Salar de Uyuni - May 16th

Today, we were to catch an early morning flight to Uyuni at 6:50 AM. Amaszonas was a low flight carrier, and they were to fly us today. As things would turn out, the flight was delayed by almost 2.5 hours, and took off only at 9:30 AM. Amaszonas offered no reasons or apologies for the delay, and that was the norm in Bolivia in general.

At Uyuni airport, we were received by guide Roberto and driver Vladimir. Inspite of the late arrival, Roberto assured us that we had enough time to complete the salt flats tour and need not worry. Uyuni was  a desert, and its famous for being very cold and windy.

wild vicunas at Uyuni - some of the world's costliest wool source

deserty landscape at uyuni

 First we went to the village of Colchani. Here the local villagers extract salt from the nearby salar, mix them with iodine, and package them to salt.

Local family making salt packets

Next we visited the salt museum. This was the first ever salt hotel built in this area. Unfortunately, this place was built in the middle of the salt flats, so had lots of sanitation problems, and thus banned after a few years. Now this place is a famous museum, and no one is allowed to stay here. Our guide mentioned that people still stay here illegally as it is cheaper. The salt museum has many statues made completely out of salt and the rooms were all locked.

 

 

locked rooms at salt museum

Country love

salt museum

The next stop was the fish island, also called Incahuasi island. The 4x4 jeep made its way on the salt flats very easily. There were no roads. The salt flats were very hard and smooth. It was just looking snow white everywhere for miles till the horizon. The jeep easily went upto 80 km/hr on these salt flats and the ride was very smooth. The fish island was very interesting with tall cactus trees. These plants grow just 1cm an year. There were some plants which were thousand years old here, the age often determined by the height. We had some good veggie lunch at this island arranged by our guide.

Incahuasi island

 The salar is usually very beautiful when there is reflection due to water. But its only during the rainy season, and it depends on luck. Most visitors see it when there is no reflection, but it was still beautiful.After lunch, we then went towards Thunupa volcano. Near this volcano, there was some amount of water, so there were few reflections seen. Not really great, but still the reflections showed what the salar would look like in the best of times. At Thunupa, we also saw a few flamingos drinking water.

Because it is all white, the salar is famous for people taking trick shots, because the depth can be fooled around with. We tried a few trick shots, only some came good.

flop shot

After this we made our way back to the hotel. En route we were treated to the awesome views of the salar. Sometimes it just looked like the salt flats directly touched the sky. This was probably the place where earth and sky would meet. Few more pictures to do all the talking.

Salt flats meeting sky

That evening, we checked into Palacio del Sal. It was a hotel built completely of salt for most part. The bricks were all salt, the furniture, bed, tables etc were also made of salt. Only the cushions were foam. The roof was also salt, but they had covered it with some kind of plastic/asbestos to prevent damage from rain etc. It was a very interesting experience. The hotel was very beautiful and impressive though. May is a low season here. Only another Swiss/Italian couple stayed in this hotel. Pictures to explain the beauty of the salt hotel below:

roof covered with asbestos

Roof from inside the room

We had dinner with the Swiss/Italian couple. The chef made us some good pasta, salsa and quinoa soup for dinner. The salt hotel was very cold inspite of the heaters. They even had heated blankets for the guests. Around 9:30 PM, we slept off.