We stumbled into our last stop in Bolivia, the town of Uyuni, located deep in the Altiplano at over 3,600m (12,000 feet) in elevation, feeling a little under the weather. Fortunately, the town is very small and there was only a short drive from the airport to our hotel…a hotel made of salt!
The hotel was nice and the rooms were very spacious, but more importantly for whatever bug had knocked us down, they were ready for us to check in as soon as we arrived early that morning. So for the first day in Uyuni we just crashed.
The next day we were scheduled to do a tour of the salt flats. We were getting used to these South American tours by now. You’re driven around by a driver who speaks only when spoken to, and another person sometimes generously referred to as a guide (some are excellent, some are not – just your luck). Why these are separate jobs is still a mystery. You pay your money for the tour, but that doesn’t include entry fees or anything extra and there are obligatory stops at tourists traps where you’re strongly encouraged to buy souvenirs. This tour was no different.
Our first stop was to visit no longer used locomotives. We couldn’t really understand our guide so we’re not quite sure what they were used for and why they’re no longer in use. We got the impression that he didn’t really know either, but that’s okay. Not to worry, the kids had fun climbing on them while we tried not to imagine them cutting their hands on the sharp and rusty metal that poked out from everywhere. Another activity that would never be allowed in the states…add it to the list!
Our next stop was a salt processing facility. Again, we had some questions about the process but by the third time our poor guide said either, “I don’t know” or, “I don’t remember” we backed off feeling genuinely bad about it. Still very interesting.
Then we headed into the salt flats. These are the world’s largest salt flats at over 10,000 sq km (they are about 100x larger than the Bonneville Salt Flats in the USA). The salt flats were formed when prehistoric lakes dried up (there was a series of them from 30,000 to 11,000 years ago).
It was a unique drive, but unfortunately those sick ones had used all of their energy on the earlier stops and missed most of the drive.
The drive was very relaxing and you completely lose any sense of perspective as it all looks exactly the same. In addition to being a strange, unique world of white ground and blue sky, Uyuni is also incredible for its flatness. The average elevation variation over the entire salt flats is less than a meter! And just to make the environment a bit more extreme, we were still up at about 12,000 feet (3,650m) in elevation.
We stopped somewhere near the middle and here is where our guide really came into his own. The expanse of white and total flatness lends itself to taking some fun perspective photos. The guide had great ideas for photos taking advantage of the lack of perspective and was very adept at taking them. We had a great time with it, especially little N, who was totally in his element being in ALL of our pictures, while the other two sick kids were resting in the car, only coming out under duress for a few family photos.
After a quick stop for lunch and the obligatory souvenir stop, we headed to one of the ‘islands’ in the middle of the salt flats. Those of us that were up to it (we were down to three at this point) hiked around it and were rewarded with some amazing views.
A long and relaxing drive through the salt flats back to our hotel ended another typical South American tour and another great memory.
We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Uyuni, so much so we decided to extend our stay by a couple of hours! We were due to catch the bus to Atacama at 5:30am the next day, but we did not make it due to illness – by this time L was on the mend, but now M had caught the bug and she and A just couldn’t make it for the early bus. We went back to the hotel where they passed out for a few hours, and C was able to negotiate a half price fare for the 12:30 bus and somehow got everyone on that one.
So with that, our week in Bolivia was up. We had trouble getting in, trouble getting out and felt sick in the middle, but Bolivia was still worth it. Some great experiences, fantastic accommodations with amazing views, and nice people.
