some kind of gaudy Christmas to me!

Please tell me – would the tinsel on this Dental Clinic convince you to get your teeth cleaned here?

This was the one woman who let me take a picture of her, but only after we talked and I asked her why everybody kept saying no. She said that personally it was because she doesn’t look good in photos. I promised her we would delete the photo if she didn’t like it.

But she looks adorable, so she did not make me delete I wish I could remember her name! Too bad she wasn’t wearing a typical outfit though. Oh well, I guess I will just have to come back to Bolivia one of these days…

All the little towns had soccer “fields.” This one appeared to be relatively rock-free. Good for the people of Culpina-K. Though I do not understand how they can even do things like dishes and make the bed without getting dizzy, not to mention run and play actual sports in the altitude.

Though, the altitude here was only 3700 meters. Previously we had been all the way up to 4300 meters at one of the lakes we visited.

How beautiful does this church look in the first morning light? Oh yeah, this is no longer Culpina-K but some random mining town we stopped in on our way to the Salar de Uyuni.

So there you can see a little Bolivian lady off in the distance in her skirt and hat. That’s the best I have, I’m sorry.

On the way back to San Pedro de Atacama, our guide actually stopped at a market right next to this church so he could stock up with bootleg crappy CD’s for us to listen to for the next 6 hours in the car with him — woohoo!

More in this series:

A Trip Across the Bolivian Altiplano

Tierra Atacama

Dancing in the Streets (???) of Bolivia

Crossing the Border From Chile to Bolivia

El Altiplano de Bolivia | Day 1

El Altiplano de Bolivia | Day 2

Every morning Johnny climbed to the roof and loaded our backpacks up there with the help of some very large Germans in our group. We only brought our little day bags and our snacks in the car.

The funny thing is that when we went to book this trip, the lady who we talked to was SO insistent that we bring “lots of snacks or you’re going to be SO hungry.” She repeated it so many times that she completely had us convinced we were going to die of starvation over the four day ride.

I brought a ton of stuff and all I ended up eating were some cookies! I think she must go crazy warning tourists, especially fat American tourists, because one of the tripadvisor reviews said that they were hungry the entire time.

Anyways, one of the days, we drove past a small rock formation. Someone in our jeep asked if we could stop to take pictures. Johnny looked at us like we were crazy, but acquiesced.

Then we got to this weird field of volcanic rocks and we understood why he had been like, “REALLY? You want a picture of this tiny little solitary rock when we have all this coming up.” But to our credit, we didn’t know we had all this coming up.

Every day we spent a lot of time walking around and exploring, but we did it all at a snail’s pace because of the altitude. It was hard! 

I believe these photos are of a place called Lago Hediondo.

That translates into “Stinky Lake” in English. All the different lakes we stopped at had different mineral properties that gave them different colored waters, or in this case, made them stinky. Lago Hediondo supposedly has a lot of sulfur, but it didn’t smell too bad on the day we went there.

We were all relieved that we had better weather on our second day. It wasn’t nearly as windy.

The first day we’d had to cancel one of our stops and go to the refugio early because the wind was blowing so hard Johnny was afraid it was going to crack our windshield. He said it happens. Since I was the one sitting in the front seat, I was kind of worried for my pretty little face

More in this series:

A Trip Across the Bolivian Altiplano

Tierra Atacama

Dancing in the Streets (???) of Bolivia

Crossing the Border From Chile to Bolivia

El Altiplano de Bolivia | Day 1

Now back to the topic at hand.

I had some things weighing on my mind before I left Chile and by the time this trip to Bolivia rolled around, I was so ready to get out of dodge.

The temps were chilling but the angry storm clouds kind of went with my mood so I didn’t mind.

Our guide, Johnny, kept typical Bolivian music playing in the car the whole time on the first day. We’d later switch over to Rihanna and have a dance party in the middle of the Altiplano. If you haven’t watched that video yet, do yourself a favor and go have a laugh

The music relaxed me and the scenery helped soothe my soul.

I am completely drawing a blank on what those little guys above are called, but aren’t they adorable?

This “tour” was basically one really long road trip. We’d drive a few hours and then stop at somewhere marvelous to take pictures and check out the scenery. Most of the time it was too cold to get out for longer than a half an hour. This beautiful red lake (Laguna Colorada I believe) was one of my favorite stops.

We were all freezing, but happy to be there.

Most of the altiplano that we had been driving over, while stunning, was very uninhabited so it was refreshing to see some signs of life in the form of flamingos!

The sun finally peaked out for a little bit and all of us tourists enjoyed harassing photographing the flamingos.

I really think Laguna Colorada is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been in all my travels. The textures and colors were just mind boggling. Sadly, travel photography is not one of my specialities, but I did what I could.

And did I mention there were llamas everywhere? We were all confused as to why they had colorful bows in their hair. Our uneducated guess was that they must have been tagged or something so the owners could keep track of them. Though that didn’t make much sense either because where would the owners live in the altiplano, its not like there were any towns around!

So I asked all-knowing Johnny. He said that the locals “decorate” the llamas for certain festivals and holidays throughout the year. That’s a way better answer than tagging them.

After about a half an hour the storm clouds came back out and the wind started biting again. We all scurried back up to the jeeps, but I’m not going to lie, the altitude was killer! Just walking slowly up that hill I don’t think I’ve ever been so out of breath in my life!

I wasn’t alone though. Everybody trudged along slowly to make it to the top.

We were traveling in 3 separate jeeps, with 6 tourists in each, plus 1 guide. Aun asi, the whole trip had a very solitary feel to it. I spent a long time in the front seat looking out the window and thinking, thinking, thinking.

Finally we arrived at our “refugio.” If you could hear how loud the wind was howling you’d realize that this structure was woefully inadequate for the elements. Sure, it looks cozy enough. But our group got the room with the windows and it felt like the cold air just passed right through them!

I spent the night burrowed in a sleeping bag under the thick wool blankets on the bed of the refugio. When they woke us up for breakfast at 5am, I did NOT want to get out bed. The whole trip was early to bed, early to rise, in part because electricity got turned off at 8pm I think it was.

While I shivered myself to sleep I couldn’t help but wonder how it was possible that just the day before I’d been staying in luxury (and warmth!) at the Tierra Atacama Hotel!

Not quite the same…

But off we went at that ungodly hour.

I’m not a morning person at all, but more flamingos made it worth it. We stopped at this lake to eat lunch sitting at a lovely rock tabletop.

After lunch, some people laid in the sun and some of us wandered around a little bit more. I loved these rocks that someone laid out. To be happy. That’s what we all want.

More in this series:

A Trip Across the Bolivian Altiplano

Tierra Atacama

Dancing in the Streets (???) of Bolivia

Crossing the Border From Chile to Bolivia