Salt, salt and more salt

Trip Start Jun 03, 2008
1
14
23
Trip End Sep 22, 2008


Loading Map
Map your own trip!
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
shadow

Flag of Bolivia  ,
Tuesday, July 15, 2008

There was some great scenery on the way to Uyuni, and we passed a place robbed by Butch Cassidy. The town itself doesn't seem to have any tall buildings, and our hostel was full of tourists coming to see the salt flats. We had a group meal at Minuteman Pizza, and my pizza was so big I couldn't finish it. At this point I still hadn't pooed in days so tried the chocolate laxative as recommended as 'gentle' by some woman in the death road office. Not sure that this was the best idea considering we were spending the whole of the next day at the WHITE salt flats! Turns out it was gentle and I managed to let some out in the morning, but by the afternoon it was the opposite extreme and it was timed perfectly where there were toilets. Better out than in I say, I just needed to get it all out of my system. I'm not complaining because it's my fault I try all the street food etc so I'm bound to be eating stuff my body cant handle - worth it though, I love street sausage sandwiches (chorizo) and the random juices.

We were picked up by some cool 4x4s and driven towards the salt flats. First stop was the train cemetery, where we got to take pics and climb on corroded rusty old trains and get pics on the train tracks. We then headed towards the salt flats, stopping by at a salt museum thing and learning how they process the salt in the salt flats and bag them up for household use. These salt flats are biggest in the world, over 10,000 sq km, bigger than Switzerland, it used to be a big lake a long long time ago but now is just salt. saltflats
saltflats
 Apparently it's 10m deep of salt then theres water underneath. It was unlike anything I've seen before.. looks like snow but its salt (tastes like salt too!) We saw houses made out of salt too, apparently not even mixed with anything, seems like strong and sturdy stuff.

Its really hard to judge distance on the salt flats.. we were driving for ages and didn't seem like we were going anywhere. The island we were driving to seemed so close, yet it was so far. Since its hard to judge distance, it was possible to take cool photos.. some are on other people's cameras so I'll put them up as soon as I can steal them, but have a look at my ones as a teaser. We went to one of the islands which was full of cactuses, one that was 1000 years old! We trekked to the top of the island where the view of the salt flats was really cool. Because the sun was shining, it wasn't too cold during the day, but at night you see temperatures lower than -20degrees. I was chatting to the guide, Cynthia, for a while, and that was cool.. she was telling me she'd never seen the sea and she had a one year old and she lives with her family, did a linguistic degree etc etc.. totally different to the life I live.

We managed to catch sunset on the salt flats.. (romantic?!) as soon as the sun went down the skies started turning reddish/purple which was cool, then it started to go freezing! Overall (apart from the shits) it was a great day out in the salt flats
Slideshow Print this entry Uyuni hotels