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Published: April 1st 2013
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This is a reproduction of a blog entry I deleted by mistake.
The next morning we were picked up from the hostels for our pre arranged tour. The vehicle was a Toyota Luxus 4x4. After doing a rond of Uyuni we headed of to the cemetery of trains. This appears to be one of the standard destinations of the tour. There were a lot of train engines, most of them corroding away, not surprising that slat flats were not far away. If you are interested in trains it will be an interesting place to visit but for me it was an indication of the state of railways in Bolivia. As in most of South and Central America the age of trains seems to have passed. Most routes have been taken over by buses or more recently by aeroplanes. There is a still a train line running through here starting from Tarija, Villazone going up to Oruro but not quite reaching La Paz.
From here we drove to the Salar de Uyuni. The nature has created this vast area of salt deposits. I am guessing when I say that this was formed when the Andes were created by the Pacific
plate moving under the South American Plate the elevated sea drying up and with the dry weather conditions causing it to dry up creating a "sea of salt". On entering the Salar we drove for about 2 miles before we came to the "Salt Hotel" a shack of a hotel. We drove up another 2 km so that one of my co tourist could pick some "pure" salt.
The size of the Salar is so huge that one can not see the other side of it. As theer are no features in it one also do get any perception of distance. One of the favourite photographs here are an attempt to show this. We were also supposed to go to the islad of the fishes but most of that area were flooded and the driver did not want to risk going there as he could get stuck in the floods. In many areas of the Salar there is an underground water (or a lake) so, you never know when you are unlucky.
The trips to Salar are tightly controlled by the Police and there were some delays going in and coming out owing to this. By 1700 hrs
most trips ewre back and I had my bus to La Paz at 2030 hrs. Laticia was going to Potosi so we had to say good by.
The bus from Uyuni to La Paz was in better condition. The roads did not have the "hair pin" bends as it was mostly on high platue at over 3000m. However the condition of the roads were still very poor. It took us nearly 5 hours to join a national highway from where the road surface was OK and could get some sleep. Till that the bus was rattling like a tin can and I could feel the bones nearly shaken out of the meat.
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