Salar De Uyuni

Pictures: Salar De Uyuni

26th of April:

There were 10 of us, 4 Israeli's (Amit, Eyal, Or and Asaf), 1 Colombian (Cesar), 1 Pole (Olga) and me. There was also a driver, a cook and the cooks daughter (Magte).

We set out at 11 o'clock, and drove for several hours, until we came upon a sight, so spectacular, it could easily have been from another world. It was the saltflats of Uyuni, the "Salar de Uyuni", the largest in the world. When we first saw it, it was but a white line below the horizon, but as you get closer, it just grows. But the most stunning part, is the lack of contours or any kind of variation. It is perfectly level and extremely white; the only variation is the mountains in the distance.

The pictures you can get out there are spectacular, and for once I would include people in my pictures, it really was the only way to get variation. After some more driving, we arrived at the salt hotel, which as the name (and place) implies, is a hotel built exclusively from salt. Further on from that we arrived at the Isla de Pescado (Fish Island), which is named such as the island is fish-shaped (from the air). It is an extraordinarily beautiful island, filled with cacti that grow up to 1 cm every year (although some grow severely less, making one cactus 1200 years old). We also had lunch here (it was around 15 or 16 o'clock).
Around us a bicycle race started, with a person holding the "Olympic" flame. It was of course not the real Olympic flame, but rather a small community event.

Afterwards we drove to our hotel for the night, which was made of salt as well, everything except my mattress and the chair cushions were either made from salt or salt-rock. There we had dinner, and I hit my bed for an early night. But just before eating dinner, I heard some noise from a room, and went to check it out. There in the middle of nowhere in Bolivia, were 3 children playing Duck Hunt,

Magte (pronounced "Maijte"), the daughter of the cook, is a 5 year old girl, who just can't get enough of Gilbert, constantly playing with him, she is such a sweet girl, and the first place we arrived, she also let another girl play with Gilbert, who tied him to her back, as Bolivian women do with small children.

27th of April:

I overslept a lot, by the time I got up, most everybody else was ready to leave. So I chewed my breakfast very quickly, and we set off. As we were driving I picked out my latest book, The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara; a book which must be read while backpacking around South America, there really is no choice. However it is a rather short book, and it was done in 5 hours. Around 13 o'clock, we arrived at the first lagoon, and near the shore we were parked at, two foxes were circling about, posing for pictures. But the real attraction of the lagoon, were the flamingo's walking about, finding food.

At 13.40, we stopped at another lagoon, where we had lunch. Unfortunately there were no flamingo's, but a fox was eating something, and a bird kept circling about us, which for me was the best picture of the Salar De Uyuni trip. At 16 o'clock, we made it to a famous rock (no idea what it is called), although the shape of it, explains the fame. At 16.40, we arrived at the last lagoon of the day, where I got a great shot of our vehicle. At 17.30 we arrived at our accommodation for the night, everything went as expected for the rest of the evening, and knowing I had to get up early, I went early to bed.

28th of April:

Up horribly early, and there was no light. I have no torch, and I haven't had one for any part of my travels in South America. It was also at this time, I discovered that my watch had run out of battery. So i fumbled in the dark, but was ready quite quickly in any case. When Cesar, Olga and I were ready, we still had 45 minutes of waiting to do, before Amit, Asaf, Eyal and Or were ready. We eventually set out driving, and had to drive for a couple of hours, until we finally reached the geyser. We had to get up so early in the morning, as this particular geyser, is active exclusively around sunrise. It quickly got lighter, and we continued to a nearby area with volcanic activity. We then drove on for some hours, and when it got light enough, I started reading a new book: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, it is 498 pages long, but so good that by the time I went to bed, I lacked 3 chapters. Around 9.30 we arrived at the hot springs, where we had breakfast, and the rest went for a dip in the water.

Afterwards we just drove all day long, stopping only for lunch, then again at some unique rocks and then finally at the train graveyard. After that we all arrived back in Uyuni, where Magte had a heartbreaking goodbye with Gilbert (I really couldn't give him up). I went to a hotel where I had booked a room (cheaper and better than the hostel I had stayed at previously in Uyuni), and after a while, went back to Minuteman for dinner, and ordered the same pizza (although this time a small one, which still is rather big) and bought their tshirt, and like my tshirt from Erratic Rock (Puerto Natales, ages ago), it is a size small (American tshirts) and it is orange, so when I wear it, some people come up to me and say "alles goes?" ("how are you?" in Dutch). After the pizza, I felt stuffed and walked back to my hotel, and straight to bed.