Salar De Uyuni

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After a long overnight bus ride to Uyuni I got on a three day tour with five other people in a jeep around the Salar De Uyuni (salt flats) and the Reserva Eduardo Avaroa. This is an area of spectacular and sometimes bizarre scenery that sometimes makes you feel as if you are on another planet. The salt flats are the largest in the world and cover an area of 9000 square kilometres. There was once a lake here that dried out leaving an amazing completely flat white landscape of salt. In the Salar and the nearby national reserve we stopped of at lots of different places, including a 'train cemetery' where old rusting steam trains lie on the tracks of a disused railway, a salt processing plant, salt hotels made out of raw blocks of salt cut from the Salar, Isla De Pescado which is an 'island' covered in giant cacti in the middle of a 'sea' of salt, Bolivia's only active volcano, strange rock formations caused by gradual erosion in the harsh environment, several lakes including Laguna Colorada which has a weird red colouration due to pigments from the algae that live in it, a volcanic geyser and bubbling streaming pools of water, foxes, llamas and flamingoes!

There seemed to be something new and interesting to see every few miles and it was well worth the long journey to get there and the cold cold weather. This place was definitely another highlight of my trip!

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