Salty haven

Whilst Bolivians celebrated Todos Santos and The Day of the Dead this weekend, some of us took the opportunity of a four day weekend to see a little more of Bolivia and decided to travel to Uyuni and the salt flats. We took an 11 hour night bus on Thursday evening which turned out to be very comfortable and spacious, however sadly nothing can make 11 hours of Bolivian roads ‘comfortable’. The only benefit of not being able to sleep for more than about ten minutes was that I was able to see the landscape change and emerge as the sun rose in the early hours of Friday morning.

Wherever you go in Bolivia you feel sure that you must have accidently left the country and gone to some strange land, as the landscape changes so dramatically from minute to minute. Leaving busy, mountainous and warm La Paz we headed for what began to look more and more like the US mid-west (perhaps slightly post-apocalyptic). Dry, dusty and flat, the sun rose up over this semi-desert just as we came towards the town of Uyuni. Everyone commented on how odd a place this was; it essentially existed purely for the tourist trade, made up of numerous bus companies and tour operators and swarming with backpackers.

We arrived early on Friday morning and made our way round a few of the operators who all seemed to offer exactly the same tour for a variety of prices so we decided to go with the cheapest, which was 700 Bolivianos (about £63). This was a three day tour that included two nights accommodation, food and drink, a pretty comfy jeep, driver, petrol and all the landscapes you can imagine to see.  

The first day of the tour started in the salt flats. This vast plane of salt stands at almost 3,700m above sea level, measures up to 10,500 square miles (considerably bigger than Wales) and up to 10m thick in some places. Standing in the middle of the salt you lose all sense of depth and distance and not even the best photo can portray the sheer scale of the landscape. In the wet season it turns into the world’s largest natural mirror, although it was dry when we visited.

Our driver was Javier, a sweet man who found us very amusing and claimed to speak no English, despite laughing at our conversations and responding to whispered English requests to each other asking how to say ‘can you turn up the music’ in Spanish. He took us to the train cemetery, a collection of old steam trains deserted in the desert-like environment just outside Uyuni, just short of the salt flats. The trains were all lined up one in front of the other for hundreds of meters, rusty and covered in graffiti, making for some good photographs.

We also went to the Isla de los Pescadores which was a waterless island in the middle of the salt flats covered in giant cacti and with incredible views across the plains. We were served lunch on a stone table on the salt and then paid the equivalent of a few pounds to walk around the island, taking in the breathtaking views. The walk was tough, the altitude difference between La Paz and Uyuni really showing, despite being acclimatised to 3,400m, the extra couple of hundred meters really take their toll!

The way the tours worked was that each tour had its own jeep or jeeps and they followed essentially the same route around the whole of Uynui and the national parks, so we ended up meeting up with the same people (including two of our team leaders) at most points.

The first night we stayed in the Hotel de Sal (salt hotel) which was well above my expectations considering the price of the tour. It was a beautifully decorated hostel with dorm rooms and a great view of the salt flats to watch the sunset. The next morning we drove to an active volcano about 3 hours from the salt flats and took pictures and relaxed on the rocks from a distance. After that we drove to the first of a number of lakes which was the home to a species of flamingo, hundreds of which were feeding on the shores.

After this we entered the national park where there was another incredible lake, this time called the ‘red lake’. The reason for this became strikingly obvious as we approached. If I hadn’t been there I’m not sure I would have believed the pictures. The lake was so red it looked rather brutally like a massacre of flamingos had taken place. We were told that it was in fact, less morbidly, the colour of the sediment in the lake that made it so red. That night we stayed in the national park at a hostel on the edge of the lake.

The next morning was an early start- 4.30- but the morning was worth facing the freezing cold of the dawn. The first place we stopped was the geysers, at an incredible 5000m above sea level where hot water and sulphur bubbled to the surface creating vast quantities of steam (and odour!). It was an incredible sight, despite the early hour and freezing temperatures. The next stop was perhaps the most anticipated- the hot springs. Stripping off in the freezing cold at 7am took courage but the water was so beautifully warm and relaxing we couldn’t bear to get out for over an hour. After that we hastily got dressed back into jumpers, hats and gloves and headed for the third lake, more of a yellowy green colour because of the mineral content, and then to the valley of rocks, an incredible stretch of artistically eroded rocks, forming a kind of city sky line against the red mountains.

The whole weekend was incredible and despite hearing bad reviews about the lack of food and constantly breaking down jeeps, we were so impressed with the experience and didn’t want to leave this salty haven we had found. In just 6 weeks Bolivia has already proved to be a diverse country in landscape, people and experience and I’m confident the next six weeks will offer more of the same. Now, back to work!