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Published: December 14th 2007
After catching the train down from Oruro to Uyuni we were all set to leave for the Salt Flats and head into Chile. It would be 3 days on a jeep with 6 of us crossing the Altiplano and arriving in San Pedro De Atacama.
The first day we started at a train cemetary which was a bit of a bizzare attraction as it basically consisted of all the old rusty trains that used to e used across Bolivia - not that appealing really. After that we set off into the Salir de Uyuni (Salt Flats of Uyuni) and were immediately struck by the amazing landscape. The size of the salt flats is quite amazing - it is just a vast expanse of white nothing. Sunglasses on immediately! In parts the flats are 10m deep with salt - that is a lot of salt. They stretch for miles and there is literally nothing but salt and a few volcanoes in the background. We had no idea how the driver knew where he was going as there were no signs and no landmarks just vauge tyre tracks to follow occasionaly! We saw some ´salt mountains´ that had been created by the
Salt Mountains
well small mounds reallylocals who extract the salt and then leave it there to dry out. Part of thr Salir is covered i water which gives some amazing reflections - you don´t really know where the water ends and the salt carries on due to massive expanse of it all.
Further on we reached Isla Pescada (Fish Island) which is a strange name as there are no fish to be seen and a lot of cacti. After a walk on the island we took some of the standard ´trick of the eye´ photo´s and pauline was able to get me in the palm of her hand for once!
The next day was all about volcanoes and lagoons. Coming off the Salt Flats and into the Altiplano there are a multitude of volcanoes, mountains and lagoons. The colours in the rocks are amazing and created by all the minerals in them such as iron, sulpher and copper. The photo´s don´t really do it justice and it didn´t matter how many we took they never looked quite as good as the real thing. The lagoons were a favourite feeding spot of Flamingos - and there were a lot of them! Unfortunately, dispite the
myths, they didn´t seem to stand on one leg, which pauline found most dissapointing! The last lagoon of the day was caled Lago Colorado and had a very red tinge to the water. This colouring is created when the wind blows over the lagoon and reacts with the algae in the water - so no wind and no red lagoon!
The next morning was an early start - 4.30! Who said this travelling lark was easy! First stop was some geysers (geezers, whatever!) which were a lot more active that us at 6 in the morning! Then we headed off to a thermal spring for breakfast. The emperature outside must have been around zero so the steaming bath looked extremely appealing. The only problem was once you were in you had to brave the cold to get out for breafast! I tell you my ´manly parts´did not appreciate that! After some breakfast we headed off to our last lagon of the tour - Lago Verde (The green lagoon). Unfortunately the wind was not blowing and so the lagoon was not green - still a very impressive sight though!
We were dropped off at the Bolivian / Chile border
Isla Pescada
No fish but many a cactus... They grow around a cm per year and some are over 1,200 years old... monstorous! and jumped on our bus that was headed to San Pedro De Atacama. Overall it was a brilliant 3 days - we had heard some horror stories of companies giving bad tours, bad food and ripping people off, but our company (Reli-Tours) were fantastic.
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