Day 1
The first day consisted of the visit to the Salt Flats and a train graveyard in the desert. The Salt Flats are just a the name suggests, a large, flat area of land as far as the eye can see covered in pure white salt. The salt is still hand mined by miners and sold in Bolivia. At this time of year the Salt Flats are covered by a layer of water, which, creates a mirror reflection of the sky. It was almost a visual overload and incredibly beautiful. The 4x4 surfed its way over the glistening white plains and it was hard to tell when the land ended and the sky began. Our driver dropped us off in the middle of the flats and we had 50 minutes of play time. Everyone uses the aspect trick of the land to take funny photos and we were just the same...
In the palm of her hand!
Our driver picked us up and we headed to the Salt Hotel, a building completely built out of salt in the middle of the flats for lunch. After that novelty we got back in the 4x4 and headed to the train graveyard for some more snapshots. There were several old and rusted steam trains which you could clamber on to and play around and we did that for 15 minutes. After that we were heading across the terrain to the lodge that we would be staying in. We were in a 4x4 a lot of the time but that was the adventure. The land we were driving across was so incredible that you would be looking out of the windows in awe most of the time. Our driver would then stop at various areas so we could have a little time to explore and take some photos. We stopped a couple more times on the way to our lodge and after a good meal, bedded down for the night.
Salt view
Day 2
We were up early to set off for another day of sightseeing. We made our way across dirt tracks viewing distant white peaked mountains and volcanoes set against blue skies. Around 9am we stopped off for about an hour at a lake which stretched out below some mountains. It was very pretty as you can see below...
Clear reflections
For lunch we stopped off at this cool rock formation planted in the middle of nothing really, and chilled out there for an hour or so. The 4x4 had mp3 connection so our stop was accompanied by the sounds of Air - Moon Safari.
On the rocks
Later on we stopped off in an area that was nothing but dessert landscape. In the middle of this a single strangely shaped rock stuck out from a patch of sand. It resembled something out of a Salvador Dali painting and being there really made me feel like I was in some other world. I think that´s why the whole trip has had such an impression on me.
Dali
The next stop was to the Red Lagoon named for the reason you will see below. Enjoying the lake with us were 1000s of Flamingos...
Red lagoon
Flamingo´s
This was as far as we got on Day Two and we had lots of time to relax before we started very early the next day.
Day 3
It may had been 4.30am that we were prized from our beds in readiness for the final day of travel. The reason we got up so early was that we could see the natural geysers flaring up before dawn. Also Gris and I were going to San Pedro de Atacama afterwards but the Germans had an 8 hour 4x4 journey back to Uyuni before the day was over. We arrived at the Geysers and you could here the steam as it shot out of the ground. It was really cold at this time of day so I only made a quick dash to them before getting back in to the 4x4 and tried to get some more sleep. It started to get lighter and around 6am we could see the faint orange of dawn on the horizon.
Geyser
The best part of the day was to come as around 6.30am we arrived at a large lake and steaming in front of us was a natural hot spring. We slowly changed in to swim wear and stepped out of the cold and in to the blissfully hot water. It was really lovely and as we lazed about we got to watch the sun rise up on a cloudless morning. We were in and around the hot springs for about an hour before getting back in the 4x4 to see a couple more landscape views and lakes. Then around 9am it was time for Gris and I to say farewell to the Germans and head to Chile.
Hot spring at dawn
All together, and the cook
We spent a couple of days together in San Pedro, which, is really a place similar to Uyuni, a stopping off point to excursions in to the dessert. On the second day in the afternoon we went on the half day trip to Laguna Cejar. The lake is so salty that you can just float in it, so that is what we did. Coming back out your clothes come completely stiff. Luckily we were taken to another pool which is not as salty and I dived right in. Again it was a really pretty salty earthed open landscape, and we were able to stay there to watch the sun set on what had been an amazing trip. The day after I left for Salta, Argentina to start another adventure and Gris headed home to Cochabamba.
A setting sun landscape
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