1-4 August - Uyuni, Bolivia
Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat at 10,582 km² (4,085 square miles). Some 40,000 years ago, the area was part of a giant prehistoric lake. When the lake dried, it left behind salt deserts and a few lakes. Salar de Uyuni is estimated to contain 10 billion tons of salt. Also, Salar de Uyuni holds half of the world's reserves of lithium, a metal which is used in high energy density lithium batteries. There is currently no mining plant at the site and the Bolivian government doesn't want to allow exploitation by foreign corporations, but instead it intends to build its own pilot plant. There's an interesting article about that here
I signed up for a 3 day tour through Salar de Uyuni and the surrounding areas. There was 6 of us on the tour. We had a pretty cool group. There were two Dutch girls, one Chilean guy, and a couple from Spain, but the guy in the couple was Bolivian. The first stop was a train graveyard which contained locomotives from the late 18th and early 19th century, in the middle of the desert.
The next stop was to the Salt Flats. There we took our first group picture and several silly photos and what our driver/tour guide liked to call "magical photos" where you create optical illusions with the camera.
After our photo session we went to Inkawasi, also called Isla Pescado (Fish Island). The island looks like the shape of the fish. It is made of coral rock and forest like areas of cactus.
After we hiked around the island and had our lunch that our guide prepared for us, we had another photo session.
That night we stayed at the Salt Hotel where everything was made of salt, the beds, the tables, the chairs, everything. They only had electricity from 6pm to 10pm, so I took a hot shower while I could. I had to buy a ticket and stand in line for the shower but no big deal. It got pretty cold at night because of the altitude, but luckily I rented a sleeping bag. We hiked around the area around sunset where the sky looked incredible with different colors.
The next day we got up early to see some of the lakes where they had flamingos. I don't remember any of the lakes names but they were beautiful. There were also beautiful mountains and volcanos and we also saw this cute fox when we were driving.
This was our picnic lunch in front of our car, named Fernando. And this is us in the car. It was Felipe's birthday so the girls gave him a balloon to carry around all day.
This is the Salvador Dali desert, where the landscape looks like one of Dali's paintings.
Vicunyas (a type of llama) in the wild:
Our flamingo pose:
Llamas!!!
That night we stayed at a different hotel. It was pretty basic with no heating. We were at even higher elevation which made it more cold. There was one little fireplace that we all huddled around desperately. We drank lots of wine to help us with the cold. At night I couldn't bare the thought of taking my clothes off to change in to pyjamas. I kept all my clothes on, slept in the sleeping bag, and put blankets on top. I was still too cold and couldn't sleep. I was the coldest I had ever been in my life. Then we had to wake up at 5am. I brushed my teeth with the cold water from the sink and then my hand was freezing. I couldn't feel my fingers and toes in the car the next day. Bolivia is some rough times.
Well with frozen toes and hands we saw soem geysers. Geysers are this phenomenon near volcanoes where hot water and steam shoot out from the ground. We tried to warm our feet on it. But the whole area smelled like eggs. Finally we got to the hot springs. Some people swam in it, but I didn't want to take my clothes off when it was so cold. We just warmed our hands and feet in the hot springs so we could feel them again. Its amazing that the water was so hot... and it was natural. Crazy.
We went to one last lake, Laguna Verde I believe is the name. We took our last group picture there, our ice skating posing picture. After that some of us went on to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, and the rest went back to Uyuni, Bolivia.
The Salt Flat tour was definitely one of the greatest places in South America to visit, even though I had one of the coldest and roughest nights there, it was worth it. Our group was a lot of fun and the landscapes were amazing.
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