Uyuni 9/14/12 - 9/18/12

To get to Uyuni from La Paz we could have chosen an extra bumpy night bus, or the cheaper, more exciting 7 hour train by day.  Matt had never been on a train for more than an hour, so it was an easy choice for us.  Not to mention it was about a quarter of the price of the bus!

We decided to do Bolivia a little out of order and head to Uyuni before the rest of Bolivia because while in La Paz we made plans via facebook with an English couple that we met while in Colombia, Sam and Katy, to try and do the Salt Flat tour together.  Our first day in Uyuni was basically a sit around and wait day, because there was not much else to, and Sam and Katy were not due in town until that afternoon.  Luckily, they got there as planned, we met them in the square, and we squared away our tour for the next day.

Picture of Uyuni, courtesy of Sam and Katy

The main attraction that causes tourists to flood to Uyuni is the multi-day tours of the salt flat, Salar de Uyuni, and an area known as the Southwest Circuit.  The salt flat itself is a vast, barren landscape that extends over 12,000 sq. km of pure white salt, looks more like snow. 

We visited during the dry season, but we heard the salt flat during the wet season is even more incredible, because the water on the salt creates a mirror effect (picture courtesy of the internet :-)).

The salt flat was formed centuries ago when this area of Bolivia was actually covered by ocean until the Andes Mountains rose up and then the water evaporated from the area and created an enormous area of pure salt.  We chose to do a 3 day/2 night tour with a company called Quechua Connection and we loved it!

It seems that everyone refers to the vehicles used for the tour transport as "jeeps", but Matt didn't agree because each vehicle was either a Toyota Land Cruiser or its rich cousin version, Lexus. 

Our first day started off with a quick visit to a train cemetery before heading on to the salt flat.

We spent the day exploring the salt flat while enjoying the following activities: mountain biking,

lunch in a hotel made of all salt,

picture taking session on the salt flats (it's popular to take pictures playing around with perspectives because there's no other objects in sight to serve as reference points),

"Cactus Island" (The majority of flora on the island is the huge cacti that grow there at about 1 cm a year.  The largest and oldest cactus, that had fallen, was almost 12 meters tall and estimated at 1200 years old),

Pia Pia cave,

and watching the sunset on the salt flat.

Perhaps one of the best experiences of the day was after dinner when our guide, Jose, took us back out on the flats for star gazing.  We have both seen some great Texas night skies growing up, but this was absolutely SPECTACULAR.  Neither of us have ever seen anything like it, and the two city kids from London definitely hadn't; therefore, everyone agreed it was an amazing experience!  We were able to see the Milk Way perfectly clear, lots of constellations, and a handful of shooting stars.  There are no pictures that can even come close to representing what we were able to see.

Honestly, our next few days were pretty simple as the guide drove us around on dirt roads similar to those Texas ranch roads back home and we stopped every now and then to view a tourist attraction:  red lagoons, green lagoons, lots of flamingos, volcanoes, big rocks, and important stops for when we needed a "wee".

That being said, our last morning we were up at 4:30 AM in order to view the geysers (not the old people, but the springs that shoot out hot water/ steam) at full activity.  At the first place we stopped, we were standing around looking at the geyser and taking our pictures, still a little dreary from being up so early.  Then all of a sudden, Jose, our guide, took off running and jumped right through the huge spout of steam.  It was quite surprising, but of course, we all had to do it too and it made for quite an exciting time with a lot of laughter (despite the sulphur in the lungs making us cough afterwards and the freezing cold temperature).  

The geyser field was impressive and we ran around and checked it out fairly quickly so that our fingers and toes didn't get frostbite ;-).  The views of the sunrise were also very pretty.

After the geysers we headed to a hot spring pool and our breakfast spot.  It was pretty nippy outside, was probably in the 30s, at 4,800 m but our group didn't pass on stripping down to our swimsuits and jumping in the hot spring pool.  The water was nice and hot and felt great!  The worst part was having to get out of the hot water and back into the cold air.  It was actually so cold that once we got out, changed, and hung our swim suits out to dry, they were frozen stiff in a matter of minutes!

Hot spring pool later in the day.

After our last breakfast together we headed to the Chilean border to drop off Sam and Katy.  It was FREEZING, windy, overcast, and in the middle of nowhere.  Once we had them situated, said our farewells,  shed a few tears (jk), we headed back on the 7 hour journey to Uyuni with Jose and a caravan of other Land Cruisers.

While in Uyuni, we stayed at Hotel Avenida across from the Train Station for a small amount of $4.50 each. It was very basic but got the job done, was clean, and had hot showers.  No picture :-(.