The Salars de Uyuni- Bolivia

After our quick jaunt in Sucre it was off to Uyuni. We had heard so many good things about the 3 day, 2 night 4wd tours from Southern Bolivia into Northern Chile that we just had to check it out for ourselves. The bus ride itself from Sucre to Uyuni was surprisingly an incredible 7 hour ride that featured a beautiful desert plain; small gorges and valleys; colourful and interesting rock formations; and an absolute ton of Llamas....or Alpacas (we still can´t tell the difference).

Before we got to Uyuni, we had already decided on our preferred hotel and tour company - Colque. Wouldn´t you know it, the second we got off the bus we were approached by an agent from Colque tours who immediately launched into her spiel about why they were the best, etc. etc... Well, Lyds and I were quickly on the same page and performed the usual ¨not interested/maybe we´ll check out some other companies first¨ act. It worked nicely and we soon got the agent to lower the standard tour price and pay for half of our hotel cost in Uyuni that night as well !!

The next morning at breakfast we met a great Isreali couple (Yeho and Ira) who just so happened to be going with Colque as well. The company continued to bend over backward for us in the morning, letting us choose our group and the driver we wanted to go with....we were offered the young fun driver (Elias) or the old and apparently boring one....hmmm tough choice !!

At 11am, together with two more Isreali girls - Mayan and Prital, we were off. First stop out of town was the large and eerie train cemetary....basically just a collection old rusty trains, but a great place for a few photos.

Then we were quickly out into the Salar de Uyuni...the World´s largest Salt Flat. The Salt flats are incredible and in no time, it´s white salt as far as the eye can see. On the standard tour they certainly pack in a lot of sites to visit. On day one, we visited the small town of Colchani (a salt processing village), a Hotel made of Salt in the middle of nowhere and had lunch at the Cacti covered Island of Incahuasi (also called Fish Island). We had a 2 hour break after lunch to go crazy and take a bunch of photos on the Salt Flats. Mayan and Prital had come armed with a bunch of props that allowed us to have a lot of fun out there and if you check out the gallery below you´ll see why.

At night we ended up in the tiny town of Chuvica. Colque actually owns their own hotel there, which was suprising nice. So while we were treated to a night of great food, hot showers and comfy beds, we watched other tour operators arriving into the village and heading off to their very, very basic mud shack accomodations.

The next day included hours of driving through an incredibly vast desert. We visited a number of interesting Lagunas of different colours (depending on the minerals at their base), saw numerous Volcanos, saw a ¨Rock tree¨ and quite a lot of Flamingos !!

Day 3 was an early 4am start in order to see sunset rise over the Sol de Manana geysers...a truely beuatiful site (again check out the pics below!!!). Despite the sub zero morning temperatures, Lyds and I enjoyed a great dip at our next stop...the Laguna Polques hot springs where the water temperature was a balmy 33 degrees. After a trip to the Laguna Verde and Laguna Blanca we had a nice brekkie and then took a short trip to the Chilean border where our tour ended.

All in all, it was a fast, furious but incredible 3 day tour. We are now chilling in the Oasis town of San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. There´s only 3 buses a week to our next destination (Salta in Argentina), so we are just going to enjoy the 30+ heat and top uo the tan for a few days !!

Here´s a slideshow if our amazing trip....


If you can´t see them properly than click on the link here - SalarsDeUyuni