12000 square km of salt, salt and more salt

  The salt plains of Uyuni, Bolivia
Sunday, April 23, 2006

The 4 day 4wd tour from Tupiza to Uyuni was superb and went a little like this.

Day 1 - We were off to a bad start. One of the French girls who were on our tour was chronically ill and passed out only minutes before getting into the car. She stupidly decided that she still wanted to come with us. 2 hours late, we set off towards the super super dry South West of Bolivia. It borders the Atacama desert in Chile, which is the driest place on earth. So dry infact, that NASA sent their Mars rovers there as a trial run to hunt for water. Its true.

There were 6 of us in the car, along with the guide/driver and his wife/cook, and a bloody good one at that.
The group was made up of Myself, Tim - another Aussie, some kind of AFL star, apparantly best mates with Barry Hall (aussie AFL legend). Then there was Chris - a Mad Sweedish guy, who loved to swear, then Jason, from Vancouver, who was a very kool guy and then to make up the 6 were the dreadful French Sisters who said no more than 11 words over the entire 4 days. Useless Frenchies!

So with our group assembled, we were on our way. Waiting for us were 3 cold, high altitude nights and 4 long days and some amazing scenery. Actually saying amazing scenery does nothing to emphasize exactly how amazing it was.

Day 2
After a super cold breathless night at around 3500 metres We reached the highest point of the 4 days after a torcherous drive. We arrived at the Geysers at an altitude of 4970 metres. We were ruined. Just getting out of the car was an effort as we all fought pounding migranes and breathlesness. Altitude sickness is a nightmare. Its like bad hangover but well, worse. I fought a battle for a few hours trying not to throw up. Others however werent so successfull. Even chewing on copious amounts of coca leaves and drinking coca tea didnt releive the pain and suffering. All they seemed to do was give us a sleepless night and frightening dreams.

After the stinking sulfurous geysers we descended a little, to 4200 metres, where our pouding heads were only slightly relieved at the thermal springs.

Day 3
Salt, lagoons, salt lagoons, mountains, desert, cactus, desert, and more desert and stampeeding vicunas (a type of llama) they look like this:


Day 4
We rose from our salt beds, in our salt rooms, from our hotel made of salt at 4am, had a quick breakfast of pancakes and hit the road, headed for the middle of Salar de Uyui for what was to be a spectacular sunrise, and at this early stage, im brave enough to say, the greatest sunrise I will ever see.

We drove through a shallow salt lake for an hour, with the brilliant glow of twilight to our right, reflecting off the still salt water surrounding us.

It was so cold - the water that splashed onto the widscreen froze instantly but it didnt deter us.

We arrived to the centre of the salt plains at 6am and were overcome with a variety of feelings. It was amazing to be in such a remote place. All we could see, for 360 degrees was flat white salt. We all had a moment to take it in.

As the sun slowly rose, we snapped a million photos between the 6 of us and witnessed the most amazing sunsise. Which i cant even begin to explain, just that it was like this, isnt it amazing!


At 7:30 when the sun was high in the sky and the temperature started to soar, we headed to our next stop, isla de los pescadores - fishermans island.

Somehow, there is an island in the middle of these salt flats, covered in cactus, the highest being 12 metres tall. From the top we had an amazing view towards the city of Uyuni.

The salt flats are 12,000 km square, of nothig but salt

We finished the day in the train graveyard, much more exciting than it souds, with aroud 30 rusting steam engines.

Uyuni is possibly one of the most uneventful towns i have ever been in. I lasted all of 3 minutes before i booked my one way ticket out of there - 7 hours towards my next stop - Potosi and the biggest open cut mine in the world.
Dynamite ahead.