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Published: January 14th 2010
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Salar de Uyuni
The train graveyard So with Christmas looming I went to Uyuni to book myself on a Salt flats tour. This meant travelling by another crowded bolivian bus for 7 h on unpaved roads - for a large part of the trip the road was so bumpy the windows were continually rattling. Due to the late departure of the bus I arrived at Uyuni at midnight so after no answer at the HI hostel went with a group of brazillians to another one close by and went straight to bed. The next morning I booked myself on a tour and then before it started went off to buy some chocolate and wine in preparation for Christmas day.
For the next few days I would be travelling through some spectacular scenery in a Four Wheel Drive. I met my travel companions ( Eva, Julita, Emma and Trevor) for the next few days and then we set off, first stop the train graveyard.
After this we headed on to the salt flats at the beginning there were piles of salt ready for transportation and then there was just a flat plain of salt - stunning. We stopped off at an island full of Cacti and
Salar de Uyuni
On the Salt flats after walking to the top for the spectacular views we ate lunch cooked by our driver. Then we spent the next hour trying to take some fun pictures playing around with the perspective (not so sucessful) and then resorting to the usual jumping photos! As we drove further into the salt flats there was a layer of water (about one inch) on top of the flats which meant there was some spectcular reflections. Our driver told us that in two weeks time the tours wouldn't go so far because there would be too much rain.
That night (Christmas eve) we stayed at a Salt hotel which due to rain and a leaky roof we had to ourselves (the other groups had gone to another hotel that was not made of salt). We had the pick of beds so all managed to find a dry one ( it wasn't too leaky afterall). That night the tour company had given us a bottle of wine which we drank after dinner - at high altitude you need suprisingly little alcohol to get you tipsy!
On Christmas day we visited the a few lakes and saw loads of flamingos, stopped off at
some cool rock formations and finished the day at Laguna Colorada. On sunny days this lake is red in colour due to an algae. We'd had bad weather for most of the day but a bit of sun did come out when we got to Laguna Colorada so it did have a red colour.
The next day we got up early and went to see the geysers followed by a dip in some hot springs (lovely) all before breakfast. The trip ended with a visit to Laguna Verde and then I was dropped off at the border where I got a bus into Chile (San Pedro de Atacama).
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Helena Dennison
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Wow!
Hope you had a great Christmas Lynsey, photos look fantastic! xx