Potosi and the Salt Flats

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Potosi was founded in 1545 when silver ore was discovered in Cerro Rico. It was this silver that funded the Spanish empire. Due to the large amounts of silver being extracted, Potosi became one of the largest and richest cities in the Americas. Unfortunately when the silver began to dry up, the city went into decline and the citizens into poverty. Nowadays there are still many men and children working in the mines in some of the most appalling working conditions hoping they will find a little silver.

We only had a short time in Potosi so we decided not to visit the mines as we have visited other mines over the years and headed to the Casa de Moneda (the Mint). The museum is on the sight that has been the national mint since 1572. The current building, built between 1753 and 1773, covers the whole block and has walls over a meter thick. We saw artworks and other national treasures before visiting the equipment used over the years to produce coins. We started with the wooden cogs driven by mules that were used to beat the silver to the required thickness, through to the steam powered machines of the 19th century. There was also a display of the different coins over the years. The very early coins were shaped by hand and the locals used to shave off the edges so they didn't stay round for very long.

From Potosi we headed to Uyuni to book onto a tour of the Salt Flats. We were lucky that the day we wanted to start was the first day they started to run the three day tour again after an unusual amount of snow fall.

The first stop on our tour was the train graveyard just outside Uyuni. It's basically an area where old train locomotives are left to rust and tourists visit to take photos.

We had lunch in the small village of Colchani and visited a small family run table salt production operation. It was very basic and the children also helped out. After lunch we finally arrived at the Salar de Uyuni (Salt Flats of Uyuni), we had the opportunity to create some funny photos with the different perspectives.

We had the opportunity to explore the island of Inca Wasy (Fish island), which is the central point of the salt flats and is covered in cactus plants and rock formations of petrified coral. We spent our first night in the village of Agua Quisa in a Salt Hotel, everything was made out of salt even the bed.

The scenery over the next two days was much more varied than the first. We started our second day by visiting the small desert of Chiguana which is surrounded by volcanoes and continued on to several different lagoons to see flamingos and other wildlife including an Andean fox. We crossed Siloli the largest and highest desert in the world at a height of 4550m to the rock tree, a lava cooled rock formation. The last stop for the day was at the Red Lagoon.

The first stop on our last day was at a hot pool, as we only had half an hour there and it was far too cold for my liking neither Gary nor I swam. From here we headed to the top of volcano Sol de Mañana at 5,000m and into the crater to see the boiling mud pots. Our last stop before heading back to Uyuni was the Green Lagoon which has toxic copper water and is at the foot of the 6,000m volcano Licancahur.

We really enjoyed our Salt Flats tour and we definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Bolivia. The landscapes are so varied and interesting that the time in the car flys by.

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