San Pedro to Uyuni

Hola,

Last week Wednesday Jack and I signed up for a 3-day tour to take us though Bolivia’s National Park Eduardo Avaroa and Salar de Uyuni. We heard a lot of good reviews about this tour so we were really looking forward to exploring Bolivia. Booking a tour like this is one of the only ways that you could see what we saw, unless you owned some sort of 4x4 vehicle. The roads or dirt paths were extremely bumpy and due to the Bolivian rainy season, often hard to navigate through.

The views were insane, we witnessed snowcapped mountains, multicoloured mountain ranges, beautiful sparking lagoons, desert landscape, volcanoes, hot springs, geysers...the list goes on.

On Day 1, after crossing the tiny border into Bolivia and jumping into our 4X4 jeeps, we drove through the Bolivian high plains, also known as the Altiplano, where we stopped at Laguna Blanca. It is known as Blanca because the water looks white from the high amount of minerals in the water. Among the beautiful background from this lagoon we could also see the Licancabur Volcano in the background.

Second stop was Laguna Verde, another colour- named lagoon, this time the greenish colour is caused by deposits containing copper minerals. By this time in the tour we were about 4, 300 meters above sea level. It was windy and cold, but we sucked it up and took in the beautiful scenery

The next stop was a thermal water pool that you could sit in and enjoy the mountains and water surrounding you. We unfortunately could not go in because our bathing suits were locked away in the top of the jeep.

We had one more stop before we headed to our hostel for lunch; it was the Sol de Manana geysers. It smelt like rotten eggs, but was quite the sight. Sol de Manana is a geothermal field that extends over 10 square km, between 4800m and 5000m height. The area is also full of mud lakes and steam pools with boiling mud.

After a nice hearty lunch at our hostel, we headed out to the Laguna Colorada, this lagoon was the best one so far, just absolutely massive and amazing. Turns out this lagoon is a breeding place for thousands of flamingos. You will notice that the water has a pinkish colour. This is from algae and plankton that live and grow in the water that is very high in salt, magnesium, borax and gypsum. The algae provide food for the flamingos, therefore causing the flamingos to also turn pink.

Day 2 we drove through the Siloli Desert where we saw many funky rock formations due to wind erosion. One of the most popular formations is this rock tree, pictured below.

We also stopped at a couple more impressive lagoons. (You can see more of the lagoons in the online photo album that I will post shortly).

After a full day of driving around, including a flat tire on our jeep, we made it to our hostel just before it started pouring cats and dogs. The second hostel looked a little sketchy from the outside, with its only bathroom and shower being outside the building. Once inside, we found it to be a nice cozy place. We enjoyed a nice dinner with the tour group: some traditional Bolivian soup followed by some llama meat and sides.

The third day was the big event. We were all excited to see the Salar de Uyuni. After stopping at some little towns and the antique train cemetery, we made it to the salt flats. This is the world’s largest salt flat. At 10,582 square kilometers it went on forever. The salt is over 10 meters thick in some areas. Due to all the rain, it was covered with a couple inches of water. No problem; everyone just took off their shoes and walked around barefoot. It was just awe-inspiring to look at, the reflection of the water just made everything shine.

The tour ended in Uyuni. Since there was not much to do in Uyuni, we booked an overnight bus to Sucre in Bolivia. The 12-hour bus ride was definitely a little rougher then the buses we were becoming accustomed to in Argentina and Chile. It lacked a bathroom, which after 12 hours becomes very painful. Also, around midnight, the driver parked on the side of the road, locked the door, and for 5 hours left us to attempt to sleep. I don’t know if this is a common thing. The odd person jumped out of the window to leave or go to the washroom (we think). In the end we made it, and we are loving our time in Sucre so far.