Uyuni and the Salt Flats

  Uyuni, Bolivia
Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Had to get a bit of travelling done before we did our next trip.

Got a 3 hour bus from La Paz to Oruro, wandered around there for a few hours and then got a choo choo to Uyuni. We spoiled oursleves with this choo choo trip... we paid the extra €4 each and upgraded to the premium service.... backpackers my ass!!! The premium service was only alright, we had comfy chairs and got to watch some movies (canīt remember what ones, but they are always show violent movies in this part of the world, never seen so many Jean Claude Van Damne movies!). They also gave us a pathetic piece of food... which we had anticipated and had purchased a yummy bag of chips for 30cents before boarding.

The journey took about 8 hours and we arrived into the town of Uyuni at about 3am... yup... 3 in the MORNING!!!! The place has was freeeeeezin when we arrived, we hopped into a taxi and he brought us to the absolute kip of a place that we had reserved, but at 3 in the morning it wasnīt as if we were going to go hunting for a new place to stay!!!!

So, what to do in Uyuni... the answer is simple... NOTHING!!! The only reason the town has tourists visting the place is so that they can leave the place as soon as they can and go on a tour to the salt flats. Which is exactly what we did!!

There are easily 8 different tour operators in the town, and they all offer EXACTLY the same flippin thing... find a niche people... find a niche!! We had a look at a few places around the town offering the 3 day trip that ended up in Chile... and we went with the cheapest... at US$70 per person. There were 6 of us in the jeep... Dave from Cork, Dermot from Galway, Rod from Oz and Lena from UK/Russia. By golly were we lucky!!! Twas a great crew.... a crew of maddies!!!

06 Mike & Sarah take the only train out of Bolivia

10 The Salt flats of Uyuni....awesome!

33 Taking surfing to a whole new level !!

Weīll just summarize the trip... because the pictures and the scenery tell the story!!

Day 1: 19th Century Train Cemetery, drive across the salt flats to the amazing fish island, spent the night in a hotel made entirely of salt!!! Luckily we brought 2 bottles of tequila and licked the walls of the hotel like there was no tomorrow (joke!)

Day 2: Driving... driving ... and more driving... across desert, salt, mush and dirt roads. After 9 hours of sitting in a jeep your rear end tends to be quite sensitive. We did make a few stops along the way, mostly just to view the scenery and shiver in the cold. Our "lunch" consisted of a piece of chicken each that had been cooked 2 days previously and a piece of rock hard bread that had been in the back of the jeep all the time.... the word to describe this meal was.... RANK!!

The place that we stopped for the night was a bit of a kip but what do you expect for such a cheap tour. All 6 of us on the tour shared the one room, 4 guys and 2 dollybirds. We had a blast. The beer and wine were flowing. Sarah brought out the guitar and sang for everyone.... she even attracted a crowd as the people from the other tours came into our room to have a listen to her....... we had a great singsong and plenty of laughs... a superb night !!! Our attempt at sleep was constantly broken by the lads either telling jokes or breaking wind. The biggest problem, however, was the cold. Seriously, I donīt think weīve ever experienced cold like it... twas MINUS 25 degrees!!!!

Day 3: Sleeping was not easy after the last nights antics and the fact that we were up at 4am made it even harder!!! We went to view geysers in the morning light.... the stink of rotten eggs was nearly as bad as the stink from the wind breaking the previous night. Today really was another day of sitting in the jeep and staring in awe at the amazing scenery around us. We made a few stop offs along the way, mostly so that Jimmy Joe (our driver) could have a pee break. The other stops were at a stone that was shapeed like a tree and one at an incredible lake. This lake was surrounded by foam as thick like shaving foam, which was there because of the wind blowing salt from the surface of the lake and it freezing !!!

70 Taking it all in....so many colours

We got to the Chilean border around 11am.... the coldest place ever, it was 3000m above sea level. Amazingly, only 20kms away was the Atacama desert and heat!!! It was hilarious seeing the tourists arriving at the Chilean side of the border, about to embark on the same tour we did... all wearing shorts and t-shirts!!!!!!!! They were in for some shock!!!

So that was Bolivia finished!!!!
A cool cheap, cheap, cheap country. In all our trip so far, Bolivia was the place where we encountered the most tourists... ainīt that incredible!!!! The salt tour was amazing.... highly recommended to anybody who is lucky enough to be in the country. 

Next... Chile!!!