Uyuni and out onto Salar de Uyuni July 28th.

FRIDAY 28th July

Uyuni

Up in time for an 8am breakfast- leisurely.

We then met at 08:30 for an orientation walk.  Not much of one because we were leaving Uyuni, never to return, at 10am.  

Uyuni used to be a one horse town but now because of tourism they have two horses.

A very dusty place.  Footpaths, streets, the lot, all covered in dust.

Back to the hotel to check out and then at 10:00 our two 4WD vehicles arrive. They each carry six passengers plus the driver and the luggage and fuel Jerry cans go on the roof.  Pretty cosy.  Three in the back seat and two in the boot.  It was agreed that we would rotate seats over the three days.

Our first stop was about 5km out of town at a train cemetery.  There were at least twenty steam engines languishing on rails in the desert.  It used to be a place to repair trains until they became obsolete.   Now they just rust away, not at a very fast rate, while tourists clamber all over them.

A quick find of a geocache followed by a tourist photo and we were ready to go.  However, the young ones had some clambering to do so we had to wait a while.

It felt like a slow start to our days expedition onto the salt flats because our next stop was an artisan community.  We'd seen all the touristy knick knacks on plenty of occasions but our guide took us around the back of the shops and showed us a workshop where they made table salt.  All rather labour intensive and they sell each 500g packet for 1 Bolivianos (about 20c NZ).

Eventually we set heading for the salt flats along a magnificent bitumen highway.  We were told that it was only a year old.  Through another toll gate and then we turned off road onto the salt pan.  First stop was an area of water.  Unusually they  had some rain about a month ago and so there was still some ponding about.

More photos and then off to eat lunch.  Our venue was a little oasis in the middle of nowhere except for thirty plus 4WD vehicles all parked up which I calculated at about 200 tourist all congregated in on place.  The building made of salt brick contained tables with immovable salt stools around them.  Apparently there was a booking system and eventually our drivers arranged a table for each car load and then served us with lunch.  Llama chops with veges.  Not too bad.

Off again an hour or so later and then in another hour of driving across the salt flats we stopped well away from any other vehicles to experience the salt pan again.

What I didn't realise is that everybody uses this opportunity to do trick photography.  Because it is so flat and white our cameras don't have any depth perception.

We must have been here for over two hours playing around with props, mostly toys to get a fun photo.  Lindsey and I took a while to click on but when we did, Lindsey especially, was right into it.

Fun and games over we drove for another hour or two and arrived at an island on the salt flats.  This "coral" island is covered in huge cacti of which most are more than a thousand years old.  The salt flat used to be, a very long time ago, a salt water lake covering 10,000 square kilometres.  When it drained it left these islands which are covered in fossilised coral.  The salt pan itself is over 40 metres deep and below that is the worlds largest lithium deposits. They are still working out how they can mine it.

Lindsey and I had a solid walk to the very top of this island and then over the other side, off track, away from the tourists to find a geocache.  Mission accomplished we walked back to meet up with the rest of the group and then hung about for thirty minutes watching the sun set.  It set behind volcanoes on the horizon. Awesome.

We still had two hours driving left to get to our accommodation.  The salt flats are surrounded by extinct volcanoes in the distance so the panorama whichever way one looks is absolutely stunning.

One of us stupidly asked the driver how long before we get there?  The answer was ten minutes and then for the second day in a row we got a flat tyre.  Everybody out into the cold night air as we watched the driver change the wheel in about thirty minutes.

Finally we reached our lodgings.  A very cold salt brick building.

A pretty good meal was provided and then we repaired to our twin room.

Salt for Africa.  One could just grabbed a handful off the floor to season ones meal if one felt so inclined.

Note the salt bricks forming the base of the tables.

One freezing cold bedroom. No curtain over the window. The bed bases are made from salt bricks.

I've been warmer in a DOC Basic bunk hut up a South Island mountain.

We were told that we would only have two blankets so we hired "down" sleeping bags which turned out to be polyester. Apparently rated for minus 15.  We remain sceptical of that claim as we attempted to sleep with our thermals and wooly hats on. Lindsey even kept her puffy jacket on all night and still never warmed up.