We headed to Uyuni, ready and excited for what we hoped would be one of the best sights of our whole trip.
Uyuni was a funny little town, there’s not much there although it does have some good food and beer places! It was just used as a stopover for people waiting for Uyuni Salt Flat tours and that was what we were doing too.
We had read the reviews about drunk Uyuni drivers (one of the blogs I read said that they had a driver who got so drunk that he had to be replaced. The replacement was his Dad, who proceeded to get just as drunk!) and therefore had tried to find well reviewed companies to go with. TripAdvisor being TripAdvisor they were all very varied for very different reasons, so we went with word-of-mouth and asked a couple of people we met who they had used. “World White Travel” came up a couple of times with great recommendations, so we went with them.
We booked the tour the day before we wanted to go, but saw some people who were coming in on very early buses, booking a tour and getting on tours an hour later. So if you are stuck for time that is an option. The coffee shops etc are open early, geared up for people to come in and be waiting for pick up at 9am.
The next day we joined our salt flat tour ready for three days of travelling through the Bolivian landscape. There were six of us plus Epi, our driver. We visited a train graveyard, where the mining trains had just been left to rot – probably to make good photos for tourists. Next to the main attraction, the salt flats. 4000 square miles of brilliant white salt. They are beautiful, so flat and so clean. It was unbearable to be on there without sunglasses with the reflection of the sun. We spent a long, long time trying to hold up a plastic dinosaur to make it look like it was chasing us in photos. This is the ‘thing to do’ here.. everyone has a perspective photo. It was hard, so in the end we gave up and took nice, normal photos instead!
The first night we spent in a salt hotel. It was basic, but so cool; tables, wall, beds… everything completely made out of salt! An amazing thing happened on this tour that night… Epi gave us a bottle of wine to share! This hasn’t happened on a tour before. I was very excited, especially when it was red.
The next day we continued the tour, ready to see what I had come for… flamingos. They were SO lovely… so pink and vibrant. We saw absolutely beautiful landscapes on this day, green lagoons, blue lagoons and a RED LAGOON!
Accommodation on the second night was less basic, although no showers. The stars out in the desert that night were incredible, and were most beautiful when we started at 5am the next day ready for the final morning. The salt flat tour is notoriously cold, but we hadn’t felt that until now. Getting out of the van at 6am in the morning to look at geysers in the bitterly cold wind was torture! Mind you, this didn’t stop us all stripping off to go in to the natural hot springs at the last stop. We got changed and ran in to the pool and it was BEAUTIFUL. So warm and lovely that we couldn’t stop laughing! We barely had any time before Epi was hurrying us along in to the van so we vowed to find more hot springs in the following week… this time, with beers!
We were going on to San Pedro from here, so our tour ended at the Bolivia/Chile border in the middle of the Atacama desert. A strange place to have immigration offices; there was NOTHING else in sight!
After three days of driving through the beautiful Bolivian landscape, on no roads, through sand and gravel we were amused at the sudden contrast going in to the Chilean side. There were immediately road signs, and tarmacked roads, and lanes! Things were about to change…. no more Bolivia… we were in Chile!
TIPS | Despite not being fluent Spanish speakers opted for a Spanish tour. It was much cheaper and a basic understanding will allow you to understanding everything you need to know.
Bring suncream, sunglasses and lots of water. Salt air makes you thirsty!
Note that showers were available on the first night, but they were 10 BOB / £1 each. A small price to pay but this isn’t specified so make sure you have enough BOB with you (we had gotten rid of ours since we were going over the border).
We were asked to pay 15 BOB / £1.60 exit fee at the border. It is unclear whether this is legit. We did ask, and they said yes… hard to argue when the entire room is paying it without question.
