The Largest Salt Flats in the World and then Some.
February 28 - We arrived 45 minutes early to Uyuni, at about 5:45 AM. G and I stumbled out of the bus, and found a woman waiting for us, holding a sign with my name written on it. I was glad I e-mailed Andes Salt Expeditions asking them to have someone pick us up from the bus station because we would have had a difficult time finding the place. Even though it was only a few blocks away, there were a lot of turns involved getting there. She brought us to a breakfast place with free wifi a couple doors down from the company and let us know our tour wouldn't leave 'til after 10:00 AM. We filled up on coffee and omelets, and spent about three hours there. Then we signed in for our tour, left our bags in the luggage room, and walked around the small town of Uyuni.
There wasn't much to see, so we sat on a bench for a little while then spent the rest of our time waiting in the company's small building. We met a woman from Alaska who scheduled a tour with another company, but their building was locked, so she found a spot with us. Our group was small, us, the woman from Alaska, a couple from Alaska (we had never met anyone else from Alaska before so it was strange to meet three people), a woman from Germany, and our guide.
We all hopped into the tan Toyota Landcruiser, and took off for our first destination, a train graveyard right outside of town. There were dozens of 1800's steam trains lined up. Most of them were completely rusted and brown, but some of them had sadly been covered in graffiti. The place was really neat, remnants of what was. However, there were so many tour groups there at once that some of the allure was taken down a few notches.
Then we went back into town to pick up our food for the three-day tour. Once the food was stored, we drove about 45 minutes to a small town situated just outside the salt flats, for a quick stop to learn how the salt was collected and processed. This place was also crowded with tour groups, and I was beginning to feel a little nervous the whole tour would be congested. Fortunately, that was not the case.
After we left the town, we drove for about an hour to the largest salt flats in the world, Salar de Uyuni. It didn't take long to realize just how vast this place is. The dozens of other tours that were around drove off in different directions and faded away. We stopped to snap some photos in a place that had a good variety of dry and wet salt.
We stopped for lunch then we drove another 30-45 minutes to an area of pure white salt for miles and miles that looked like snow and ice. Our guide had a lot of experience taking funny pictures that manipulate distance perspective. He helped us take photos with a toy T-Rex and other photos that could only be taken in that kind of element (see below).
After our photo shoot, we drove in search of the mirror effect. We drove for a long time and finally found a decent spot. It wasn't quite the "mirror of the world" I had imagined, but it was still spectacular.
We did another photoshoot then left to chase one of the most beautiful sunsets I've seen. After the sun went down, we drove for about an hour and a half to our hotel. This hotel was made entirely out of salt. After we ate dinner, it was about 9:00 PM, so we showered then went to sleep.
February 29 - 2020 gave me an extra day in my 20's on February 29th. The salt flats were just a small portion of this tour. I didn't realize just how much of the countryside of Bolivia we would get to see. On this day we drove for the entire day, stopping multiple times to see multiple volcanoes, high deserts, a wind-sculpted rock in the shape of a tree surrounded with large boulders scattered around, and at least four lagoons, all of which had wild flamingos grazing about.
We saw flamingos, llamas, alpacas, vicunas (kind of like wild llamas), ostriches, viscachas (desert rodents that look like a big, brown rabbit with a long, curly tail), a desert fox, and other wild dogs. One of the lagoons was red, but only when the sun was hitting it at the right angle, and we were lucky to see it at the right time.
After a day packed full of as much natural beauty as we could possibly see, we made it to our hotel in the middle of a desert. G and I played a fun dice game with the group (I was really close to winning). Then we ate dinner, and since we had an early start at 4:00 AM the next morning, we retired early.
March 1 - We ate breakfast at 4:00 AM then left to drive up to 5,000 meters (about 16,400 feet) to see the sunrise over some geysers. One of the geysers was cold enough you could jump through it. After wandering through the plateau and watching the sunrise, we got in the car and drove about an hour to another lagoon that had hot springs. We all opted to swim, which was very relaxing and the scenery was beautiful. I watched a few flamingos wade through the water nearby.
After the swim, we drove to the Salvador Dali Desert, named after the painter because the sand looked as though it was melting.
Then we drove to another lagoon, which was close to the Chilean border, where the rest of the group would get out to continue into the Atacama Desert. Before noon, we let them go and said our goodbyes.
The rest of the day may as well have been a private tour as we headed back to Uyuni. We stopped in a town full of farms with llamas to eat lunch. On the first day, I had asked Eduardo, our guide, where his favorite place in Bolivia was. He surprised us and took us there. There was a dark lagoon surrounded with tall rocks and cliffs, carved by the wind, and a few lush grassy patches for llamas to graze. It was quiet, and not many people knew about it. We could see why this was his favorite place, and we were honored he shared it with us.
We also stopped a rock valley that reminded G and I of Monuments Valley in the U.S.
Our last stop was Anaconda River, which is a curvy river at the bottom of a canyon. We stood out on a rock ledge overlooking the canyon.
Eduardo made a few other stops for us when we wanted to take pictures, once to capture a colorful quinoa field in front of mountains. The quinoa field looked like a flower field in full bloom.
We stopped another time to see some curious llamas. As we were approaching Uyuni, G asked Eduardo if we could stop by the train cemetery again, in hopes that there wouldn't be as many people there this time. He happily obliged and we were thrilled only about three other people were there. We snapped some photos we wanted to snap the first time, then made our way back to Andes Salt Expeditions' building.
We thanked Eduardo, took a selfie with him, and said goodbye. We didn't have too long to wait for our bus. We got directions to the correct bus stop from another guide, picked up some snacks, and boarded the bus at 9:00 PM. This bus wasn't quite as comfy as the first one, but it did the job.
- T