Uyuni, part uno

Uyuni is in the Bolivian Altiplano (Andean high desert). It is one of the highest deserts in the world. Uyuni itself sits at about 12,000 feet. When our train arrived in Uyuni in the middle of the night we were immediately struck by the cold. Its been a while since we´ve been in such cold weather and we didn´t have our warmest clothes on. We walked the couple of blocks in the dark to the hostel that we had picked out only to find that no one would answer. Several hotel/hostels were not answering so almost all of the backpackers from our train ended up at the same hostel. Luckily there was room for us and it ended up alright. One of the rough parts about Uyuni is that no buildings have heat. So if we weren´t under the covers we were freezing.

There´s not much to the town except for the train station and all of the travel agencies that take you to the nearby Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. That is why we were in Uyuni, to take a three-day tour of the salar and the surrounding desert. Without these nearby attractions, Uyuni is a dusty, cold and desolate place. We enjoyed our time there, but we will not be in a hurry to return! 

Bolivian women in their traditional dress at a street market in Uyuni

main street Uyuni

Salchipapa- french fries with bits of fried hot dog on top. Eating cheap is not always easy on the stomach!

Since we were in Uyuni on Good Friday, we got to see some interesting things. This is a parade down main street. They were carrying statues of the virgin Mary as well as a statue of Jesus in a glass coffin.

We took a day in Uyuni to catch up on the blog, laundry, etc. We walked around town comparing prices for the Salar tour. There are over 80 agencies that take an almost identical trip and all of them want your business. We finally found one and decided to leave on Saturday (the day before Easter). So we met our group on Saturday morning and away we went.

Since we have so many pictures, we will have to break the trip in half and continue it with the next post. This first set is of our first day of the tour and part of the second. Our first stop was to the Train Cemetery right outside of Uyuni. Apparently many years ago when the government shut down the nearby silver mines, all of the existing trains in good condition were sold to Chile. Those that didn´t make the cut were abandoned in the desert. And there they sit.

Our next stop was to the salar. Most of those pictures will be self-explanatory. It was amazing. Salt as far as we could see. In total, the Salar de Uyuni covers 4,632 sq. miles. April is the end of the rainy season, so we were lucky to get to see the salar partly wet and partly dry. When its too wet, the trucks can´t go out very far and when its dry, you don´t get to see the way light reflects off of the wet surface. So we got the best of both worlds.

At the end of the first day, we drove about 3 hours away from Uyuni to a hotel made of salt! We ate dinner there and then spent the first night there. The next morning we drove to several beautiful lakes. As you will see, the landscapes we passed through were bazaar, to say the least. Every 30 minutes or so our surroundings looked totally different.

Seth being Seth. :)

Steam engine at the train cemetery

HELP!

At the Salar. To harvest the salt, the workers scrape the salt into mounds like these and wait for it to dry.

Having fun with perception!

our group- 5 from Israel, 2 from Brazil, 2 from Czech Republic, 1 from Slovakia, and 2 from the U.S.

Check out Seth´s air!

driving through the wet part of the salar

Our room at the salt hotel. Pretty much everything is made of salt except the sheets. And yes, we licked the walls to make sure it was real.

Dining room in the salt hotel. All of the floors in the hotel are loose salt!

Day 2- driving through the desert. There were never roads during our three days of driving. We just followed very rough paths or tire tracks.

We stopped at a lake for lunch. This lake is full of the mineral borax. That is the white you see around the edges.

Lunch at the borax lake. Our group was split up into 3 SUVs.

To be continued...