UYUNI: three days tour from Salt flat (Uyuni) to Atacama

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Without Potosí in the plan, the next destination was Uyuni. The bus left Sucre at 9.30am on Monday 17th. It was a direct bus so that I didn´t have to connect in Potosí, just a short stop. This was supposed to be a 7 hours drive.

Already in the bus I saw somebody sitting on what was supposed to be my place, just that she had the same seat assigned in her ticket. Fortunately there were places free and I just sat one row behind. Uyuni is rather a turistic place and in the bus were sitting mostly turists.

At the end the drive took 11 hours. The bus engine had a problem going uphill (and that happens very often in the Andes) and it had to drive slow. The toilet had a problem too as we learned later. All in all, a slow drive with many toilet stops, most of them at the open puna above 4.000 meters over the sea level where no trees or bushes grow. I felt sorry for the dutsch and korean girls in the bus, but they didn´t see to have a problem with this. We all had spent some time in Bolivia already.

Once in Uyuni I walked to the hostal together with a group of corean guys and were lucky to get the last room available. It was late already so we went out together for dinner to eat Alpaca steak and drink Uyuni´s Quinoa beer; both were really tasty. It was late already and was easy to fall to sleep.

On the next morning the tour started. The first place we visited was a cementary of old trains and a hotel completely built of salt. We had lunch at the hotel.

After lunch we drove into the salt flat. It´s an amazing, huge surface made all of salt. Due to the recent rains (those following the news know that Bolivia has declared some regions as Emergency Zones) it was not possible to drive to the so called Isla del Pescado.

It was late when we left the salar, sleeping in a town called Culpina. The food was served by the driver himself and was ok; the rooms were also ok. Just the toillets were very basic and there was no usable shower, but that I did expect already.

Next day we drove by several small lakes until we reached Laguna Colorada. They are all small lakes with flamingos, with Laguna Colorada being the largest and nicest one. The road takes you up to 4.900 meters and is better to be adapted to this altitude as there is no doctor nor pharmacy at less than a day drive!

Laguna Hedionda is at 4255 meters altitude.

We also saw a Suri or Ñandu del norte; a southamerican flightless bird.

When we finally reached Laguna Colorada we could see some flamingo flying.

We stayed the second night in an even simpler hostel. The night sky was incredibly clear and could clearly see the Milky way. Unfortunately none of the photos I took with my Lumix showed it, just a black sky (and I tried an exposure of 1min).

The last morning we left the hostel at 5am. Our driver was not very fit and it seemed he had too much Coca leaves the previous night. The first stop was at the Geysers, closed to 5.000 meters altitude.

Had a chance to jump into a hot spring

and to visit Laguna verde just before crossing the border to Chile.

Here a photo taken the second day at Arbol de Piedra.

All in all an impressive tour in terms of what we saw on landscapes, stars and animals. All these despite the sleepy and less communicative driver.