From sand to salt : Salar de Uyuni

Talking of cowboys in my last post, after hearing countless stories about the drunken cowboys who drive 4×4 tours through the desert to the Salar de Uyuni, the next day we were pleased to find that our driver for the next four days had a solid head on his shoulders. And a beaming, no-nonsense wife next to him to keep him in check and cook our food.

Lots of llamas

And so, after strapping our bags to the roof of our truck, Tess, Adrian, Med and I set off on our trip all the way from Tupiza to the salt flats with Segundeeno, our guide, and Porfidia, our cook and entertainment for the next few days.

On this first day, we were headed to the small village of San Antonio de Lipez (popn 250) via breathtaking landscape dotted with llamas. We had seen our fair share of cacti-pimpled desert over the last week but this really took the biscuit. Bright red, weather-beaten cliffs sat amiably among mounds of loose blue-grey shingle and tufts of parched, yellow grass.

Village children playing football

At every twist on the mountain road the plains became more and more beautiful throwing up even better, stretching vistas. The llamas were all different coloured and distinguished by the multicoloured pom poms and ribbons clipped to their pointed ears.

Muy frio in our homestay!

We arrived in the village where we were staying the night in someone's modest house. We watched children, layered in llama wool and gloves, play football in the forefront of a snowy mountain range that was catching the last of the day's sun. It was simple, authentic and lovely, despite the freezing temperatures at 4260metres.

We had limited electricity and an outside bathroom, and not even a fire to warm us up. So, after putting on all our clothes, we enjoyed our feast, listening to the songs of a shy local village boy who had come to earn a few Bolivianos. Money is scarce in these isolated, rural communities.

We woke up at 4am, still under the bright stars, moon-drenched mountains and in the bitter cold.

I couldn't feel my toes or fingers for the first hour or more as we made our way across the dusty, rubble track in the dark to San Antonio - an abandoned, ghost town that is thought to have been controlled by the Diablo (Devil).

Rub-a-dub-dub

As the sun burst over the mountains we entered the Eduardo Avaroa Parque Nacional, crossing frozen streams and bumping over rock-laden track - stopping for photographs and "el bano naturale"!

We drove through the gold mining settlement of Quetana Chico and onto the Polques aqua termales. It was freezing and we struggled in the wind, but we are hardened backpackers used to cold showers and a bit of dust so we stripped off and sprinted as fast as we could towards the pool.

Geysers and mud springs

Inside the hotspring it was absolutely divine just as long as we kept as much of ourselves as we could under the water. Still, when was the last time you took a hot bath at 4400m surrounded by mountains, desert and llamas?

After a brief stop at Laguna Verde and Laguna Blanco we headed through El Desierto de Dali - remiscent of the paintings of Salvador Dali and full of weird and wonderful petrified lava and onto the "Sol de Manana" - the geysers at 5000m.

It was colder than ever here and we felt a bit weak with the altitude, but it was great to stand among the plumes of sulphur.

Our accommodation that night was next to Lake Colarado, a huge red-coloured lake (because of the plankton and algae) home to hundreds of flamingos. Into bed after dinner with all our clothes on and extra blankets stolen from the other beds in the dorm.

Another early start, they were getting easier, to take us to the Desierto de Siloli to see a rock shaped like a tree and other petrified lava formations. We were now completely in desert, nearly 5,000m above sea level. Muy estrano.

We joined the laguna dots, visiting one after another to see more flamingos and watch them constantly snacking. And then on to a dust bowl of a settlement to see the tombs of the first inhabitants of the region, from pre-hispanic times. Nothing like a few explosed skeletons dressed in the rags they died in to give you the jitters.

One of many lagunas

That night we stayed on the cusp of the salt flats, in a hotel made completely of salts.

The walls, the furniture and even the beds were all made from solid blocks of sparkling salt. We crunched along the rock-salt floor to the salt-walled shower, then sat on my salt bed and plugged my camera into charge in the salt wall.

The next morning was what we had come for: Salar de Uyuni, the world's most famous salt flats. We drove across the water-logged part of the salt flats to watch sunrise in the middle of it - probably the best sunrise I have ever witnessed.

The salt hotel

The salt flats are indescribable, sucking all the colour out of the world and leaving just the vibrant blue of the sky and the dazzling white of the earth’s crust.

Everywhere we looked was white – just miles and miles of smooth, flat, sparkling white land joining the distant mountains that surrounded us.

Sunrise on the salt flats

As momentous as our first sighting of Salar de Uyuni was, every ounce of wonder and happiness had been hard earned in the cold and wind of the desert and mountains.

After a delicious breakfast of cake and cereals in the middle of nowhere, salt as far as the eye could see, we of course we made the obligatory stop so that we could take a hundred photographs that played with perspective. We had come prepared, bringing with us Godzilla himself and an almost-empty bottle of rum.