Uyuni + Salt Flat Tour

20th November - 24th November (Day 261 - Day 265)

From La Paz our next destination was a town called Uyuni in the South of Bolivia, in order to get there we had to get a 12 hour overnight bus. The bus itself was not too bad..the main issue was that most of the roads in South Bolivia are not paved, as a result a large porportion of the journey was on rubble roads....which didn´t make it particularly easy to sleep while you´re bumping up and down and side to side!

After 12 hours we arived in Uyuni. Uyuni is a small dusty town, it is an important location because it is the gateway to the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flats in the world. We had booked a 3 day tour to explore the salt flats which was due to leave the following day. In the meantime we tried to catch up on some sleep and headed out for some Pizza....which was oddly the only food option in Uyuni.

The following day our salt flat tour was due to begin at 11am but at the end of our tour we were going to be dropped of in Chile, therefore we had to get our Bolivian exit stamps in the local customs office. This didn´t take too long although we did have a brief negotiation over how much the local officials were going to charge us for our stamp...it started at $7 each but we managed to get them down to $2.50 each...dodgy! After we got our stamp we headed to the office of our tour agency to wait for our guide, driver and the 4wd vehicle we would spend the next 3 days in. While we were waiting in the office we met the other guys who would be traveling with us, this turned out to be 3 girls...also from the UK.

Eventually our guide and driver turned up...all our bags were loaded on the roof of the jeep and we were off on our way! Our first stop was only a few minutes away and is know as the train cemetery. It is a really odd place, it is a large area of land with a large number of 100 year old locamotives sitting rusting in the desert. The trains used to transport minerals and metals across the Andes but when the industry disappeared they were just left where they were. Its a really odd but interesting an atmospheric place with fantastic views of the rusting locamotives with the desert landscape and mountains in the distance.

Our next destination were the salt flats themselves....it was a short journey in the jeep..as we got near we could see the massive expanse of white in the distance ahead of us. Once we entered the salt flats, the views were simply staggering. It was like driving across a lake of salt surrounded by mountains, it was like being in another world..we had never experienced anything like it. After a brief stop for lunch in a restaurant made out of salt. We headed out into the middle of the salt flats so it was just us and the massive expanse of salt in every direction..amazing.

Although the views are amazing most photos you tend to see of the salt flats don´t tend to be of the views but rather people having fun making perspective photographs....so when in Rome....we thought we would have a go. We spent about an hour or so taking photos of us running away from toy dinosaurs, standing on each others hands, surfing on packets of biscuits etc.....all with varying degrees of success ( you wll have to check out our photos to see) but it was all ready good fun!

Once we eventually got bored of taking perspective photos we were on our way again, our next stop was an island in the middle of the salt flat. It seems really odd to have random islands in the middle of the salt flat but the reason it it there is because the salt flat was originally a huge salt lake in the Andes. In fact below the salt crust there is still a lake in existance today. We were told we had to climb up to the top of the hill on the island and we would have amazing views of the salt flats....our guide was not wrong...the views were amazing.

Our final destination that day was our hostel for the night...in keeping with the theme of our trip our hostel was also made out of salt. It was located on the very edge of the salt flat with lovely views back across the flats. That evening we had some food and banter with the rest of our tour group before heading to our salt room to bed.

The next day we were up early to continue our adventure...we loaded up the jeep and we were off on our way. Our first stop was a second smaller salt flat...we spent some time here treking across the flat and taking in the views and atmosphere. This would be our last sight of the salt flats as after this point our journey took us further up into the Andes.

As our jeep began to clmb up the dusty tracks the scenery just got better and better. We were once again surrounded by mountains and volcanos and the most amazing rock formations. After a reasonably long drive we eventually saw a lake in the distance, this is were we would be stopping for lunch. As we approached the lake, the colours of the lake began to become more and more vivid and spectacular. The lake surrounded be white salt deposits and the lake itself was a mixture of dake greens and blues, with small red areas. As we got closer and closer we realised the small red areas were large groups of flamingos tht live on the lake. Once we eventually arrived at the lake side the views were amazing...the smell was not so good...a strong smell of sulphur which was not too nice! It was also fantastic to see flamingos in the wild in a lake in the Andes at 4500 metres.....amazing.

During the afternoon we visitied a number of other lakes and lagoons, all equally beautiful and breath taking. Eventually we reached a hostel which would be our accommodation for the night...the accommodation was much more basic this time....there was no running water and we were sharing a room with the 3 girls on our tour. As it happens it was a pretty bonding experience as we all pulled together to get through what was a pretty rough place to stay the night.

The next morning we had a really early start...we were all really tired as we hadn´t slept much. We were ready by 5am as our tour guides had asked. Unfortunately the only people who were were missing were the tour guide an our driver...they eventually turned up 45 minutes later...we were not impressed! We did our best to show our displeasure in very bad Spanish...which was probably pretty humourous for everyone else around but not us. We eveuntually got moving at around 6am, we drove for around 45 minutes, all of us very annoyed. Eventually the track we were following took us into a slight ravene. It was at this point we saw hundreds of plumes of steam rising into the air....we had arrived at the site of hundreds of geysers, we all forgot our anger from the morning as we staed in awe of the force of nature working all around us shooting steam up in the air and an amazing rate. You could hear the steam shooting out of the ground, it was like a huge kettle boiling. We got out an walked around for a while...taking in the sights, sounds and bad smells (Sulpher again). The site was great as we could get really close to the Geysers and hear the water bubbling under the ground.....simply fantastic!

Our next port of call after the Geysers was some hot springs, neither of us were brave enough to get in as it was absolutely freezing outside. We also stopped here for some breakfast. Our final stop was the green lagoon, another stunning lagoon right on the border with Chile. There were not any flamingos here as this lake is filled with naturally occuring arsenic.

After another short journey in the jeep we eventually reached a small hut in the middle of the Andes which was in fact Bolivian customs. From this point we were to leave our jeep and jump onto a bus that would take us the 40KMs to a town called San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. We said our goodbys to our group, who we had had a really good time with and jumped onto our bus.

At this point we though we could finally have a little sleep but it was lucky we didn´t as we would have missed some more amazing views. From the Bolivian border the 40KM bus ride took us from 5000 metres to 2400 metres into the heart of the Atacama desert. As we decented past huge vocanos all we could see in the distance was the massive barron expanse of the Atacama desert, again simply stunning.