We, Stian Mjølhus and Louise-Marie Holst, bought a 3 days tour package to Salar de Uyuni at the travel agency Adolfo Andino in La Paz. It was bought the 11.02.2009. We payed in total 180$ for two persons.
We were promised: an english speaking guide, all costs included except from water, maximum 4 tourists in the car.
Unfortunately it was very different. We arrived in Uyuni the 12.02.2009, the same morning the tour started. Sandra Travels were in charge of us from now on, a partner of Adolfo Andino.
We were 7 tourists in the car, instead of the promised 4. The car was a Toyota Landcruiser with platenumbers 501HNF.
We had to pay ourselves for the national park entrance fee, 15Bolivianos and 35 Bolivianos each.
The ”guide” Reynaldo could not speak english. He did not provide any information of the tourists attractions, no departure times or other imortant information were given. Reynaldo was very unpleasant, during the three days he did not even say Hello once.
The third day, we were supposed to be ready at 4.00 in the morning, if not, the guide said he would leave without us. At 4.30 the guide was nowhere to be seen. We took the initiative to look for the guide. He was found sleeping, clearly intoxicated by alcohol. We finally left at 5.00. No apologises were made from Reynaldo. During this 1,5 hour drive to the geysirs, Reynaldo fell asleep several times while driving. Two times he drove off the road, because of this. All the seven passengers were terrified and asked him repetedly to be more careful and drive slower. Reynaldo ignored our requests and continued driving too fast and unappropriatly. A passenger Andrea Olivieri, tolded him very severely to stop this nonsense. Reynaldo’s ”answered” by driving exageretly slow, as to mock us.
During the drive to Aguas Thermales, Reynaldo fell asleep while driving several times, and we had to wake him up by shaking him. We were scared that we would end up in an accident. At Aguas Thermales we were given 5 minutes to explore instead of the earlier promised 20 minutes. This unabled us from bathing as we had hoped for. The breakfast was given at the back of the truck instead of inside the warm cabin, were all the other groups were. As we knew this was included, we marched in the cabin to eat there. Reynaldo then paid the fee for us to be there. We believe that Reynaldo, would have taken this money for himself if not.
After breakfast all the passengers were ready in the car. As the guide was missing again, two of the boys in the group went to look after the guide. The guide was found drinking a can of beer. This led to a heated argument, because it infuriated us that Reynaldo was drinking alcohol while being our driver. This was unacceptable. It ended with Reynaldo being slapped by one of the passengers in the heat of the moment. Then, Reynaldo, through all our luggage off the car, and wanted to drive off by himself. Fortunately for us, we had confiscated the car keyunabeling him to do so. After yet another argument, we were all back in the car with Reynaldo, ready to drive to Laguna Verde and the Chilean boarder, as no other solution was possible.
At the border, 4 of the passengers left to Chile, while three including Louise and Stian were supposed to head back to Uyuni. As we did not feel safe driving with Reynaldo, we arranged to drive with another car from another tour operator. Reynaldo agreed. We did so for 10 minutes, and then this new driver changed his mind and left us at the National Park office. We were stuck here for three hours without any cars being able to give us a ride back to Uyuni.
Around midday, Reynaldo drove pass the national park office. He had been sleeping at the border. We stopped him and forced him to drive us back to Uyuni, as he was our one and only possibility to get back to Uyuni that day.
During the two first hours of the drive back, Reynaldo repetedly fell asleep behind the wheel. We felt we had to stand guard, to wake him up to avoid a terrible accident. After lunch, Reynaldo agreed with us, that Stian Mjølhus would drive parts of the way home, as we did not feel safe with Reynaldo driving. Reynaldo would drive the first two hours after lunch, then Stian would take over.
After only 30 minutes, Reynaldo started falling asleep again behind the wheel. We decided that he should rest while Stian drove. Stian drove for one hour, Reynaldo slept heavily (this is when we took the opportunity to film him). After ine hour, Reynaldo insisted that he would drive again, he was angry at us because he noticed we had filmed him. Reynaldo fell asleep again while driving. Stian took over the driving once again. In total Stian drove for 2,5 hours.
On the road, we picked up a hitch hiker, which also is not in the contract.
During the drive, Reynaldo told us that he was only 21 years old, making him an illegal driver in the national park. The reason is that you need a class C drivers license because of the difficult roads, and to be able to get this type of driverslicense one have to be 27 years of age by Bolivian Law.
Finally in Uyuni, we took up the case with Sandra Travels and Sandra herself. Her solution was a compensation in the form of one pizza for us or 10$ each, against that we would sign a form of silence towards the police. We found this very unproffesional and left.
We went straight to the police in Uyuni to report the incident. Senior Juan Cruz was the officer in charge. We arranged with the police a meeting with Sandra Travels the following morning. The next morning, Reynaldo was arrested by the police for drunk driving. We did not come to an agreement with Sandra Travels for a compensation. We deciced, with the recommendation of the Uyuni police, that it as for the best to report the case in LaPaz with Direction de turismo and Policia Turistica.
Back in La Paz, we talked to Adolfo Andino and told them what happened. They apologized for the incident, but were unwilling to refund our expenses. We told them we would go to the police and they said they did not care.
We strongly feel that this agency is a danger to tourism. Thay did not take any responsibility for what happened. They even told us that Reynaldo had a drinking problem and that this had happened before. Further more they told us that they had bribed customers so that they would not tell the police.
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