Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

After our brief but enjoyable time in La Paz, Bolivia we boarded a 12-hour overnight bus to the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat expanse in the world. To say that the bus ride went smoothly would be a complete lie; it was like driving over a corrugated washboard. It was not fun and unfortunately kept us awake for the majority of the journey over less than ideal gravel roads. Fortunately we arrived safely in Uyuni and exiting the bus in freezing temperatures met a representative from Tour Uyuni, who ushered us to a local Chinese restaurant to await our planned salt flat tour in a few hours time. It was a weird few hours made all the more strange by our lack of sleep, an improvised heating system consisting of a propane tank with a heater on the end that they set up for us (definitely not safe), and a stereo system blasting Backstreet Boys pop music as if it was a dance party - just at 8:00 in the morning.

Once the tour finally started we were both relived to get out of the restaurant and on to the white salt flats stretching off to the horizon. The tour itself had 6 tourists (including ourselves) and a local driver who commanded a nice Land Rover. We started by visiting a train graveyard, a landscape dominated by rusting old hulks of metal but quite interesting to climb and explore. After this brief visit we passed through a dilapidated village and typical handicraft vendors before finally hitting the open expanse of the salt flats. We first passed by salt collectors who were shoveling the salt into conical piles for export and then a local museum constructed of extracted salt blocks. At this point we ventured out to the salts to try our hand at some trick photography. Since there are no trees or buildings and only blazing white stretching off indefinitely there is no sense of distance or perspective. So using some objects at hand – camera, shoes, and later water bottles and backpack – we positioned ourselves in the distance with these objects in the foreground and had some fun.

After driving for about an hour we then arrived at a small island surrounded by the brilliant white where we had a lunch prepared by the tour operator before setting off to explore the island on foot. Two things immediately stood out: 1. the island was covered in tall cacti (some over 9m in height and over 900 years old); and 2. all the rocks were coral. The salt flats are the remnants of an ancient seabed and as the water evaporated or the sea dried up all that was left was the perfectly level salt flat, and these islands which would have been a coral atoll or reef at some point in history. We had an awesome time climbing to the top of the island where we enjoyed the unparalleled views over the salt flat expanse with cacti in the foreground and the Andes Mountains and volcanoes in the distance. It was stunning to look at and unlike anything either one of us has ever seen. It remains one of the highlights of our trip thus far.

Following our descent and return to the Land Rover we then headed back to Uyuni but stopped one last time in the middle of the salt flats to have some more fun with the camera. Our favourite pictures from this stop will follow in a separate blog post. The brief stop was unforgettable as it placed us in the middle of the brilliant white desert with no one around or any sense of civilization. It is a primal and harsh landscape but nonetheless absolutely beautiful in its sheer starkness, and the amazing contrast of colour between the white ground and clear blue sky above. We can only imagine the display of millions of stars if one were to camp out on the salt flats overnight.

Back in Uyuni we grabbed a quick dinner (largely forgettable) before retiring early at a small hostel in town as we had bus tickets booked to bring us to the Argentina border town of La Quiaca the next morning at 5:30am. That night was one of the coldest nights of our lives as the hotel had no heaters and being in the middle of the desert the temperatures plunged well below freezing. We did our best by sleeping in toques and long-johns and with 6 heavy wool blankets over top. It worked to some degree and being tired from the previous overnight bus ride we slept well enough. That aside it was well worth enduring the cold night and bumpy bus ride to experience such a beautiful and pristine landscape.