Blinded By The Light
Trip Start
Jan 08, 2007
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95
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Trip End
Oct 01, 2007
Salar De Uyuni,
Bolivia
Sunday, June 10, 2007
The 3 day trip starts with a visit to the Cementario de Trenes or train cemetery and it was here that I started my trip in style, by falling backwards through a gaping hole in the base of a train skeleton while trying to take that perfect picture... suffice to say I kept a straight face through the pain and refused to look at the damage I had caused to my leg which, left me limping for the rest of the week. Good start!
The jeep then continues towards the flats and stops at Pulcayo a small, salt mining village which collects, dries and bags up the salt to be sold throughout Bolivia. It was here that the second problem occurred... apparently our jeep wasn't registered for access to the Salar and we would have to wait for a new jeep to turn up. Hopefully this would also bring with it, the English speaking guide who had also been promised but failed yet to materialise(meaning I was left attempting to translate to the 4 frenchies in my group what was going on)
01 Train Cemetary
. However once the Police's backs were turned, in true Bolivian style, we piled into the Jeep and sped into the distance for the white of the Salar.Once on the flats we stopped to observe the method of salt collection where the salt is placed in small mountains and transferred onto trucks which, return it to their corresponding firm in Pulcayo. A short distance deeper into the blinding light is the Salar's first hotel (Playa Blanca) made entirely from salt. The blocks are very easily come by as explained that in some areas of the flats the salt can reach as deep as 100meters or more from where the sea water evaporated following the formation of a mountain range around its edges, trapping the salt laden liquid in a great lake.
After this was a lunch stop at the Isla Pescadores (looks like a fish from the town of Uyuni) which, is an impressively cactus laden island slap bang in the middle of the Salar where some of the oldest cacti are over 1000 years old. Walking to the very highest point on the island gives a truly amazing 360 degree panoramic view of the sheer white Salar and the distant mountains framing it.
Following a tasty Llama and Quinua lunch we caught up with Diego's Intrepid group whom I had met in Sucre and who we would be traveling with from now on so to steal... er I mean share their English speaking guide and took some impressive pictures using the pure white background of the Salar as our canvas before moving on to our home for the evening.
Our hotel was another salt structure just on the outskirts of the Salar and from here we visited a strange Galaxy cave filled with eery carbonate formations.
