The crew of Curare has been landlocked recently in Bolivia so we took the opportunity to explore some of the country. The altiplano region of southern Bolivia is remarkably varied in topography. Base elevation at the central altiplano town of Uyuni is 3660 metres. This is home to the largest salt flat in Bolivia, extending 150 km along the basin between the western and eastern cordillera mountain ranges. Volcanoes fringe the salt flats, reaching heights of 6008 metres at Cerro Uturuncu, collecting snow and providing the necessary water recharge into the plains where evaporation results in the precipitation of salt minerals.
A huge variety of animals and plants survive in this harsh environment. During recent trips into the rugged mountains surrounding the relatively lower plains we were fortunate to witness some of these creatures in their natural environment. Among those we saw included the vitaorachi - a slightly green tinged rabbit kind of creature; vicuna - a close cousin to the 
guanaco in Argentina and somewhat similar to the alpaca and llama - only really wild; domesticated llama used for wool and food; a few foxes that ran too fast to really be identified; an extremely cool at dusk sighting of a black, ultra sleek, 
puma that hissed at the truck (no picture, you'll have to trust us); condors, flamingos, grouse like ground birds, rheas (from the ostrich family) and a number of smaller starling or cardinal style birds.
On the flora front, the vegetation is generally very sparse with clumps of grasses or shrubs spaced metres apart. One very interesting fungus style growth (Yaretta sp?) is vibrant green, 
produces a lot of pitch and hence is used as a fuel for cooking. A few small colourful campionella style mosses grow in some localities but in general the desert climate does not produce a lot of flora.
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