La Paz to Uyuni (Southern Bolivia) - Saltar de Uyuni & the Lake district

The trip down through Bolivia kicked off with a night bus from La Paz that bumped & shook for 12 dark freezing hours to Uyuni, the tourist jump off point to the salt deserts. I was travelling with this guy I’d met on the Gap tour from Lima to La Paz. I was travelling with Rob from the Gap tour. We arrived at 7am & had to kill a few hours until the tour shop opened so dumped our bags & set off for gap some food in the only place open, a seedy cafe, so we, along with a few other back packers squeezed in to warm up.

Post food, 6 of squeezed into a Toyota land cruiser; a Japanese couple, an Israeli student, a Flemish cyclist & the 2 of us. We were driven by an old, sun beaten man named Hernester & accompanied by a young local lady who cooked for us. I learnt some Spanish from the Flemish guy, Rubin who had started his trip in Quito & had taken an organised trip to catch up on his schedule. Cycling the length of South America – a little hard core – a little nuts me thinks!! The driver & his cook kept themselves to themselves but were friendly enough.

Our first port of call was a train graveyard located 3kms south to Uyuni. The coal powered locs were replaced with Diesel ones years before, but the dry atmosphere has preserved them over time, the other side of Uyuni we stopped briefly at a Salt factory, to be bled of 2 boliviano to be shown how they shovel up, dry, refine & then bag salt up (it’s not very complicated & involves all of the said steps above in order, none the less, standing on the salt stacks does create a good picture the same!!!

We then headed out into the Saltar de Uyuni, a vast, open & flat salt plain that was originally at sea level but with some serious tectonic action the sea bed now finds itself some +3000 metres high & battered by astrong sun UV that has dried out a7m thick crust of Salt that´s strong enough to be driven on. The palin is punctuated by islands of coral, such as Isla de Pescardo, now covered in Cacti as pictured.

No camping is allowed on the Saltar & historic salt hotels are being relocated to the edges of teh plains to preserve the natural beauty; so after a good days worth of driving we headed to one of the Salt hotels located on the plain edge & played cards until both dark, cold & eventual power cut conspired to drive us to bed. To call the basic dormatory shape building a hotel is pushing the boundries of teh word´s definition as the walls are simply blocks of cut salt & there´s little inside that gives much comfort. BUT if your definition can be distilled down to 4 walls & a roof then you could just about call the place a hostel.

6am then next morning we sitting outside the hotel watching the dawn rise over the Saltar, a -5C experience that was not just a a great sight to see but also an acclimatisation exercise for both the temperatures & equally early starts to come.

The landscape constantly changed from Sandstones, to shingle screed, lava flows (to surf on) & steamimg lagoons of red, green & white algae. Therer are few visible animals are by day other than llama & the ubiquitos South American street dogs but birds were more evident & despite the mass migration a few Flamingos had decided to brave the winter temperatures & pose kindly for photos.

We continued deeper into the national park towards Chile & Northern Argentina & the landscape become more & more baron. Rather than find an living trees we visited “the rock tree” & decided the Tree of Rock was a far more appropriate name so struck so rock band looks..... you can tell we were starting to be dillusional.

The last morning was a 5am start. We cut across bumpy tracks in the dark reaching the steaming Volcanic geysers at dawn. It was simply freezing. The hot steam did little to warm our rapidly cooling digits so we stayed long enough for a few photos before descending to a lower hot spring with swimming baths :) !!!

I met an Irish guy, David on another 4x4 & together we crossed the Bolivian-Chilean border whilst everyone else turned around & headed back to Uyuni. It has to be the most desolate border crossing I've been through, one shack & a Welcome to Chile sign covered in snow. We´d pre-arranged a short transfer later to San Pedro del Atacama, in Chile & were glad to hop on a warm bus to escape being in the middle of nowhere. From San Pedro I jumped on a short bus ride to Calama airport where I journeyed further South to Santiago to pick up my penultimate organized tour to Benos Aires.