Potosi and the Uyuni salt flats

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An uneventful journey from the beautiful town of Sucre to what once was the richest city in the world - Potosi.
Famous initially for its silver mines in Inca and Spanish colonial times and later for tin, it was hit hard when tin prices plummeted and has never properly recovered.
Miners today lead a hand to mouth existence and work in small groups to earn their money.
While we were there we went down the Potosí Silver mine and gained some small insight into working conditions - not fun.

After Potosi we headed for Uyuni by jeep.
Uyuni town is a little odd. Clearly it is the gateway to the salt flats and the mountains but you get the impression from most that the service they give reflects what they want to do rather than catering for what tourists who provide the main commercial income for the area,

Couple of restaurants exceptions a pizza place called Minuteman, run by a couple from Massachusetts and Tika which surprisingly provided by far the best meal of our trip both in terms of food quality and presentation. If you are there for one night go there.

But the real reason for this trip was imminent - a visit to the Uyuni salt flats.!on the way we visited the ‘train graveyards’ not far outside of Uyuni where we saw many engines in various states of decay. They were left there following a war with Chile over access routes to the Pacific which they lost. As a result there was no requirement for goods trains heading west and they were dumped in the desert.

And then the salt flats themselves. Apparently formed c 40,000 years ago after an inland sea evaporated due to climate change. The journey across the flats was wonderful but cold and of course we took the obligatory pictures on the flats.
Our final stop that day the Isla incahuasa a precious island but now an outcrop in the salt flats with the most cacti in one place I have ever seen.

That evening we stayed at Jukil community lodge supported by G Adventures. Much better accommodation than we expected & lovely staff. We even chose to get up for a 5.30am hike to the top of the local hill to watch the sunrise. A bit of rock climbing thrown in!

Final day in Uyuni area saw us changing scenery visiting the rocks that make up the petrified army, a view of the local volcano, a number of lagoons including Laguna Colorado some 4278m above sea level with a reddish purple hue, due to fine sediments and cyanophyte algae. We saw three different types of flamingo.

Heading across the desert to our overnight dormitory stop we touched 5000 metres as we watched the sun start to go down across the mountains - and what a stunning sunset it was. The dormitory was luxury compared to the one in Brazil!

Next day we headed back out across the desert in the lead car with Kevin, Lia and Ariel the tour guide entertaining us with S American music interspersed with soul and a few strange Beatles covers.

Stopped at Lost Italy another interesting rock formation then headed off to another lagoon which we had to get to after a lovely walk through the rocks and along the mountain tops.


Finally back to Potosi before getting on a night bus to La Paz where we said goodbye to most of the group - Heinz & Claudia, Gill, Sarah, Ruth, Kristen, Anja, Kevin, Lia and Tuomas well as our tour guide Ariel, ? Side note on eating in La Paz we found 3 great places all aimed at tourists but great food in each / Cafe de Mundo, The Carrot Tree (best WiFi) and Higher Ground . All great but we went back to Higher Ground most often and if you get chatting to the owner (an Aussie) you’ll get the story behind the cafe / very interesting guy, plus their playlist is on Spotify- HG1.

A recurring quote on our Bolivian tour came from Ariel, ‘in Bolivia everything is possible, nothing is certain’. For us though the best part of our ‘group’ tour so far! We loved Bolivia ??

Bring on Peru

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