Left out

A blue gate is almost as great as a blue door. After finishing a magnificent four wheel drive tour of Bolivia, we were left in the small town of Uyuni. As either the start or end point for any four wheel drive tour, the place is filled with tourists, but in the part of town we pulled up in, there was not a soul on the street. Except for this shaggy guy, who was obviously desperate to escape the deserted streets and get into where all the people were. At least he had some shade to wait in.

Lovely Llamas

I love this photo. This was towards the end of the Bolivian outback adventure, in the wide open plains between the salt flats and the town of Uyuni. This baby llama had wandered a little way away from its mother, but as our car got closer the mother came running. You can see above that her head has turned, just moments before she came to protect her baby.

I love the sky, I love the baby's little shadow. I love this photo.

Vizcacha says...

The 4WD trip I did in Bolivia was perhaps the highlight of my time in South America. The scenery over four days changed from rolling velvety hills, to jagged mountains, to flamingo-filled lagoons, to beautiful snow-capped mountains.

It was at an altitude just past 4,690m that I saw this guy. We'd been exploring in the ruins of an old church just before the snow line started. A flurry of movement caught our eye, and I was amazed at this creation. Known as a Vizcacha, they are a rodent most closely related to the chinchilla. With a tail like a fluffy beaver's, and long whiskers, this vizcacha looked like a drawing of Confucius. And even though he looked like a wise old man, he sure could move quickly!

Flight of the Flamingo

At 4125 metres above sea level, in a place called Laguna Hedidonda in Bolivia, there are thousands upon thousands of flamingos. During mating season, this number can rise to over fifty thousand, which I imagine would look like a shocking sea of pink. I didn't see fifty thousand, but I watched in awe at the strange grace of these gangly birds; all necks and legs. The flamingos spend their days hanging out in lagoons filled with borax, that's the white stuff, which we more commonly find in cleaning products (and which I've long said coats the water pipes in Brisbane causing the water to taste funny!). We've all heard the saying "as happy as a pig in mud" (evidence of which will be presented here at a later stage), but watching these birds led me to coin the phrase "as happy as a flamingo in borax"...go on, use it in conversation today!