Uyuni...Home of the world´s largest salt flat

10-16-08

So the second we arrived in Uyuni we got hit up by a guy to do a tour of the Salt Flats. This was our plan so we followed him back to his agency. We booked a 2 night three day tour of the Salt Flats and surrounding areas. 2 hours later we were in a Toyota Landcruiser that was probably about 7 or 8 years old and in pretty good condition. Same story as always 19 people have died on these tours since May. But we made sure the driver did not smell of alcohol and the person sitting in the front seat had the job of making sure the driver did not fall asleep at the wheel. Little did we know we were traveling with about 100 gallons of gasoline above our head so we figured later this is why a collision between two jeeps killed everybody in both jeeps. You can just as well die walking down the street in the states. You never know what might happen so you can´t let a couple of deaths scare you out of doing something. At least this is the mentality you have to try to take in these countries. So the first thing we did was head straight for the train cemetary which to my understanding is where all the trains for the past 100 years or so in this area are retired. It was pretty interesting. I wasn´t sure what the point was but it was a nice stop. We then went to the Salt Flats which are 12000 square km of salt that goes about 10 meters or 30 feet deep. It is an incredible amount of salt. We were told that this whole area used to be a prehistoric sea but that didn´t really explain why all the salt was here. Anyway it was awesome. We stopped for lunch on an "island" called fish island. The lunch was steak and rice and it was actually really good. We were pleasantly surprised. We contined on to where we would be staying that night. We dropped our belongings off at the hotel and went to these caves that housed fossilized kelp. This was pretty cool since we were about 10,000 feet above sea level looking at kelp. We then went to another cave that supposedly used to have mummies in it but according to our guide the mummies disappeared in 2003. Kind of strange but that is what he said. We watched the sunset and then went back to the hotel, which happened to be made out of salt bricks. Right down the the beds everything was salt. It was great to stay here except that salt got on everything. Dinner was chicken and potatoes which once again was very good. After the Salkantay trek we were believing it was impossible to cook for a large group of people since Salkantay had 3 cooks and the food for 11 of us was crap. This was one lady cooking for 17 and the food overall was very good. It just takes a woman´s touch I guess. We played some cards and went to bed early.

10-17-08

We woke up at 5:30 and drove through a very interesting fossilized coral field. On our way to the second site the other jeep we were driving with got a flat tire. Their spare tire was worn bald so they had to use ours. So now two jeeps are traveling through barren wilderness with no spare tires. Great. After that we drove to lunch and viewed Flamingos feeding in a very shallow lake. I´m starting to think all the Flamingos that were supposed to be in the Galapagos moved to Bolivia to get away from the tourists. Flamingos in the Galapagos=4, Flamingos in Bolivia=a billion. After lunch we went to a blue lake that had Flamingos. We drove through a river bed in which the other jeep got stuck in the mud so we helped push them free. The other jeep had some problems on this day. Then we stopped at these very interesting rock formations. The photos posted explain them better than I can. We continued on to a lake that is completely red. The guide told us that it is red because there is bacteria in the lake that when stirred up by the wind it turns red. This is also the nesting area for about 40,000 Flamingos so we saw a lot more. We stayed at a hostel about 20 minutes from the lake.

10-17-08

We woke at 4am and went straight the these steam geysers that were close to the hostel. It was windy so it looked more like boiling pools with steam coming out of them than geysers. I still enjoyed it. We then went to the hotsprings which I decided against because there were already about 40 people crammed into this little pool. We ate breakfast and continued on to another area of the desert which inspired many of Salvador Dali´s most famous paintings After this we headed to a turquoise lake (same reason for being turquoise as the red lake, just turquoise) and then headed back to the other side of the red lake. We then continued on for about 6 hours back to Uyuni. It is a lot of driving in 3 days, but absolutely the most incredible tour I have been on. For $70 you cannot beat this tour. At this point Bolivia is my favorite country and am so glad I did not listen to the news and decided to go there. At no point did I feel unsafe. That night we took a night train from Uyuni to Villazon which was awful. Every couple of seconds it sounded as if somebody was hitting the side of the train with a huge piece of metal. Next stop Argentina.