A big tourist attraction in the little visited Bolivia is the Salar de Uyuni or the Salt Flats. I started my 4 day tour in Tupiza, stopping at many breathtaking sceneries along the way before arriving at the main attraction.
Feb 15, 2018
The first day of the tour was mostly spent sitting in the car, stopping for lunch and any time we wanted to take pictures of the scenery. We also took a short walk around El Pueblo Fantasma. It is a ghost town, of what used to be an Inca city, now in ruins.
Feb 16, 2018
The 2nd day involved more activities. The first was a short ride away to the hot springs. The view from there was beautiful, with the sun shining bright from a blue sky. Lucky for us, our guides told us to go to the hot springs in the morning since most tourists would arrive in the afternoon. Not only that but while eating lunch at around 1pm, it started pouring. In the afternoon, we stopped at a few lagunas for flamingo watching and to the geisers.
Feb 17, 2018
On the 3rd day, we were headed to a desert with lots of rock formations. With your imagination, you could find all types of animals. Climbing these rocks was the activity of the morning. Next, we headed to La Laguna Negra (black) so called because of the fungi in the water making it appear black. We stopped at a viewpoint, allowing a top view of the Anaconda river, before heading to the Salar de Uyuni in the evening, in time for the sunset. We stayed in the town of Colchani for the last night, a mere 30-minute drive to the Salar.
Feb 18, 2018
The last day called for a very early wake up to see the sunrise. The best pictures involved getting into the freezing cold water, making our feet numb very quickly. Under the sun’s rays however, the shallow waters warm up quickly. Since it is now the rainy season, the salt flats are filled with water, allowing a mesmerizing mirror effect. The water is clear and shallow enough to still see the salt plates in the shape of pentagons and hexagons. We headed back into the city of Uyuni to end the tour in the afternoon.
The guides for the tour were amazing and fully committed. At one point, there was a river to drive through and not knowing the depth of it, the driver waded through the waters. Esther, the cook and English guide for the tour, surprised us with a bottle of wine from her home town of Tarija for the last night’s dinner. Most people on the tour have been travelling for months and kept saying the meals during the tour were the best they’ve had.
All of us in the tour soon parted ways in Uyuni to catch our buses, to La Paz, to Chile and to Sucre for myself. I took the bus with another girl from the tour to Potosi. From there, we got a truffi with some locals to Sucre. Arriving at 1:30 am the following morning, we were exhausted yet delighted to be finally at our destination.