Salar de Uyuni 3 day tour

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originally uploaded by Hol Riz.

The Salar de Uyuni is the worlds largest salt desert. At up to 5000m it´s a breathless place in more ways than one. Created as the rising Andes trapped an inland sea which then evaporated leaving a salt flat 20m thick!

Because of the cold nights we rented a sleeping bag with fleas. Well okay thats not quite true the sleeping bag sales lady said to us in a strong spanish accent "I have the best sleeping bags, they all have fleas" we looked unsure and so she carried on "honestly they have really good fleas", Great, we thought but good or bad we don´t really want fleas so started to leave when she pulled one of these ´flea-ridden´ bags and said "look fleas" and pointed to the fleece on the inside of the bag - doh! she meant fleece!

We jumped in our jeep with four dutch people, our driver and cook, and started our tour with a flying visit to a steam train graveyard. Rusting hulks left to die in the desert. Great fun clambering on and in all the old engines!

Driving on we were quickly surrounded by a vast expanse of dazzling white salt stretching as far as the eye could see in every direction. After a quick visit to a hotel made completely of salt blocks, we headed on to an island covered in giant cactii in the middle of the salt. The view from the top of the island was truly alien as the flat, dry, blazing white sea appeared to be frozen in mid-lick at the shore of the island.

We spent our first night at a small refuge with no running water and just a small generator for lights. After a fun couple of beers with the Dutch the lights started to flicker, prompting us to head to bed early with only our head-torches for light.

The second day we left the salt flat behind and headed into the wierd and wonderful landscapes of the Bolivian Alto-Plano (high planes). We visited lakes coloured red, pink, green and white and saw mountains of equally vibrant hues. The lakes would have looked at home on any planet apart from earth, the flocks of red flamingos being the only clue to our earthly location.

The second night was spent in a dormitory at high altitude (brrrr) We all filled every bottle we could find with hot water to keep us warm and hunkered down to sleep. The third day we awoke at 5am and got into our jeep. The temperature was -10 Celcius and the heater was less than working so we kept our sleeping bags around us we drove into a volcanic valley. The first stop in the murky morning light was a gas geyser of powerful proportions. Searing out of the ground the plume of eggy smelling steam blasted 20m into the air like a dragons breath. A quick photo (or none as our batteries were too cold to work) and we continued to the bottom of the valley where vast pools of bubbling steaming hissing smoking mud created a crescendo of noise like a power station. Still -10c half the group stayed in the car! At dawn we arrived at a thermal pool where we stripped off (yes -10c) and jumped into the glorious hot pool (our first wash in three days) Wow what a sensation! The rest of the day was spent driving through sandy desert stopping now and then to admire the amazing rock formations.

Throughout the tour our driver had played a casette tape with seemingly only one very annoying tune on it. After three days of eating, singing and even dreaming about this song Holland finally fliped ´amigo please could we have the radio on?´. Everyone in the jeep breathed a digh of relief as the radio static became a song, until we realised what song it was.. the same song as on the casette!

Upon our return to Uyuni (the famously hard to get out of place) we were told that the train tickets we had paid for were not available as the entire train was sold out from the first station. So we were faced by a choice. Spend two more precious days in Uyuni until the next train (dull), or try to jump on the train to Argentina at 2:30 am with no ticket and hope for the best. We decided to go for it! Being a Sunday the whole town shut at 10pm and we went to wait in the station. We were herded into the ¨waiting room¨, a freezing warehouse of sleeping (stinking) locals. By midnight the temperature was well below zero and even wearing all our clothes and more we were absolutely undescribably freezing and it was only when we had forgotten what warmth felt like that the train rolled into the station. Like a pair of ninjas hiding behind pillars we waited until we saw an open door and dived onto the train. Sitting in the first available seats we found we were quickly moved on by ticket toting locals. Over and over again we were moved on until we got to the last carriage of the train and found two seats together. We sat down and pretended to be asleep. The carriage door opened and we heard the rustling of the guard. Eyes closed, fingers crossed we were poked by the guard. ¨Boletos por favour¨¨he said.
¨Errrr No tengo (don´t have)¨ we said.
¨OK 70 Bolivianos each¨
¨Errr no problemo senor!!!¨, we had done it. We had tickets with seat numbers and everything. The carriage was so warm and cosy that we snugged down a well deserved 9 hours sleep. Onwards to the Argentinian border!

Holland and Becky