Salar De Uyuni

We just finished the Salt Flat tour and it was amazing! We took a night bus from La Paz and arrived in Uyuni the following morning around 7am. It was about a 12 hour bus ride, and only the first 2 hours we were on paved road. Needless to say, we didnt get much sleep that night. It was the bumpiest road I ever been on - Dad, you wouldnt have enjoyed it!
We booked the tour through our hostel, so someone was waiting for us when we arrived into Uyuni. It was so cold - after the 10 minute walk to the office, I couldnt feel my feet!

The whole tour is done by jeep, so we were in a Land Rover with a guide, and he just drove us around all day and stopped at the sights. The whole trip was gorgeous, we were just really anxious after 3 days of sitting in a car. We also had a nice couple from Holland with us, since they fit as many people in the car as they can. Luckily the girl was almost fluent in Spanish, because our guide, Juan, didnt know any english.

We left Uyuni around 11, and headed for the Salar, which is the salt flats. It is pretty crazy - we were literally surrounded by salt. It looked like snow everywhere...it was pretty weird driving across it too. There are piled of salt everywhere, but other than that it is all flat. Mountains surround the salar, which make it gorgeous. I am still not sure how the whole land is just salt, but it is amazing! We then had lunch at a random cactus dessert, in the middle of the salar. After lunch we left the salar and drove to our ''hostel''. It was in the middle of nowhere and just enough rooms to fit our group - there were about 15 jeeps caravaning together. It was pretty cold the first night, but we heard the second night was even colder, so we were trying to prepare ourselves....

We woke up pretty early the second day for w full day of driving. The scenery is gorgeous though, so you dont mind being a car that much. Juan showed us all the major sights, and we could stop whenever we wanted to take pictures and look around. We saw three different lagoons - one bright blue, one teal and one red. The teal one had flamingoes in it, which was neat to see. We also saw some neat rock formations, that are really random in the middle of a desert. The second night was so cold - I was wearing 2 pairs of socks, long johns, jeans, sweat pants, 2 tanktops, a short sleeve shirt, long john shirt, a sweater, a sweatshirt, a jacket, a scarf and 2 beanies - and I was still cold!! We rented sleeping bags and had enough blankets, but even during dinner we were freezing.

The third morning we woke up really early to see the sun rise, only our guide wasnt ready in time. We drove to the geysers and saw some natural hot springs. Some people went in them, but it was so cold I dont know how they did it. After that we had a long drive bus to Uyuni, where we caught a night train to the border of Bolivia and Argentina!

Overall, it was a good trip. The views and scenery was gorgeous, there was always something to look at. The road was extremely bumpy, seeing as how part of it was gravel, dirt, went 4 wheeling and through rivers. The car didnt even have seat belts which was a little scary, we just had to have the mentality that these drivers have done this hundreds of times!