After traveling for three months there are many little things that begin to annoy you. Bad wifi at my hostel (especially during a Tar Heel game), backpackers who want money for performing a VERY marginal talent, and fucking selfie sticks are some of the more common things that began to burn my ass as we went further and further down South America. What I did not expect to drive me up the wall was how everyone has to document everything with a camera. I felt like I could not throw a stick without having to pose for a picture 7 different ways (one more jump photo and I am killing a tour guide), or get pushed out of the way as tourists clamor for their ninth photo in front of some monument. Whatever happened to gazing out at Machu Picchu and letting your mind wonder? If someone takes a picture at Angkor Wat and does not put it on social media, were they even there? But to my surprise, seeing a place like Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia turned me into one picture snapping and posing son of a bitch. And it was glorious.
Salar de Uyuni is an area in the southwest part of Bolivia. It is the world’s largest salt flat at 10,582 km2 which is a few meters deep salt crust that consists of 50-70% of the world’s lithium reserve. There are quite a few ways to take in this area, ranging from a 1 day trip, to a 4 day trip. There seems to be a hundred tour companies to choose from, but after some online hunting we chose Quechua Connection. Wanting to see a lot of this region and its never-ending changing landscapes, we decided on a 3 day trip. This consisted leaving Uyuni on day one, traveling south west through the salt flats and staying in a hotel. The second day we would head south to the Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina. We would stay inside the park on our second night, heading back to Uyuni after taking in a few more landscapes on the last day. With that plan, we piled into a car (late 90’s, very prevalent, Toyota Land Cruiser) with our packs, an English speaking guide, and our food/gas for the next three days. For others who want to do a similar tour, be prepared to do some riding in the car, as you are covering quite a large area of Bolivia.
At around 11:00 AM on day one we met our tour guide Lucho, the three other tourists in our group, our two drivers, and headed out to our first stop, the train graveyard right outside of Uyuni. Bolivia is rich with minerals and thus has a long mining history. Trains used to be the optimal way of transporting these minerals, but in the 1940s, the business went dry, and the trains were left to rot. I groaned to myself as we approached the site, as I saw tourists climbing all over old trains, snapping photo after photo. Luckily Michelle and our other traveling companions had a great attitude about it, so we snapped a few pics and moved on to the main attraction, the salt flats.
If you are unfamiliar with the salt flats of Bolivia, you are probably asking yourself what the hell is so exciting about salt flats. One word. REFLECTION! During the rainy season, December-March, it rains a lot in these salt flats and since it is so flat, vast, and still, it creates an almost perfect mirror of the sky above. It was without a doubt, one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. Driving through the shallow water, I could not tell where the sky started or ended. I had my window rolled down every five minutes, snapping a photo as the landscape seemed to change with the sky. I had become the thing that annoyed me most, but I gave 0 fucks. There was a large rain storm the night before so we were able to see a much larger portion of the salt flats covered in water.
After snapping photos from outside and inside the car, we had reached the end of the aquatic portion of our journey, and soon were surrounded by salt as far as the eye could see. Now it was time for the other cliché tourist part of the trip, the perspective photos. Because the landscape is so uniform and large, you are able to stagger people and objects to create the appearance of size difference. You can get pretty creative with these and our guide Lucho knew all the tricks and poses. I couldn’t help but smile at some of his creations. After this last photo session we headed to our accommodations for the night.
Although we had hit the larger attractions on the first day, what seemed like endless landscapes and natural wonders awaited us on the second day. Not 5 minutes into the car ride we pulled over next to the biggest cacti I have ever seen. They were thousands of years old and seemed to fill an entire side of a mountain. Next was miles of coral that was once completely underwater, now standing out in the dry desert landscape. It is hard to put into words how quickly the scenery changes on this trip. One minute it is a brown and yellow mountain view, the next minute the sand is so red and rocky you think you are on Mars. You really have to see it to believe it. There was even some wild life in this barren space, as we spotted a few scrabbits (squirrel/rabbits) and gave them some crackers. We covered a lot of ground in the morning, eventually bringing us to the Reserva Nacional in the afternoon.
A quick stop in the office to pay the entrance fee and a passport stamp and we were in. You enter the park next to a red lagoon, named for the algae that turns the surface a shade of burgundy when the sun is shining down. This lagoon was filled with pink flamingos, which unknowing to me, live in the cold, high elevation climate of Bolivia. We soon came upon some geysers as nighttime drew near. We were given free range to walk around, but were told a few horror stories of people falling in and losing quite a bit of skin. 20 minutes down the road and were at our home for the night.
We knew the second night’s accommodations were a little more rustic than the first. The lights were running on a generator and it was going to be a dorm style room. This was no big deal as we had no need to charge a cell phone and dorms are part of the backpacking world. What they did not tell us is that our floor would be gravel and that our beds (we did have mattresses) were made out of stone. Although comfy and warm, you did get the feeling you were sleeping in a garage. There were also the Ploques hot springs a 5 minute walk down the hill, which our visiting friend Ellen took advantage of. Someone stole her sneakers while she was taking a dip, but a long investigation from our guide wielded no suspects, but lots of jokes.
The last day was spent mostly in the car returning to Uyuni driving past llamas, but we visited a few more sights on the way back to town. The first was a desert that looked just like the Salvatore Dalí painting, the Dalí Desert, sans the melting clock. The most astonishing thing was, as we walked closely to take a closer look, our guide explained it was over an hour walk to get there, and it just appeared to be so close. After lunch we hit our last stop, a 40 km2 valley of rocks created by lava, thousands of years ago. Another different, gorgeous, and massive area, we happily climbed over the hardened lava and took our last set of pictures. Michelle has had a knack for small injuries and falls this trip, and she almost escaped this excursion without a blunder. As we made our way back to the car she slipped on the wet grass, smearing llama poop over her pants, unhurt except her ego, and getting many laughs from our group. Now, our trip was truly complete.
We had covered a lot of area on this three day trip, about 1/4 of Bolivia. There were many hours spent riding in the car, but all of those pictures finally made sense.
