Salar de Uyuni

We set off from Tupiza bright and early in our flash Landcruiser, and after about 5 minutes of paved town streets we hit the dirt roads, which would continue for the next 4 days. The first day took in some hairy driving on the very edge of steep cliffs (where it was best to look at the floor and think of a happy place) - and a collision between the other car in our tour group and a crazy oncoming 4WD that nearly wiped us out on the flat minutes earlier.


After a delicious lunch stop amongst herds of llamas and a pair of politely scabbing donkeys, we continued on up (and up..) through tiny scattered desert towns before reaching our first nights' accommodation at 4200m. Here we successfully attempted to exhaust ourselves with a walk up the hill behind the town, and then a game of soccer.


The next morning we set off not-so-bright and early at 4:30am, visiting a ghost town (where the Spaniards were wiped out by leprosy), some wicked Salvador Dali-esque rock formations, the ridiculously cold and windy Laguna Verde (green lagoon), past the first of many volcanoes and flamingo-filled salt and mineral lakes, stopped to look at bubbling geysers, before finishing off the day with a dip in the Aguas Calientes (hot springs). This was a particularly tough day for the rest of our tour group in the other 4WD, as they were unlucky enough to have no less than 4 flat tyres - all before lunchtime!

After a well earned sleep-in and breakfast of pancakes, we headed off on the 3rd day directly to the Laguna Colorada - a spectacular red lagoon in the shadow of yet another volcano and home to thousands of bright pink flamingoes.


This lake visit was then followed by drive-bys and visits to a further 5 picturesque lagoons, with pit-stops at some much photographed volcanic rock formations in the middle of the desert, and also at a pre-Incan necropolis full of well-preserved tombs.


That night we got to stay in a hotel made entirely of salt - including floors of loose salt, walls of salt bricks and mortar, and tables, chairs and beds all made from salt blocks - and also have our first shower of the tour.

We rose early again on our 4th and final day and headed straight out onto the Salar de Uyuni - the immense salt flats in the southwest of Bolivia - taking in the sunset against the seemingly never-ending expanse of white nothing, and ironically suffering the first flat tyre of the tour.

After repairing the tyre we continued on to the Isla del Pescado (Fish Island), an isolated hump of rocks, gigantic cacti and coral formations entirely surrounded by salt. Back again onto the endless white of the salt flats, we paused to hunt for salt crystals under the surface, and to pose in some wicked perspective photos. After a final lunch in another little nothing town, we finished up at Uyuni with some welcome cold beers.


After hearing a bit about the tours starting from Uyuni, we were very happy to have gone via Tupiza instead, as most of the Uyuni tours missed many of the best highlights, and also involved some tiring back-tracking at the end. We were also very satisfied with our choice of tour group La Torre Tours (we'd heard some horror stories about dodgy tours run by anyone with a 4WD, and so had picked a more expensive company with lots of good reviews) - obviously it helped to have a really good group of people, but everything about the tour was excellent - the cars, the organisation and itinerary, the delicious hot meals and ample snacks (how our chef managed this for 4 days in the middle of nowhere is a miracle!), and of course Raoul our English-speaking guide and our drivers.

While the rest of our group opted for a night in Uyuni to freshen up before moving on, we decided to skip the in-between towns and hopped on Bolivia's most luxury bus service direct overnight to La Paz - more on that in our next post..