The comfy beds and decent sleep at the ‘posh’ hotel made waking to our alarms at 4.15am slightly less painful (only slightly). It all went well at the airport this time, and we managed to check in with loads of time to spare before our flight to Uyuni. We even arrived on time!
Surprisingly, Chris didn’t complain at the size of the plane, which only had about 60 seats. I’m guessing that his trip over the Nazca lines in a little Cessna has given him some perspective on flying. As we approached Uyuni, we had great views of the salt lakes – endless stretches of bright white nothingness, with tyre tracks the only sign of life, and a few ripples of light grey here and there the only variation in the starkness of the land.
Outside the tiniest airport I’ve ever been to, the sun was bright and the sky was clear blue. It even felt warm, although the temperature couldn’t have been more than about 3 degrees celcius at most. A lovely security guard called us a taxi after we just missed the last one to get into town. It arrived about 10 minutes later, and we bumped around in the back of it, over dirt roads full of pot holes and cracks, into town to our hotel. (The roads in Uyuni town weren’t any better.)
Uyuni is an odd place. So very, very, very odd. I’m not sure if it’s the light or its remoteness, but everything feels exceptionally surreal. We kept expecting to see cowboys on horseback riding down the street, or spaceships passing overhead, being flight tested by scientists in a secret underground government installation nearby. It felt like an old-school film set or novel.
Everything is flat. Almost as far as you can see is flat. Great flat expanses of nothingness. This was a huge contrast to the hilly, congested landscapes we’d become accustomed to in the past month or so. It’s horribly dry and dusty, and there’s almost no vegetation (save a few patches of scrub). Instead, the fields and roads on the way into town – and even in Uyuni town itself – are all completely covered in litter. It’s as though someone sprinkled it around like confetti, and dumped a bigger pile of it every few metres.
There are dogs everywhere in Uyuni – sleeping in the sun, madly chasing cars and motorbikes, scavenging in the rubbish, and following people around in the hope of getting something to eat or just a pat. We made friends with one such scrawny mutt, who followed us as we walked around town before our tour. After it rejected some biscuits we gave it, Chris bought it some roast chicken slices from a vendor (much to her amusement). By that time, however, the dog had wandered off, so we had to go looking for it to give it the chicken! It scoffed it heartily, then followed us around again for the next half hour, wanting more.
The town looks incredibly sad, run down and poor. The tiny houses are built from square mud bricks, concrete or brick, and surrounded by mud brick fences/walls. Metal wires stick out all over the place, the houses incomplete or falling down. Everything is a miserable shade of brown or grey. The businesses in town are much the same – run down, falling down, dirty and dusty. Uyuni is missing its soul, life and energy. La Paz looks like Las Vegas in comparison!
Everything seems centred around the tourist trade here. Albeit not that well. There are a few (basic) restaurants, a few more (very basic) hotels and hostels, and several mini markets and craft shops, selling similar wares to those in the markets in La Paz.
After checking into our hotel and freshening up, we walked around the main streets. The shops were still opening, because it wasn’t quite 9am. Kids were already in school, sitting in assembly, or running down the street with their parents, late to class. We bought some snacks and supplies, and headed back to the hotel.
Our tour started (unsurprisingly) late. We were picked up from our hotel at 11.30am, then stopped 50 metres down the street to pick up three more people – somewhat pungent 20-something-year-old Argentinean guys with a very eclectic taste in music. We were ushered to the 4WD's back seats, squished in right next to the speakers, while the boys convinced the driver to play their music – hardcore heavy metal – at full pelt. Nice. Thankfully, this didn’t last too long, and they soon turned it down and started playing something a little more palatable – a mix of blues, Latin music, folk, jazz, AC/DC(!), pop and reggae – and we started talking together.
First stop of the tour was the train cemetery. Yep. Where the old trains go to die. There were a couple of lengths of well-rusted, heavily graffitied, old trains and train paraphernalia abandoned in the middle of what was essentially desert. Someone had also made swings out of some old train bits and pieces, and attached them to the trains. As you do. There were a few other tour groups there too, and they and the boys from our group were excitedly climbing over and through the trains, taking loads of photos. Chris and I just looked at each other a little confused.
About 45 minutes later, we went back into Uyuni to pick up the lunches, then headed towards the heart of the salt lake. After an hour or so, we made a pit stop in another dusty little town, which consisted of a few houses, a little market, and a museum built from salt bricks and featuring statues carved from salt. It was all very touristy, but all a little sad and run down too.
As we reached the first stop in the main salt lake, my Polaroid sunglasses did nothing to shield my eyes from the sun's glare reflecting off the endless stretch of stark white salt. It was blinding. The salt was a little bit like icy snow – dry and crunchy under foot, the particles having not quite melted to a solid block, but still slightly stuck together.
About 500 metres from us, a man was scraping the salt into mounds with a shovel, harvesting it to dry for sale. There were hundreds of these little knee-high mounds around us. Little puddles of water surrounded the mounds, filling the lake from where they'd been dug up, the only reminder that this had once been a lake.
We drove on to what I presumed was once a hostel or hotel in the middle of the salt lake. I’m guessing it’s no longer used, based on the gaping cracks in its salt-brick walls and holes in its roof. The whole place, including furniture, is made of salt. In the front ‘yard’ is a big concrete podium, with posts flying flags from all around the world. Tour groups stop there to have picnic lunches, buy tacky souvenirs and take photos of the spectacular landscape.
The pure white lake stretched far into the distance, disappearing where mountains, volcanoes and glaciers arose from the horizon. It contrasted beautifully with the crisp, clear, bright blue sky, interrupted only by the occasional wisp of white cloud and a helicopter taking posh tourists from sight to sight.
I’m not sure if it was an optical illusion (or my lack of Pisco sours for the day), but the light and scenery seemed different out on the salt lake – brighter and sharper. Maybe the light reflects and diffuses differently over the white, or isn’t as polluted. But things definitely looked different.
While it was cold and the wind had a strong chill factor, it wasn't freezing outside, thanks to the warm sunlight. I didn’t quite feel the need to break out my beanie or gloves, but I was agog at the guys in T-shirts and shorts. Sheer madness!
For lunch we stopped in a field outside what appeared to be a deserted village on the other side of the lake from where we started (or so it felt). Outside the walled village entrance, a huge flock of flamingos, ranging from pale coral to a dark hot pink, was standing in shallow water, eating. The birds were so perfectly reflected in the water that every time they dipped their head to the water to eat or drink, it looked like they were kissing another flamingo. We managed to get about 10 metres away from them before they started to move away and we backed off.
After our simple lunch of veggies, salad and rice, Chris and I managed to get pole position in the 4WD. This was particularly handy considering the driver had found another two tourists who needed a ride back to town. They and the smelly Argentinian boys looked quite cosy in the back!
We explored ‘Fish’ Island on the way back to town. The island is a huge rock in the lake, and is covered by all sorts of huge cacti. It features an untended ticket booth, a restaurant, a shop, a toilet block and what I think must be the world’s smallest (and lamest) museum – one room with a few rocks on display, a reproduction of a ceremonial pit with bowls of cereal, grain and other offerings, and a couple of statues. It looked like there might have been a little house behind the shop/restaurant area too, though living on the island would be tough. Everything was so very dry, dusty and desolate.
The island's main rocky path leads up a steep hill to a lookout, which is surrounded by huge cacti and boulders. The lookout was pretty impressive, with 360 degree views of the lake around us; the land, volcanoes, mountains and glaciers in the distance; 4WD tracks like stitches and scars across the lake; and the salt ‘ripples’ and ‘waves’ where the lake meets the island below (presumably from where the water had lapped the shoreline long ago). We sat atop the hill for about half an hour, watching the 4WD cars come and go and the people walking around the lake and shoreline below us in miniature.
On the way back to Uyuni (which took about 1.5 hours), we stopped at some cold-water geysers, which were more like little bubbling ponds. We watched the sun setting behind us, turning the sky vibrant orange, pink, then red. It was stunning. It was also very cold, so we got back in the car and, with a Bob Dylan, AC/DC and reggae soundtrack, made our way back to the thriving metropolis that Uyuni is (not).
Chris and I walked into town for tea, keeping a wide berth around a rather large, angry mob that had gathered outside the police station. There were more people there than I would have imagined actually lived in Uyuni, including women, young children and babies. They were yelling and trying to get into the building, but the policemen had so far bravely kept them at bay. We couldn’t work out what had happened, but knew it wasn’t good. We’d read that Bolivians had started taking the law into their own hands of late – burying an accused rapist and murderer alive with the dead alleged victim, and burning alive two men accused of larceny. Let’s hope the police won that battle.
After our fill of pizza, beer (for Chris) and wine and Pisco sours (for me), we spent the evening in our smelly, sparse, slightly decrepit hotel room. The staff finally got our heater working, but sadly not the hot water. Chris went straight to bed while I watched TV after a 'shower' under a dribbling cold tap. We were very grateful to receive a refund for the previous night in that hotel that we’d missed due to the cancelled flight – the La Paz travel agent had kindly arranged it for us.
Although it was a bit of a whirlwind – and strange – trip, I was glad that we’d made the trek to Uyuni to see the salt lakes. Technically, there’s not really much to see there, but the landscape is so very different from anything we’d seen or experienced that it's worth the effort. I wouldn’t have minded spending another night out on the lake exploring (despite the freezing temperatures). However, that would have likely resulted in divorce.
The pure white lake stretched far into the distance, disappearing where mountains, volcanoes and glaciers arose from the horizon. It contrasted beautifully with the crisp, clear, bright blue sky, interrupted only by the occasional wisp of white cloud and a helicopter taking posh tourists from sight to sight.
I’m not sure if it was an optical illusion (or my lack of Pisco sours for the day), but the light and scenery seemed different out on the salt lake – brighter and sharper. Maybe the light reflects and diffuses differently over the white, or isn’t as polluted. But things definitely looked different.
While it was cold and the wind had a strong chill factor, it wasn't freezing outside, thanks to the warm sunlight. I didn’t quite feel the need to break out my beanie or gloves, but I was agog at the guys in T-shirts and shorts. Sheer madness!
For lunch we stopped in a field outside what appeared to be a deserted village on the other side of the lake from where we started (or so it felt). Outside the walled village entrance, a huge flock of flamingos, ranging from pale coral to a dark hot pink, was standing in shallow water, eating. The birds were so perfectly reflected in the water that every time they dipped their head to the water to eat or drink, it looked like they were kissing another flamingo. We managed to get about 10 metres away from them before they started to move away and we backed off.
After our simple lunch of veggies, salad and rice, Chris and I managed to get pole position in the 4WD. This was particularly handy considering the driver had found another two tourists who needed a ride back to town. They and the smelly Argentinian boys looked quite cosy in the back!
We explored ‘Fish’ Island on the way back to town. The island is a huge rock in the lake, and is covered by all sorts of huge cacti. It features an untended ticket booth, a restaurant, a shop, a toilet block and what I think must be the world’s smallest (and lamest) museum – one room with a few rocks on display, a reproduction of a ceremonial pit with bowls of cereal, grain and other offerings, and a couple of statues. It looked like there might have been a little house behind the shop/restaurant area too, though living on the island would be tough. Everything was so very dry, dusty and desolate.
The island's main rocky path leads up a steep hill to a lookout, which is surrounded by huge cacti and boulders. The lookout was pretty impressive, with 360 degree views of the lake around us; the land, volcanoes, mountains and glaciers in the distance; 4WD tracks like stitches and scars across the lake; and the salt ‘ripples’ and ‘waves’ where the lake meets the island below (presumably from where the water had lapped the shoreline long ago). We sat atop the hill for about half an hour, watching the 4WD cars come and go and the people walking around the lake and shoreline below us in miniature.
On the way back to Uyuni (which took about 1.5 hours), we stopped at some cold-water geysers, which were more like little bubbling ponds. We watched the sun setting behind us, turning the sky vibrant orange, pink, then red. It was stunning. It was also very cold, so we got back in the car and, with a Bob Dylan, AC/DC and reggae soundtrack, made our way back to the thriving metropolis that Uyuni is (not).
Chris and I walked into town for tea, keeping a wide berth around a rather large, angry mob that had gathered outside the police station. There were more people there than I would have imagined actually lived in Uyuni, including women, young children and babies. They were yelling and trying to get into the building, but the policemen had so far bravely kept them at bay. We couldn’t work out what had happened, but knew it wasn’t good. We’d read that Bolivians had started taking the law into their own hands of late – burying an accused rapist and murderer alive with the dead alleged victim, and burning alive two men accused of larceny. Let’s hope the police won that battle.
After our fill of pizza, beer (for Chris) and wine and Pisco sours (for me), we spent the evening in our smelly, sparse, slightly decrepit hotel room. The staff finally got our heater working, but sadly not the hot water. Chris went straight to bed while I watched TV after a 'shower' under a dribbling cold tap. We were very grateful to receive a refund for the previous night in that hotel that we’d missed due to the cancelled flight – the La Paz travel agent had kindly arranged it for us.
Although it was a bit of a whirlwind – and strange – trip, I was glad that we’d made the trek to Uyuni to see the salt lakes. Technically, there’s not really much to see there, but the landscape is so very different from anything we’d seen or experienced that it's worth the effort. I wouldn’t have minded spending another night out on the lake exploring (despite the freezing temperatures). However, that would have likely resulted in divorce.
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