Blogs from Uyuni, Potosí Department, Bolivia, South America - page 9

Uyuni is the starting point for our 3-day 4X4 excursion through the spectacular Salar de Uyuni exploring the stunning landscapes between the Salar de Uyuni and Chile’s Atacama Desert by four-wheel-drive vehicle. Piercing blue skies contrast with blinding white salt as you drive across the flat lakebed. The area’s unusual landscape of mountains and terrain is like nowhere on earth. Its feels like your on the Moon or some place in Mars. The main attraction in town is the Train Cemetery which we visit on the first day, a collection of rusting railway relics just southwest of the present train station. The also tour takes us through Laguna Colorada (4278 m above sea level), a large red lagoon and Laguna Verde (5000 m above sea level), a lake that has a striking blue-green colour due to ... read more

After leaving the Salar, we drove parallel to the train tracks until we reached Uyuni...and what a shock to the system after the beauty of the Altiplano. Uyuni was once Bolivia’s gateway to the outside world and an industrial, modern town. Now however, it’s dirty, depressing and shabby and it’s only due to its proximity to the Salar that it hasn’t turned into a ghost town. We said our goodbyes to the girls and Alberto and Lucy and made sure to give them a nice, fat tip for having looked after us so well. The three of us then got dropped off by the train station in Uyuni so we could try and figure out the mystery of the Bolivia - Chile train. We’d heard about a 23-hour train journey that takes you across the border ... read more

Man sagt uns, dies sei die Reise des Lebens, ein unglaubliches und unvergessliches Erlebnis. Wir wollen es nicht missen und werden nicht enttaeuscht! Der Trip dauert drei Tage. Dabei fahren wir in einem Toyota Landcruiser mit Chauffeur ueber die Grenze nach Bolivien, in eindruecklichen Hoehen ueber den Altiplano vorbei an sagenhaften Landschaften mit Wuesten, Lagunen und Felsformationen. Hoehepunkt der Tour ist am letzten Tag die Ueberquerung des Salar de Uyuni, mit einer Flaeche von einem Viertel der ganzen Schweiz die groesste Salzwueste der Welt! Der bolivianische Grenzposten ist auf einer Hoehe von rund 4500m in einem einfachen Huettchen stationiert. Hier erwarten uns zwei Jeeps fuer unsere zwoelfkoepfige Gruppe. Wir werden zu sechst in ein Auto gepfercht: zwei Personen auf der hinteren Bank, drei Personen in der Mitte, und eine Person neben unserem Fahrer, Theo. Das Gepaeck ... read more

After getting our group together and negotiating a rate with a local tour operator in Tupiza we wasted no time in disembarking on a tour of Bolivia's legendary South Western Circuit. We left the very next morning, meeting at the tour operator’s office for breakfast before leaving at around 8am. Bolivia's South West Circuit is a 4 day jeep ride through stunning landscapes and other-worldly vistas through the colourful and mineral-rich Altiplano. The ride promised to be quite uncomfortable and occasionally a little scary eventually culminating in the group cruising across the world’s largest (and highest) salt flats - Salar de Uyuni. It is going to be impossible to describe each landscape we ventured into in detail and there can never be any substitute for seeing these amazing scenes with one’s own eyes. Each day we ... read more

Uyuni lies at 3660 m in a high, dry area in the Andean chain. The town itself is a genuine dustbowl (convenient, we found, for clothes drying). It is surrounded by unique geological formations, such as vibrant deserts, colored lakes, and shapely rocks. The chief attraction of the area is the Salar de Uyuni - the great Uyuni salt flats - formed from an ancient sea that dried up. Strongly recommended by other travelers, we checked them out ourselves on our way south to Argentina. We took a bus from La Paz to Oruro on Tuesday, Jan 12th, arriving around 12:30 pm. After lunch, internet, and a brief look around, we boarded our train for the 8-hour ride to Uyuni. In this part of the country, it was now the high season for tourism. Wealthy Bolivians ... read more