Salar de Uyuni, Salt Flats, Bolivia 30th Oct - 1st Nov

The next morning, fairly early, we made our way to the bus station (after a somewhat eventful start to the day – me on the bathroom floor feeling faint) oh how my family doesn’t envy Derek!

Got to the station and I proceeded to throw up in the middle of the bus station – not a good sign for an 11 hour bus ride with no bathroom! I sat on that bus, as still as I could and wished those hours to fly by. Now Derek blames the alcohol, I however blame Bolivia! And the subsequent 5 days proceeded to be not so well…traveller’s sickness they call it – the only remedy, being in a 10metre range of a decent bathroom, which in Bolivia is hard to find! Haha! And all this whilst on a 3 day 4x4 trek through the Salt Flats, not fun!!Neither for Derek who heard all about it!

(Ok, sorry that’s the hypochondriac in me talking…back to the tour!)

So we arrived in the town of Uyuni. Which is where the Salar de Uyuni (Salt Flats) tour starts from. It’s a tiny desert town, with unfortunately a lot of rubbish and litter surrounding the town. Something that made us angry about Bolivia in general – they have the most amazing natural resources – tourist heavens, and yet they know nothing about zapping it in the zeebee can and general conservation!!

So we spent a night in Uyuni and set off earlyish the next morning on our Salt Flats tour. There were 6 of us (all girls bar Derek), our driver/guide, his wife the cook and their 3year old child! In a comfortable Land Cruiser, we set off.

What an absolutely amazing first day – so, so breath-taking! This blinding white salt terrain for miles and miles! We initially stopped off at the Train Graveyard (disused trains that have rusted and become a bit of tourist photo spot), then a salt factory (short explanation on how they farm the salt and eventually package it – a very low key operation), a salt hotel, then stopped for lunch at Isla Incahuasi – an old coral island sticking out of the Salt Flats covered in cacti, hundreds of years old. Millions of years ago, the salt flats were covered with water and rumoured to be part of Lake Titicaca, with lots of coral underwater islands – what remains now that the water has disappeared, are about 30 odd coral/rock masses in the middle of nowhere. One of which is Isla Incahuasi. Truly bizarre! After lunch we got to take some whacky photo’s where the stark white backdrop plays havoc with perception. We all had a good laugh at these! Pretty fantastic really!

International flags at the Salt Hotel, not sure why the SA flag has such prominence, but all good!

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Tess "working" the salt

Jurassic Park on the Salt Flats! Me in it's clutches!

Our basic room made from salt blocks!

We ended our day off at our fairly rustic accommodation, so thankful for a warm shower though! Our room was made from bricks of salt!

Next morning we set off and discovered a totally different kind of terrain…lots of desert and stark mountains. First up was the active volcano (on the Chilean and Bolivian border) called Volcan Ollague – it was smoking and everything!

Then we came across dozens of lakes, each amazing in themselves and ranged from various shades of blues and greens. Some what a little low on account of it being the dry season, but you still got the most magnificent reflections of the surrounding mountains in the water, along with hundreds of flamingos!

Wow, we didn’t realise that there are different types of flamingos with different colourings, but all were absolutely beautiful. Their reflections on the lake made the most incredible photo.  They feed on all the algae and microorganisms found in the lake. We thought being such a tropical kind of bird they would be affected by the high altitude of this area, but clearly not!

We passed incredible rock formations, one of the well-known ones being Arbol de Piedra, the Spanish word for tree, as it looks like a tree. Just sticking out in the middle of nowhere. Quite amazing.

Yes, so as we travelled further, so we got higher and higher in altitude. We arrived at our accommodation early that afternoon, to find it about a hundred metres from this incredible lake called Laguna Colorada. The lake was red! With the red contrast and brown mountains, it looked alien, like nothing we’d seen before. We braved semi-gale force winds and lots of stinging sand to walk a way around this lake and up to a great viewpoint. Again, flamingos feasted. Now altitude that night was 4200metres (same as our first night when we did our Peru Salkantay trek – so high!!) and it was very, very cold! All 6 of us slept in a dorm, the girls were laughing at Derek and I, as he literally slept in his boxers and I was sleeping in everything including my waterproof jacket, beanie and gloves!

There were a couple other tour groups staying at the same accommodation (very rustic I might add - no shower, 2 toilets that had to be manually flushed and no basin) and after dinner, sitting around our table at about 7:45pm we were politely asked to keep it down as people were trying to sleep… a seriously early morning start was ahead of us and we soon took it as our queue to hit the hay.

We woke up at 4am, freezing cold – it must have easily been -5degrees?!In the dark our Land Cruiser drove towards some natural Sol de Manana geysers. Just as dawn was breaking, we got out of our vehicle, some a little more hesitantly than others on account of the cold, and saw these billows of steam pouring from the ground. All this natural power in the middle of nowhere is rather fascinating.

From there, now about 6am, we arrived at a lake with natural thermal springs. Still absolutely freezing, Derek whipped his boardshorts on and was the first out of about 6 groups to climb in and enjoy! He said despite it being really cold outside, once inside the water, it was incredibly warm and he stayed in there for a good half hour! With the steam coming off the water, I must say it looked incredibly inviting but the thought of having to get out in the cold was not so exciting. Quite funny watching people getting out and drying themselves off whilst steam poured from their hair!

Some breakfast and we were on our way to the last amazing sight... an incredibly green lake, aptly named Laguna Verde. The photos don’t quite do it justice. A beautiful lake with a mountain representing the Chilean border, reflecting serenely in it. Too beautiful and a fantastic way to end our tour. Our vehicle dropped us off at the Bolivian border where we said our goodbyes and waited for our connecting bus over the border and through to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile.

Our group in front of Laguna Verde