Salt Flats - Salar de Uyuni
Trip Start
Jan 12, 2008
1
37
41
Trip End
Jan 15, 2009
Uyuni,
Bolivia
Friday, October 17, 2008
Looking out the bus window as we entered Uyuni, i was thinking what lovely colorful flat lands Uyuni had, it was only when i rubbed the sleep from my eyes that i realized it was rubbish, EVERYWHERE. Delightful!!
Anyway we quick smart booked ourselves in for a 3 day 2 night tour of the salt flats. Off we headed, six of us piled into a four wheel drive with our guide, cook and driver Juan. After visiting a very boring train museum, which consisted of about 30 carriages in the desert, we headed for the famous salt flats. They are amazing, to the sunglassed eye they are not quite as white as they look in pictures, but they are endless and wonderful. We had lunch at a little salt lake island called Isla de Pescado, Island of fish, and no there were no fish, not even one, but there were a heap of cacti, some reaching over 20m. The view of the salt flats was amazing from the top. Driving out of the salt flats we were one of the lucky groups to stay right on the edge in a cool little hotel made of cement and salt. We ventured out in the avo into the freezing cold strong wind to climb a hill, the view again... amazing.
Up at 5am, we set off to some Lagoons. FLAMINGOS.... thats right the big thing of the day, and yes they are just as beautiful as you would imagine, just not as pink. And the scenery around the high lands of Uyuni is just beautiful, much more beautiful to me than the salt flats themselves. You will just have to look at the pictures for yourselves.
We made our way to a lagoon called the red lagoon. They had wanted to make it a seventh wonder of the world. And i suppose it is amazing, looks great in photos. Pretty much our guide said that it is red due to a chemical reaction when the sun rises and chemicals (all natural of course) in the water. It is amazing, the lagoon is hemmed in by borax (massive white things like snow ledges) to one side, and mountains around the other sides. Just beautiful.
The night was spent in a run down shelter previously used by research teams, it was freezing and noisy but thats ok.
A 4.30am start the next morning to see some steam geisers, holes in the ground formed by volcanic activity that blow steam, it was a beautiful sight but also freezing at below minus 10 degrees. On then next to what I think must be the most beautiful hot springs in the world. Get a look at the view. The water was a great 30 degrees and me and Joe were brave enough to dip on in.
Overall the sights on this tour are amazing, the most beautiful I think i have yet to see... The high altitude (the highest we got to was over 5000m) make for a great clear blue sky and really sets the colours so they are striking.
The rest of the day was spent driving back to Uyuni, great sceneray, and I would recommend the trip ... absolutely. All the tours cheap and expensive seem to be much of a muchness, so i wouldn't worry to much.
We said sad goodbyes to Maggie that night as she returned to La Paz and back to the orphanage. We will miss her a heap, she is a great gal. And we were so happy to have met her.
The next morning we headed on an all day bus to cross the border into Argentina, and our downward (to home) journeying continues. Argentina, Brazil (for 2 days) and then Europe. YEEEHAAA
