Advertisement
During the Uyuni salt flats tour I saw some of the most incredible landscapes of my life. For anyone travelling through Bolivia it is a must.
I took a week or so off uni to go do some travelling here with Ariel, who had came over for 10 days from Buenos Aires. We took an old rickity night but from La Paz to Uyuni, arriving at about 7am. We hadn't bothered to book a tour in advance because we'd heard that it really isn't necessary as there are tours leaving every day. We soon found a place that seemed alright, paying 600 bolivianos for a 3 day tour which is about 60 british pounds. All the tours are about this price. It's possible to get the tours for 450 but generally the drivers don't get payed well and the food isn't as good. The 600 bolivianos we payed covers pretty much everything including the 2 nights accommodation and food. All the tours are done in 4x4s with 6 people plus the driver. For our tour we were grouped together with 2 Argentinian guys and 2 American girls. It was a good group, everyone was pretty easy going and we got
along well which was lucky. Our driver was called Raúl and was also the chef for the 3 days. Every jeep and tour company follows the same route which we didn't really like the idea of. However, when on the tour I really don't think it matters because there aren't that many jeeps following the circuit anyway.
We set off at around 10.30am from Uyuni with all the backpacks and food for the journey tied to the roof rack. First, we visited the old train cemetary where of course everyone on the circuit climbed all over the trains to take amusing pictures. Next we went to visit a place where they transform the salt into edible salt ready to import and sell. The most spectacular part of the tour took place on the first day, when we visited the salt flat itself.
The Uyuni salt flat is the largest in the world at 12,000 square kilometres. I've never seen anything like it in my life. It is such a beautiful place with nothing but pure white salt stretching as far as the eye can see. There are mountains far off on the horizon and the sky is clear
blue. I had to keep reminding myself that the ground was made of salt and not snow. Raúl stopped the jeep in the middle of nowhere for about half an hour so that we could all take pictures, then we drove to a restaurant, made of salt, in the middle of the salt flat to have lunch. Raúl cooked all the meals wherever we went. The food was pretty good, very healthy and a lot of rice and chicken. After lunch we had about 2 hours of driving across the salt flat, listening to cumbia all the way of course, until we reached Fish Island. Fish Island is an area of land in the middle of the salt falt covered in cacti. We stayed for about an hour and did the walking circuit around the 'island', which has incredible views. It's a very surreal place with all the cacti and the backdrop of pure white salt. After that we drove for another few hours to a tiny village in the middle of nowhere to spend the night. You would think that the tour agencies would have accommodation booked, but no. Raúl had to drive to a few places asking if
there was any room for us before we found anywhere. There were a group of Israeli guys also staying in the same place as us, booked with the same tour agency. That night the 2 american girls got out 2 bottles of vodka that they had been saving and the night ended with everybody dancing around to Bob Marley.
The next morning we left about 8am. We spent the day driving from lake to lake across the region. We were no longer in the salt flat, which was a shame, but the scenery was still breathtaking. The lakes we visited were all different colours due to different minerals in the earth, and some of the lakes had flamingoes too. Most of the landscape was desert-like and we saw many strange rock formations caused by weather erosion over the years, plus we stopped by a smoking volcano just 20 km from the Chilean border. We ended the day at Lago Colorado (red lake) which is in a national park. The lake is at quite a high altitude of 4200m so it was bitterly cold at night, plus very windy. All of the accommodation at Lago Colorado is very basic with
no showers. In the evening we all had one of Raúls hearty meals then went to bed early because the next day we were due to get up at 4am.
We had to get up so early because the last day of the tour involves driving the entire distance back to Uyuni. However we did visit places along the way. Just as it was starting to get light we arrived at some geysers. I think the time we arrived was quite lucky because the sight of hot steam rising from the ground with the colours of dawn breaking in the background was beautiful. At about 7am we made to the site of some thermal springs. It was pretty damn nice having a soak with mountains all around you, plus the fact that none of us were able to shower the day before. We had breakfast by the thermal springs then set off for the long journey back to Uyuni. We saw many herds of llama and vicuña and also passed through the Dali desert, so called because the painter Dali was inspired by the landscape when visiting Bolivia and used it in many of his paintings. On the drive
back home we did have a bit of car trouble which was worrying for a while. There was something wrong with the reserve petrol tank and we had to pull over in the middle of nowhere to wait for someone to come by. After a while another 4x4 from the same tour company came by. Raúl with the help of the other driver fixed the problem and we were soon on our way again. It would have been amazing to go back via the salt flat on the way back to Uyuni to see it one more time but you can't have everything in life. I had a wonderful time with Ariel on a truly once in a lifetime trip.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.064s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0387s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb