From La Paz we took an overnight bus to Uyuni in the southwest of Bolivia. The bus ride was a bit bumpy and chilly. Yes, that pic below is our bus window had frozen over!!!!
Arriving in the early hours of the morning we searched to find the right tour company to do a tour of the Uyuni salt flats. We had heard some horror stories from other travellers of dodgy 4 wheel drives and drunk drivers so we were a bit picky. We found a great company Estrella del Sur and had a really experienced driver called Valero. We spent the next three days with 6 of us (Pablo, Anya, Tom, Emma and us) roaming the Uyuni salt flats in a four wheel drive. Our first stop was a train graveyard where all the old steam trains have been left which has turned in to a bit of a tourist attraction.
The salt flats are absolutely amazing they have houses made of salt blocks which have to be covered when it rains but luckily it doesn`t rain too much there. The house inthe pìcture below is made out of salt.
The salt flats themselves are kind of a cross between snow and a desert. They have the whiteness of snow but are all cracked like you find in the desert. The great thing about the salt flats is there is no perspective so we managed to do a few music video style shots.
In the middle of salt flats is this crazy cactus island. The slat flats used to be under the sea until the tectonic plates decided to move and shunt this place 3500m above sea level.You can still see the remenants of coral and it is covered in these huge cacti, which seems really surreal in the middle of the salt flats.
From here we stayed a night in a salt hotel, surprisingly warm. But it was a pretty early night as the lights are solar powered so they go out at 8pm.
Day two started with a visit to some pre Inca mummies dating back to something like 800 AD. It´s a bit creepy as they are really well preserved and many of them were sitting up still clothed. They were placed in these coral tombs where they still remain today.
The rest of the day was spent driving through some of what must be earths most dramatic landscapes. This was accompanied by a Bolivian soundtrack with the only english song a rolling stones cover of Angie, who would have thought?
Our day finished at the red lake, which is true to its name. The contrast of the red lake against the desert landscape was amazing. To add to the surreal landscape the lake is also home to flamingoes. Normally there are over 4,000 flamingoes but as it was Winter most had headed North for the warmer temperatures but seeing pink flamingoes in a red lake is pretty amazing.
That night it was another early night but a bit harder to sleep with the temperature getting down to minus 15. We had an early start as we were off to see the geysers at sunrise. Amazing to see but hard to appreciate as it was so cold. Luckily from here we went to some thermal pools to warm up our frozen bodies.
The scenery on the last day of our tour didn´t disappoint. Among the dessert landscape there were crazy rock formations like the ´tree rock´. Perhaps one of the most beautiful places we visited was the green lake; the green colour comes from the high quantities of arsenic and copper in the water.
From here we dropped the rest of our group on the Chiliean border and managed to spot a few foxes as well. We then picked up another group whose jeep had broken down and headed back to Uyuni. Our plan was to head to Sucre, however, due to bus strikes we couldn´t get there and caught the bumpy overnight bus back to La Paz.
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