Bolivia - Salar de Uyuni

4 October 2010

Marius, Wendy, Geoff, Cecilia, Kerstin, Sean, Sarah

We spent the next four days in a group of eight in two 4x4s, piled high with fuel and spare tyres, travelling around the southwest corner of Bolivia. We had our two drivers/guides and a lovely wee cook called Maria who was doing this tour for the first time and was even more excited than us! Kerstin and I were in a car with Sean and Sarah from Oz and the other car had another couple of Aussies Cecilia and Geoff, a Dutch guy Marius and his Singaporean fiancee Wendy. All really lovely people.

The first day involved quite a lot of driving on dry, dusty, slightly perilous roads up into the mountains. There was lots of really amazing mountain scenery. We stopped for a really amazing sandwich lunch on a high plain filled with llamas, stopped in a couple of villages only to be surrounded by kids wanting money to have their pics taken, and got ourselves a flat tyre. We didn't realise what was going on till our drive, Alvaro, donned his boiler suit and started unloading the boot for tools. Clearly this is a regular occurrence as Alvaro got the job done quickly with minimum fuss.

We spent the night in what must have been part of someone's house. Maria cooked up a feast and we went to bed in the pitch darkness really early. It was absolutely bloody freezing. We must have been at about 4,000m altitude at this time, and despite sleeping in thermals, fleece, sleeping bag and a few blankets it was really really frosty and hard to sleep. The walls were made of adobe bricks and the roof just corrugated iron so there wasn't much in the way of insulation.

The following day, after copious amounts of warming hot chocolate and spoonfuls of restorative dulce de leche, we were on our way again, stopping off at a ghost town.  

Ghost town

Turns out their use of the words "ghost town" refers to the reason the place is abandoned rather than the fact of abandonment. Apparently the place was quite a thriving town with 27 churches, and a large population when foreigners brought food which killed off quite a few of the people. Then some of the remaining people left and at that point it was decided that the town was inhabited by the devil or ghosts so the remaining people left in the 1940s. The place is really eerie and strange now. It's hard to believe that such a large town could be populated in such an arid landscape. There is some llama farming and a bit of mining (there's still mining and piles of minerals lying here and there) but it doesn't seem enough to sustain a lot of people.

4,855m

We drove across little rivers (in big river beds - the place is prone to flash flooding in rainy season) which were still iced up until about lunchtime and on to some amazing high lakes, some with amazing colouring due to high quantities of minerals, and those with less toxicity were full of flamingoes. It always strikes me as so odd to see flamingoes out of what I consider their natural habitat of zoos and east Africa!!

Laguna Verde (green lake)

One of the lakes in particular, is green and apparently remains liquid at temperatures down to -21C due to the minerals in the water which is pretty impressive. At this point in the trip we were at about 4,500m and it was bloody cold in the wind and shade, but absolutely boiling in the sun, out of the wind. And despite the layers of fleeces and jumpers and raincoats we still had to wear sunscreen and sunglasses as the sun was so strong.

Vicuna

From there we drove past the Dali desert (so named because it looks like a Dali painting minus the clocks, rather than because he ever went there) to a series of geysers and hot springs which we all piled into. The springs were great in that they were really warm in a bloody freezing environment, and as an added bonus they didn't even smell of sulphur like most hot springs do. The only downer on the place were the composting loos located upstream from the hot springs which I thought a little odd!!

Geysers

After another freezing night we went on to see the red lagoon in the morning (which truly is very red and full of flamingoes) and from there past another series of coloured lakes and for a wee photo op at a series of very odd rocks in the desert.

Red lagoon

The rock that's supposed to look like a tree (and doesn't)

One looks like it should fall over at any time (some say it looks like a tree, but I reckon is more like a rock really) and others are just really odd shapes.

Poor excuse for an erupting volcano if you ask me!

Not quite garage calendar standard!

Lots more driving, some amazing scenery, and about a million photos of flamingoes later and we pulled up to a hostel made of salt for the night. 

Salt hotel

The walls, beds, tables, chairs etc were all made of salt bricks which was kind of odd. I resisted the urge to lick the walls. The special attraction of this place though, was not the salt architecture, but the opportunity for a shower which was lovely after three days of dust and strong sun!

Dawn at the Salar

Up before dawn we were up and on our way just as the sun was starting to pop up over the horizon. This was really the main reason for the trip - to visit the salt plains and see the sun rise over them.

Fact time:  the salt plains are the largest in the world at over 10,000 km2 at an altitude of around 3,500m with a variation of just 1m in altitude over the whole area. The area holds massive lithium reserves which will be needed if we all start driving electric cars. Apparently the World Bank tried to force Bolivia to invite international companies to mine the reserves but Bolivia has so far resisted which is completely their right. However, it seems that noone has any confidence of Bolivia's ability to mine the reserves themselves so it might all get a bit interesting if the world starts wanting the predicted amounts of lithium in the coming years.

For the moment the place seems fairly unspoilt, albeit covered in 4x4s carting tourists about. Development on the salt plains themselves are not allowed, and salt hotels and the like are only built around the edges.

On the island

Resisting the urge to start taking silly pictures just then we were driven out to an "island" called Incahuasi which is like a little hill sticking out of all the salt. The hill is all coral rock (so strange!) and covered in cacti. After a walk up the hill (really tough at altitude!) and brekkie we were off again to drive to the middle of nowhere on the flats to take a variety of daft pics.

After a really amazing few days with some great people we were driven back to reality and the horrible little town of Uyuni and a train graveyard and dropped off whilst the rest of the tour headed back to the starting point of Tupiza. There Kerstin and I hung around killing time until the nightbus for Potosi left at about 7pm.

Train graveyard