Uyuni is the closest big town to the border with Argentina. It’s a high desert town in the Bolivian altiplano. In 2006 the town had 6,000 inhabitants; there are now over 60,000. The growth is totally attributed to tourism. Yet, the town still seems to be somewhat of a desert wasteland. Half built, vacant buildings dominate the town and surrounding area. The one grocery store has 4 narrow aisles 10 feet long, and no fruits or vegetables. Most roads are just dirt and it’s difficult to identify what is road and what is sidewalk. The only time I saw many locals was at a street market. There is very little traffic except for one thing, hundreds of SUV’s, all of them leaving, returning, or preparing to take tourists on tours. Those SUV’s belong to all the tourist agencies lining both sides of the main street and are currently the only way tourists can go to the places they want to see.
Uyuni is the hub for trips to the Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat. I don’t know how big it is but it’s really, really big. Because it’s in the Bolivian altiplano there is a lot of accessible nature as well. So to do what you do in Uyuni…I signed up for the standard 3 day 2 night tour.
My friend Florian who I met in Buenos Aires just finished a tour in Uyuni and someone on his tour got very sick and needed several days of bed rest after. I’ve heard a few other similar stories including a guy who was laid up sick for two days in my hostel room in Uyuni. So I was very careful choosing my tour company and went with one that appeared on every recommended list I saw. It was a good choice.
10:30am is rush hour in Uyuni, that is when dozens of Toyota Land Cruisers or Honda Patrols line the main street loading their passengers and supplies. Our tour had 5 participants, me, Toni and Max from France but living in Mexico City (ariba, abajo, al centro, pa dentro), and a couple from Peru (they spoke no English and didn’t care for my butchered Spanish). The guide was Bolivian but grew up in the US.
Our first day was on the Salar de Uyuni. All day nothing but white salt, flat ground for as far as the eye can see, and I’m amazed at how beautiful it was. Because it’s the end of the rainy season there is still groundwater in spots. That caused a mirror effect making photos look amazing. Because of lack of depth anywhere, the guides also had fun using props for photos and videos (definitely look at the pictures and watch the videos). We stopped in four different places and each was surprisingly a little unique. Besides lunch on the Salar we had wine and snacks to watch the sunset and…
The best sunset ever.
Let me repeat that, the best sunset ever. It started out nice as the sun was going down behind a mountain, at one point providing a great red laser of light from the sun. Up to that point it was great. However, once the sun went behind the mountain that is when the real show began. The colors over the next hour changed from one to another to another. Every time we thought it couldn’t get better, it did. Reds, yellows, blues, purples. Oh, and remember that mirror effect. We were seeing double. I was loving the opportunity to soak it in but also do what I love, take photos and boy did I. I’m happy to report this time, the photos did, do it justice.
That night we stayed in a hotel made of salt.
Day two couldn’t have been more different. Instead of flat scenery that changes little, we were four wheeling through mountainous, constantly changing terrain, and spent most of the day above 14,000 feet. We started the day looking at cactus and quinoa fields and ended the day with geysers, and red colored mountains capped with snow. In between we saw lagoons with Flamingos including one, Laguna Colorada, with red colored water. A volcano (just looks like a mountain now), a mountain with a huge circle embedded into its side caused by a meteor, some very interesting rock formations, and some very colorful mountains. In between we drove through rocky ground, volcanic sand and hardened lava, and cold barren desert.
That night we slept at 14,600 feet in a hostel next to natural hot springs.
Our final day included more lagoons and rocks. The highlights were a section of the desert named after Salvador Dahli because it is very easy using imagination to interpret objects within the rocks, (FYI, I’ve done this in Arches as well), and llamas near another amazing huge rock garden that was miles wide and long.
Throughout the tour we saw an abundance of wildlife, something I really hadn’t seen much at all this trip. Llamas and Vicuna (cross between llama and gazelle) were everywhere, Viscachas (looks like rabbits), Alpacas, Flamingos, and even Ostriches and a Fox.
Even with the ridiculous amount of tourists’ vehicles all going to and staying at the same places, the tour was very good. Mostly due to the sunset on the Salar. However, since I did not expect much regarding most other sites, the beautiful scenery was a very pleasant surprise and except for a few occasions during the day, we did not encounter many other vehicles at the sites. Over the three days, I probably took more landscape pictures than I took previously on this trip combined, and would have taken more if I asked the driver to stop every time I wanted to.
Fins Up!!