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Published: August 4th 2010
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We took an overnight bus from La Paz to Uyuni that was supposed to leave at 9pm on Friday night, but didn´t leave until 10:30pm due to mechanical issues. It was so late that they served us our boxed dinner in the bus terminal! When we got on the bus--it was definitely NOT what we paid for, but we discovered that we would have to switch buses 3 hours later in Oruro to a nicer bus so we dealt with it. However, when we arrive in Oruro at 3am, the new bus wasn´t there (of course) so we ended up waiting another hour for the new bus to come. Grrr. Our supposed 8 hour ride turned into 13 hours with all the mishaps, but we luckily made it to Uyuni in time to book a one day trip to the Salt Flats for Saturday.
We first visited el Cementerio del Tren to climb all over the rusty and dilapidated train engines left behind from the 1960s when the railway stopped functioning. I felt like we were in the Wild West with desert in all directions and scraps of metal nipping at your every step. Very cool though.
Then we
loaded back into our jeep to pass through the salt museum at the market and finally get to the Salar. Snow. It looked just like an endless plain of snow, and even crunched a little bit under our feet like snow would. But it was salt--ridiculous amounts of salt. There were mounds of salt EVERYWHERE into the horizon...mind boggling...We continued on driving/swerving over the salt (considering there was no actual road) for another 50 minutes to get to Fish/Cactus Island to have lunch and explore.
The Island was incredible with cactii the size of trees. We ate lunch on a salt table, explored the island, and played around on the salt. It almost looked like a frozen over lake with a layer of snow on top...so cool. Definitely a must see.
By this point in was about 4pm and the wind was getting to us so we made our way back to Uyuni. On the way we stopped at one of the salt hotels to check out everything that was made of salt inside. Cool-looking, but definitely not very welcoming, especially since no one was inside (apparently for a holiday, but I think because it was so freakin´cold!)
When we got back to Uyuni, we bought our bus ticket to cross the boarder into Argentina and went get our packs in order to change before our bus left. At this point we had been going for about 3 days without a shower so Sim bought some baby wipes because there was no way we were going to take a cold shower when it was freezing outside. nooo way.
We both layered up in preparation for the cold bus ride to come, but this was not enough. Not only was the bus cold in itself, but the windows wouldn´t stay closed! AND no blankets were provided. I can´t even explain the misery. Bumpy road, no escape from the subzero C cold, and pure exhaustion from lack of sleep from the night before, on top of the bus breaking down in Tupiza. This last mishap was a blessing in disguise because the new bus had functioning windows and more people on the bus so it was at least bearably warmer.
Needless to say, we are extremely happy to be in Argentina with civilized buses and warm showers. Glorious!
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