The Train Cemetery and the Artisan Market

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The first part of our three day tour of the Salar de Uyuni was a visit to the train cemetery just outside of Uyuni. This is where the first trains to haul loads of cargo through Bolivia have permanently come to a rest. When I was going around from tour agency to tour agency, some of them mentioned that they went to the train cemetery last. I must say that I was glad to do it at the beginning because I think that after seeing everything else that I was suppose to see on this trip, I wouldn't be very interested in this at the end of it. If this train cemetery were in Canada, there would be no way that we would be able to climb all over these train corpses, but as we are in Bolivia, we were free to do what we wanted.

About 45 minutes further outside of Uyuni, we stopped in a small village where artisans sell goods that are made from salt. Unfortunately, it is very hard to appreciate these good when you have not even seen the salt flats yet. They had candle holders, ash trays, containers, sculptures and even dice made out of salt. Around town there were mounds of salt everywhere which were extracted from the salt flats. Some was being processed for consumption and the other was being used for the handicrafts that were being produced by the people of the village. A soccer game was going on among the local people of this village which like most soccer games, was very exciting to watch.

I have decided to post these two parts of the tour separately because they are very different that the rest of the tour.

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