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World´s Largest Salt Flats and Driest Desert
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So we began our 3 day desert/salt flat crossing in 4x4´s from Bolivia to Chile bright and early Valentines Day morning. We had travelled to the town of Uyuni the previous night, ate some delicious pizza and were hoping for warmth...the salt flats can get quite cold so we were told. After packing up our 4x4´s our caravan was off and ready to explore the word´s highest and largest salt flats (12000 sq km.). Unfortunately since it is the rainy season the salt flats are covered in a layer of water so couldn´t cross directly through them, however, we did visit a section of them first thing in the morning and it was absolutely incredible. The salt flats were enchanting, blindlingly white and surrounded with snow capped mountains, not to mention the way the sun reflected off the water. It was soooooo beautiful! It reminded me of something out of Narnia.
Then we began our crosing of the Atacama Desert which is apparently the world´s driest desert (I believe it). It was defintely a cool experience, and sometimes I felt like we were in the Amazing Race the way our 4x4´s were racing through the desert. The scenery was absolutely mesmorizing at times with beautiful mountains and lots of cool rock formations, not to mention the different coloured lakes sprinkled throughout. There was also quite a bit of wildlife, mainly vicuñas and flamingos which are quite a beautiful bird even though they won´t let you get all that close to them. The vastness of the desert itself was quite incredible, just massive sand dunes and vast open expanses and volcanos. The first night we ended at Laguna Colorada which is literally a bright red lake! Since this is new to me I found it quite neat. It´s seriously bright red!!! I guess it´s that way because of the minerals. The majority of our crossing consisted of more or less the same desert landscape except for the last morning when we stopped at some geysers and also right at the end of our crossing where we stopped at the Laguna Verde which was easily one of the highlights for me. It was just breathtaking!!! It wasn´t green as the name implies but more of a beautiful teal colour, with a snow capped mountain behind it which was reflected in the water. It was one of the most beautiful things I´ve ever seen. Shortly after this we exited into San Pedro de Atacama, a desert town in Chile.
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| 21. | World´s Largest Salt Flats and Driest Desert - Uyuni, Bolivia Feb 15, 2008 (  34 ) |
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