Bolivian Salt Flats Tour

WARNING: This Blog post is LONG! The Salt Flats tour isn't just about the Uyuni Salt Flats, so there is a lot to cover, and a lot of photos of beautiful scenery. settle in….

I took the overnight bus from La Paz to Uyuni in order to catch a 3 day / 2 night tour through the salt flats and surrounding areas the next morning. I was very excited for this trek, and it is a big part of reason I am traveling through Bolivia and South America. I did an event for work two years ago with an artist who creates pieces and curates a gallery inspired by his world travels. He has visited over 100 countries, and he said the salt flats were his favorite and a must travel to place. Ever since talking to him, I've wanted to visit.

The bus was bumpy, traveling on unpaved roads a large majority of the time. The buses are known for being cold, but on ours, the heat was cranking - almost too much! Not the most pleasant trip, with little sleep.

The bus arrived with enough time for breakfast and internet. At 11 am the next morning, we started our tour. The first stop was the train cemetery. They are old rusted steam trains, now sitting just outside the town of Uyuni and covered in graffiti. An old Bolivian president decided that the country would not need railroads and they privatized a lot the ones that were still going to exist, so the trains were "put out to pasture".  It was a cool sight to see, but there were soooo many tourists there, it was hard to get a good picture or climb around on the trains.

Our next stop was the small village where they process the salt from the flats. It is a simple system of drying out the wet salt and hand bagging it. We had a really nice lunch in a salt hotel, where the beds, tables and chairs are made of salt bricks.

sealing the bags

Salt Hotel

Finally, it was off to the salt flats!!!

They were stunning!!! I'm not sure what I was expecting or if they met expectations, but I know it was a dream come true to see them. It was beautiful and was like something from another world. The flats just pop out of nowhere from the middle of the dessert. It's actually a lake that bubbles up water through the salt bed. It is rainy season, which actually made it awesome. There was more than the usual water layer on top, which increased the reflections seen. It was hard to tell where the land ended and the sky started. It was a lot to take in. We also had a storm roll through, which gave the flats an entirely different coloring. Such a sight to see!

altering depth perceptions 

Once we left it started to rain and it continued to pour all night! Good thing there's no where to really go anyways. The first night accommodations were very basic, but we are in the middle of nowhere!!! The food on the tour was very good. Dinner was a crazy Bolivian casserole called picamachu, made of potatoes, eggs, hot dogs, meat, peppers and tomatoes with a potato-salad-esque sauce.

Our second day started with a trip to the Valley of the Rocks, where there are huge formations of red rocks crumbled from years of erosion and volcanic activity. 

Along the drive we saw several packs of llamas along the side of the road. We've been seeing them along with Vicuña, a lama like animal, roaming along a lot of the roads.

Baby Llama running along the road

Vicuna

We stopped for lunch at lago de Chullunkani, where we had georgous mountain views and saw a few flamingos. Who would of thought flamingos, 4k meters up in a cold climate?! I always thought they were only tropical! 

We then visited a few more lakes with flamingos and continued our drive through the siloli  desert. We stopped to see the arbol de piedra  - a stone that is wind blown formed into the shape of the tree.

The best part of the day was the stop at the Red Lagoon. There were thousands of flamingos (three different types). The water varies in color of red depending on the sun and rain levels. The lagoon is lined with borax, a white substance that can be used in detergent soap or bombs - this is why the international community doesn't want Bolivia and Iran to be friends. My camera lens and these pictures don't do it justice.

all those specs are flamingos!

The last stop of the day was at some geysers. They smelled like sulfer and didn't hold our attention very long.

Our second nights' accommodation were even more basic than the first. There was no electricity or running water. But we did have the luxury in staying across from the hot springs. After dinner, we went in. It was so nice, looking up at the stars while essentially in a hot tub on a cold night. There were so many stars! I think we could even see more than we did in Uruguay.

view from our accommodation in the morning

the water that feeds the hot springs in the morning

view from our accommodations

The next morning we made a stop at the Dali desert, named after Salvador Dali because of the various colors and random rocks. Unfortunately it was cloudy and the colors didn't come through as vibrant as they can. 

Then we made a few more quick stops to see a volcano and the white and green lagoon. Our group separated to head back to Uyuni, while others went to cross into San Pedro, Chile. We had a long drive ahead of us, but the scenery was again beautiful. We crossed valleys, streams and went through a quinoa plantation.

While I mainly took the tour for the salt flats, I also really enjoyed seeing the rest of the areas and parts of Bolivia. What surprised and impressed me was the wide variety of landscapes and scenery we passed through over the course of our trip. Salt flats, mountains, lakes, desserts, tundras, random rock formations. We also passed through and stayed in small indigenous villages, which allowed us to see life outside of the cities. Bolivia is a beautiful country with a lot to offer but it is clearly still developing. It seems they are growing in their realization of what this scenery offers for Tourism.

The girls in our car and our driver

llamas outside our second night accommodation

~ Travel Tips ~

Consider starting from Tupizza is you are comig from Argentina and traveling with a friend. It's an easier travel to start the trek, but not as many people go, so might be harder to join a tour by yourself (but I don't know). You also see the salt flats last so you don't doubt what you're doing out in the middle of no where with bare bones accommodations for another two days. Or to make the most out of the driving, I would consider ending in San Pedro if Chile is on the agenda. The drive back to Uyuni was a lot and a bit redundant.

If starting the tour from La Paz / Uyuni, Red Planet was great and professional. We really did have an English guide with us for all the sites (although he rode in the other car). Our driver was responsible. It was pricier but I felt safe and the food was good. 

Don't stay in Uyuni - the town is a pit stop for the tours and you don't need time there.