uyuni, bolivia

The famous salt flats of Uyuni have now arrived. 

The town of Uyuni doesn´t have much to offer, other than tourist-ready businesses centred upon tours.

I first found out about March 23 in Bolivia when I was in Potosí and witnessed a sudden night parade through the streets on March 22, replete with marching bands, law enforcement officials, & hoardes of citizens walking through the streets.

The celebrations on March 23 commemorate and bring awareness to Bolivia´s territorial loss of land to Chile which connected it to the sea. Today, Bolivia remains landlocked.

It seems like all the hostels I choose have courtyards.

The tour to Uyuni which I chose was for 3 days, 2 nights. 

Cementario de Trenes

The famed salt flats begin. They´re incredibly vast. Endless white, and the flats are 10m thick in the centre to boot.

The tours are more personal as they are in jeeps of up to 6 people plus the guide/cook. 

When I was waiting for to begin the tour, I was at the tour agency´s office speaking with 2 Ecuadorians and an Italian guy. Then appeared 5 Israelis - my tour mates! It´s funny, a few days earlier a British guy mentioned he´d gone on a tour to Uyuni and all the other members were from Israel too.

I later learned that Uyuni is really famous for Israelis, and they take their photos at the salt flats seriously - they want to make it creative and better than the other photos they´ve seen.

They were a great group of people who were extremely welcoming. They also shared Hewbrew music with me and taught me some of their cultural cues.

Our guide also prepared our food, sometimes out of the back of the jeep, other times in the kitchen at the hostels we stayed at.

We took some hilarious group shots on the flats, but I´m waiting to receive them.

Not my best ´dancers pose´ but it was really hot out taking photos for 2 hours, especially against the white reflection of the salt flat. I think we all got sunburnt despite the piles of sunscreen. 

Giant cactuses much?

The first hostal we slept at had salt floors. This place was no Fairmont. That open flame was our heater.

quinoa

A baby llama panicked when the jeep drove into a herd of llamas. This is the reunion of the baby and mom, wild eyed. Our guide said “humans are like animals.”  

There was a lot of nothingness out there. We´d stop in the middle of it all for a natural bathroom break.

active volcano

Flamingos! One of the best parts. They made a funny sound, and they happily chatter away on the lagoons, barely noticing the tourists rushing to the edge to snap photos.

one of many lagoons

arbol de piedra

Llamas & sheep rushing toward or away from something or someone. It was insanely windy out here since it´s in the open. Showers were in another building from our hostal and I forgot my new clothes, so I had to run out in the wind with just my towel & wet hair back to the hostal.

Laguna Colorada from the mirador. The climb to the top was easy, but it was a long fight with the winds to get back to the hostal.

Last day. The first is a false geyser.

These ones are for real.

The last morning I left my Israelis and was driven to the Chilean border.