Salty Uyuni

We took a train from Tupiza to Uyuni, armed with a steaming pizza driving the passengers wild who had been on for the previous few hours. It was a long ride and we pulled into Uyuni just before midnight. We met our Israeli friend Dona at the station and she gave us the low down on her tour; she also recommended a company to travel with. We booked into the over priced H.I. affiliated hostel until we could find alternative accomodation the following day- which we spent looking about the town. It has some bizzare statues on the main street, along with lots of tourist restaurants and shops.



We booked a trip on the salares for the next day. The Salar de Uyuni is extradionary. It's the worlds largest salt flats at an elevation of 3653m and covers 12,000 sq km of land. It's the remains of a prehistoric salt lake, Lago Minchin.
There are a variety of tour options from one to four days. The longer trips include stays on the plains where tempertures fall below -4C and electricity is scarce. We thought about this option, as it includes climbing a volcano, visiting hot springs - although entering and exiting them at 6am in sub zero temperatures didn't appeal to us. Also on the last day you pass a flaminco reserve, but we would later get to see the park and the birds fly on our train outside of Oruro- which was amazing. After talking to some travellers and considering the cold and the waiting around that all tours involve, we eventually decided on just a day trip.


We departed around 11am, first visiting the Cementerio de Trenes or train graveyard. This just had lots of rusty trains and rubbish, but was the setting for some great photo ops!




We were travelling by jeep, 'we' being the driver, a girl from La Paz, a Chilean guy, two Korean women and us. The 'road' across the salt flats was arbitary with paths criss-crossed all over the flats and the driver changing at will. Our first stop was at a little villiage that seemed to process some of the salt and had mounds gathered up for the tourist to jump from for some cool photos.



The sky was astonishingly blue, in blazing contrast to the brilliance of the white salt flats. We bought a few souvenirs here and progressed deeper into the white, until we reached the 'museum' which is actually an 'old' salt hotel- an illegal structure on the salt plains. There were previously a few salt hotels out here but they were moved brick by brick to an outer location creating less of an environmental impact. The flats are so pure and white that something like a hotel out there is just wrong. When I write 'salt hotel' this is exactly what they are. Each brick of the hotel is made from cemented salt, as are the beds, tables, chairs etc. It's now called a 'museum' but some tours still use the hotel as a sleeping point.


Outside is a salt platform, housing lots of flags for it's international visitors.


The vast empty flats are truly incredible. They are the perfect blank canvas for some great mind distorting photos We weren't well prepared (how unusual I hear you say!) and our camera battery wasn't charged- silly us. But we managed to knock out a few photos. We took some funny pictures for the Korean ladies, including one of them superficially standing on Mal's head and arms; unfortuantely we don't have a copy- oh well..




The last stop before heading back was at an island with lots of cacti and old coral rocks, which the guide says are the proof that it once was an inland sea.

The trip was a spectacular experience and we highly recommend it.