Uyuni
May 2023
Firstly, a note about driving in Bolivia, because Oh My God...
We wish we had a dash cam as it's hard to convey just how crazy the roads are, but here goes. It's as if people consciously try to do the opposite of what you expect - we're talking driving the wrong way down the road, using the left indicator and turning right, double parking on a roundabout, completely ignoring giving way on roundabouts and pulling out in front of you, people walking out into the road without looking, stray dogs everywhere, donkeys, minivans pulling out or stopping with no warning, people trying to overtake on a narrow road, roadblocks of rubble and rocks, suddenly getting plunged into the middle of narrow markets, fights at the side of the road, dips, potholes, huge speedbumps. It is honestly exhausting!
With that in mind, we made it to Uyuni unscathed and then decided to not push our luck and jump on a tour for a couple of days to explore the area. As we descended over the mountains into the town, we got our first glimpse of the expansive salt flats in the distance. The town itself was a VERY dusty, quite run down place, with little for tourists to do.
We arrived at an iOverlander spot which was a parking space outside a hostel on the outskirts of town, where they let you use the facilities (toilet, hot shower, communal seating area with heater) for free, courtesy of the very lovely Anna, some of our fellow overlanders, who we had met in Salta, were there. They had all just driven the 'Laguna Route' from Chile to Uyuni which is mainly unpaved, rubble road, and all their vans had broken in some way or another. Everyone, apart from a Swiss couple in a Defender, was waiting to see a mechanic for some bit of van that had fallen off. We were very glad we hadn't gone that route and were even more relieved to have just booked a 4x4 to take us there.
We spent one day in Uyuni town, where we found a lovely cafe that had rescued a little orphan llama, named Lucas, bought some sleeping bags to prepare for the freezing overnight temperatures on the tour, and had a pizza night with our van friends.
The road through the mountains
Our first view of the salt flats
Inside lovely Hostel del Flamenco
Our camp spot outside
Em's impression of a traffic cone/ her new super warm sleeping bag
Cosy in bed!
Pizza with our van friends
Baby Lucas!
The Laguna Route Tour
Day 1
A few days prior, we had gone into the first high street tour office we had seen and booked a 3-day tour on the Laguna route in a 4x4. We were sharing our 4x4 with 3 others: Rhoy, an Israeli guy, his Dad, Peretz, and a Spanish guy called Juama. They all spoke good English (and Spanish, so were able to translate for us whatever the guide was saying), and were chatty and relaxed. We were glad to be in this car, as the other car in our group was full of very hyper 22-year-olds who insisted on climbing on anything they could whenever we would stop at a viewpoint. Strangely, one of our highlights of the trip was learning about Israeli culture from Rhoy and Peretz. We have never met anyone from Israel before and they told us about a vast community of Israeli travelers who go and see the world as soon as they are released from military service, so they were understandably surprised we had never met another Israeli person!
Our first stop was at the 'train graveyard' which is exactly how it sounds - a big area of rusty abandoned trains slowly being swallowed by the sand. Then we went onto the salt flats. We had been to Salinas Grandes salt flats in northern Argentina a few weeks before, but they were nothing in comparison to this! For as far as you could see, it was just white. It's one of the few places on Earth where you can see the curvature of the planet and one of the places that NASA uses to calibrate its satellites. We spent a bit of time taking clever perspective photos on the flats, and then drove a little further to discover an island in the middle of the now dried-up sea! It was formed of volcanic rock and was covered in cactuses and viscachas (big rabbits with long tails which at first sight look like kangaroos!). After some time on the island, we stopped for sunset with wine and nibbles, and very quickly as the sun disappeared, so did the feeling in our toes.
For some reason, after sunset, we all assumed it would be a short drive to the place we were staying for the night. But instead, we endured another few hours of driving down dirt roads in the pitch black to reach the salt hotel. Our driver decided he'd like to drive for a good hour in the dark without putting his lights on as we bounced around in the back of his car. We arrived at the salt hotel and it was more of a salt shed. It was absolutely freezing! Our guide wasn't the best at giving us information, so we put our bags in our salty rooms and sat on a salty seat waiting for our dinner. Everything there was made of salt - the walls, the bed, the tables, the chairs, the floor. It was annoying to put anything on the floor because when you picked it up it was covered in salt crystals. We were quite disappointed with the hotel - there was no running water, no soap, no toilet roll, no towels. We are used to living in a van, but Pedro felt like the Savoy compared to this place.
This was the start of a very weird night. Some of the people on the tour seemed to have normal floors in their rooms, had a private bathroom, and had been given toilet rolls, soap, and towels, and when we asked for the same, the staff were very rude. It seemed that this would be the bare minimum of hygiene levels for a group of people staying in a hotel together for the night. Stranded in this salty doom far away from any civilisation, we managed to find a bit of phone signal and messaged the booking company. After some confusion, a guy eventually produced two towels for us, but nothing else.
Dinner arrived, which can only be described as cabbage floating in water, and some inedible chips, meat, and egg construction. Still hungry, dirty, and cold, we put on all our clothes, hats, and gloves, and got into our trusty sleeping bags to go to sleep. Cut to 5 am. A man dressed all in black burst into our room (which in hindsight, we should have locked!), takes off his shoes, and was standing over us, looming in the dark. Confused, and a bit horrified, Em jumped out of bed and flicked on the light. The guy was saying "Oscar? Oscar?". We managed to snap him out of it and ushered him out of the room. In his bewilderment, he grabbed one of Justin's shoes instead of his own, and he had to grab it back off him. Hearts racing, we tried to get a few more hours of sleep! It turned out he was a guide from another company, but the next morning, he didn't even address it!
The train graveyard
The salt flats
Flags from around the world
La Isla del Pescado (Fish Island)
Sunset on the flats
Playing cards with Juama, Rhoy and Peretz
Our salt room
Day 2
It was still -10C at 7am, so wearing two pairs of socks, we bundled into the car to try to warm up. Day 2 was 'laguna' day! We drove from one lake to the next, each with different characteristics. Some were green, some red, some filled with flamingos, some empty. We also saw an active volcano with a plume of smoke coming out of the vent, visited bubbling volcanic mud fields, active geysers, and flirted with the Chilean border as we battled through the Bolivian desert. The roads were insane - as we drove, we couldn't believe that our pals in their vans had managed to get through it.
This was our favourite day. The weather was perfect, the flamingos were amazing, and the scenery was breathtaking. We also stayed at a much nicer hotel in our opinion. We arrived as the sun was setting, and just in front of the lake was a thermal pool, with steam rising as people enjoyed a warm bathe in the freezing sunset. We had a big room, and a private bathroom, with a tiny trickle of hot water coming out of the shower which we quickly stood under in case it dried up.
After dinner, we braved the freezing temperatures and ran down to the thermal pools. We had to pay a small entry fee. We quickly stripped off and relaxed in the warm water for hours. Em got chatting to a Bolivian man and surprised herself with how fluent her Spanish sounded. He and his friend were guides, and they shared beers with us both and took us to another pool that was slightly cooler. We hadn't intended on staying in the water that long, and at about 11 pm we realised how pruney we'd become. Getting out was painfully cold, but we very quickly got dressed and ran back up the hill to the hotel. Our room was still pretty cold but we managed the night with just the big blankets instead of our sleeping bags.
Later that night, when some of the street lights had been turned off, Justin braved the cold once again to go star gazing, and got some incredible photos of the milky way. Luckily, we had no intruders this night.
Rhoy trying to catch some extra 'ZZZ's
Llamas
The active volcano
Mid-morning snacks
Flamingos!
Viscachas
Interesting volcanic rock formations
Laguna Colorado
Geysers
Mud pools
The thermal baths
The night's sky
Day 3
The third day was mainly spent driving back to Uyuni, but we did have some interesting stops along the way. We went to see the 'Dali Desert', Laguna Verde - that wasn't very verde because it was frozen, and some interesting rock formations. It was a very long, bumpy ride back to town.
When we arrived in Uyuni, the booking company lady greeted us at the car and asked for some feedback. Lol. We went into her office and told her all about our ordeal with our unwelcome guest. She took it very seriously and after speaking to the guy, gave us a very heartfelt apology. She asked if she could pass on our number to him so he could also apologise. Justin then received a 5-minute, grovelling voice note on Whatsapp in Spanish. He seemed very concerned that he might lose his job. We forgave him of course.
The 'Dali Desert'
Laguna Verde
Lovely llamas
Our crew
Volcanic rocks
Unfortunately for Em, a few hours after we arrived back at the hostel, she was struck down (in the prime of life) with an outstanding bout of food poisoning. We don't know if it was from brushing her teeth with tap water or something she ate, but the rest of the group was all fine. She had a few completely sleepless nights of violently throwing up, followed by a few days of complete exhaustion. Eventually, as it wasn't getting any better, we went to the local hospital, paid the equivalent of 40p for a doctor to take her blood pressure, prod her in the belly, and prescribe some antibiotics. These seemed to do the trick.
Another disappointment of the tour was that we didn't get to see the small section of the salt flats which are covered in water. In winter, the entire salt flat is covered in water, giving the effect of a mirror. But at the moment, there was only a small part still underwater. We booked another tour, this time just a few hours that would take us out at sunset to see the mirror in all its glory. Unfortunately, Em was still too ill to go, so Justin went on his own. After receiving some judgement from the rest of the group for leaving his poor sick girlfriend (she was fine, just needed rest), he made friends with some Swiss tourists for the evening. The sunset was really cool, and the guide took clever photos of them using long exposure on his camera and lights! However, the resounding feeling upon his return, was that his toes were going to drop off, having stood underwater in wellies for hours in below zero temperatures!
On our last night in Uyuni, we treated ourselves to a room in the hostel for one night, to properly recover in a big comfy bed and a private bathroom, and the lovely Anna gave us a discount due to Em being ill. We had stayed in Uyuni a few days longer than expected due to this nasty bug, but eventually, we had the strength to move on and we headed north for La Paz!
Justin's night tour of the mirrors
