Salar de Uyuni - salt, flamingos and dust

By the time we left La Paz, our motley crew had grown to inlude Alyssa and Rosanne (Americans who had each just finished two years of volunteering in Ecuador with the Peace Corps) and Jason, a fellow Canadian from Prince Edward Island. We took a short 3-hour (anything less than 12 hours seems short to us now) bus ride and then a 7-hour train journey to Uyuni in the south west corner of Bolivia. The train ride was beautiful, as we passed by Lago Uru Uru and Lago Poopo (no, I didn´t make these names up), we saw flocks of flamingos and a brilliant orange sunset.

The next morning, the six of us loaded our gear into a Toyota Landcruiser, and were joined by Claudio our driver/mechanic/cook, and James the tour assistant to start our 3-day tour of the Salar de Uyuni. Our first stop was to the Cemeterio de Trenes, where dozens of old train engines and cars sit abandoned in the desert, having fallen into disuse after the mining boom passed in the 19th century, and as Bolivia´s road system developed. Soon we were driving on the actual Salar de Uyuni, the world´s largest salt flat, with close to 12,000 square kms of salt. It was an incredible experience, nothing but blinding white salt and brilliant blue sky as far as the eye could see. Up until about 900 years ago, the whole area was an inland sea, which left approximately 10 billion tonnes of salt when it dried up. We stopped at a small salt production house, where we saw the process of how blocks of salt are harvested, crushed, dried, and bagged for use as table salt in Bolivia. For only 8 Bolivianos ($1 USD) you can buy 32kgs of salt.

After some time taking photos of ourselves posing as optical illusions (created due to the extreme brightness of the salt and sky, forcing a small apeture setting on our cameras), we continued on to Isla Pescada, a large cactus covered island which at one time had been a coral reef in the middle of the sea. Our first night was spent at the Salt Hotel, which has salt blocks for walls, the foundation of the beds, and the floors. Luckily the bathrooms were not made of salt!

The second day of the tour was long, bumpy, and dusty, but Claudio did an amazing job navigating the Landcruiser through the Desierto de Siloli, past volcanos, and to Lagunas Cañapa, Hedionda and Colorada where we were able to take photos of huge flocks of flamingos. We spent the second night at Laguna Colorado, which has a reddish-pink color due to the algae in it. We had been expecting a very cold night (at 4300m in very basic accommodation), but the wine we drank kept us toasty warm.

Our third day started at 4:00 am, heading off to see geysers while the sun rose, and then to hot springs, the beautiful Laguna Verde (Green Lake) and the Valle de Salvador Dali, which had surreal mountains and rock formations. We said good-bye to Alyssa, Rosanne and Jason at the Chilean border, and Lizan, Edwin and I continued on the long journey back to Uyuni. The whole tour was lots of fun, although three days of 4 x 4íng through salt, desert and mountains left us dusty, smelly, and happy to have a shower!

Location: Samaipata, Bolivia