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Anna S. E. Lundberg

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Fun in the salt: The three-day tour of the Salar de Uyuni

9 July, 2013 By Anna S E Lundberg 2 Comments

When I had heard about the tours of the Salar de Uyuni, I had only been told, and seen pictures, of the salt flats themselves. But although these are arguably the highlight of the three-day tour, they actually only make up a small part of what you see.

Day one and we drove off in our jeep to the train cemetery just outside of town. Towards the end of the 19th century, Uyuni became a transportation hub for the mineral trains going to the ports. We were told that the trains came from Britain (along with a second import from this great kingdom, football), and the engineers who built the tracks were certainly British. By the 1940s, however, the mining industry had collapsed, and many trains were abandoned. Now the rusty old trains serve as a popular, if unusual, tourist attraction.
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Then the salt tour started in earnest: we went to a salt museum which consisted solely of salt statues of animals (you had to pay for the privilege of taking photos of these works of art), artisan stalls where you could buy various little objects made of salt, and the salt factory where we were taken through the process of heating and drying the salt to make a sellable product. You could also buy salt but it looked dangerously like cocaine so I didn’t think it was such a good idea. According to Wikipedia, the Salar de Uyuni contain as much as ten billion tonnes of salt, of which only 25,000 tonnes are extracted each year; and the salt is constantly being replenished, as it rains and the water evaporates in an endless cycle. We had lunch (cold lama meet with cold cheese sauce, cold quinoa and cold fries; but warm apple pie, yum!) in a salt hotel, with the tables and chairs, and in fact the whole building, made out of salt. Can you be allergic to salt? I don’t think so but if you are, don’t come on this tour.
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The most famous images of the Salar come from the middle of the salt flats, where the salt is more than 100 metres deep. In the rainy season, the ground is transformed into a perfect mirror with heaven and earth blending together in one huge canvas. In the dry season, as when I visited in June, the game is to play with the perspective in an optical illusion of endless white.
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When we’d finished playing, we continued on to Incahuasi, an ‘island’ on the salt flats with giant cacti. From the island, you can see three big mountains, about which Aymara legend tells of a classic tale of affairs and deceit. The giant mountain Tunupa married Kusku, but soon ran off with the third mountain Kusina. Tunupa, devastated, cried as she breastfed her son. Her tears and milk blended together to form the Salar; among the Aymara, therefore, their correct name is Salar de Tunupa.20130708-191050.jpg
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After spending a chilly night in another salt hotel (these have sprouted up in response to tourist demand), we left the world of salt and headed into a different landscape with volcanoes and lakes populated by different species of flamingos, as well as a very exciting tree of stone. The music taste of our driver and English-speaking guide left a lot to be desired but at one point we did let ourselves get swept up in a roaring rendition of YMCA and another of Wake me up before you go go. We had a great group: I was joined by a tall and talkative Australian girl, a not-so-talkative Dutch guy, and ‘the kids’ as we called them, a young English guy and his Slovakian girlfriend who we put in the back of the car (they had seats, we didn’t put them in the boot, I promise). (We also met a funny English guy who was very particular about how he wanted to take his photos; he was going to teach us kackerlacka-poker but sadly we didn’t see him again – so if anyone knows how this apparently fabulous game is played, please let me know!) We lost our children on the second day, as they were heading back to Uyuni in one jeep while the other three of us were joined by a Bulgarian couple as we continued on to San Pedro de Atacama, across the border in Chile.

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Day three, alas, we didn’t get to see the Laguna Verde or the geysers, or bathe in the hot springs, due to too much snow, and we also couldn’t cross via the usual pass. This meant a long detour and a (with hindsight) hilariously drawn-out journey across the border and into Chile. But more on that another time.

The practical bit – Salar de Uyuni tour recommendation:
-Lonely Planet and online forums tell you not to book in advance but to do so only once you’ve arrived in Uyuni and talked to other travellers and met the agencies in person. This is all well and good but you may arrive to find that the tours for the next few days are full – so you need to have a buffer of a few days in that case, or to be willing to go with one of the other random agencies.
-After much um-ing and ah-ing, I went with Red Planet Expeditions, recommended by a friend and receiving more or less positive reviews online. It was far from perfect – the guide wasn’t very clear in his explanations (the guide in the other jeep was much better); the food was, well, interesting; and on the third day, they woke us up early only to leave us hanging around for an hour and a half as they ate their breakfast at their leisure – BUT the driver wasn’t drunk, which I understand is a problem with many of these tours, and overall it was a good trip.

Filed Under: Bolivia, Travel Tagged With: Aymara, Bolivia, Incahuasi, Salar de Uyuni, salt flats, South America, travel, Uyuni

Out of the rain and into the wind: Travelling from La Paz to Uyuni

7 July, 2013 By Anna S E Lundberg 2 Comments

On the morning when I was leaving La Paz, the sun finally came out and it was actually quite warm. Muchas gracias, La Paz, you really didn’t want me to like you, did you? The highlight of my two days in the city was getting a free chocolate ball (okay, two) at the Café del Mundo, run by Swedish Elin – a nice little taste of home. And I also picked up an amulet at the witches’ market for good luck in work, travel and love; she added health for good measure but unfortunately that’s already fallen off. Oops.

I turned up to the bus terminal at 9.55am and at 10am I was on a bus, heading to Oruro. In that sense, buses in South America are actually very efficient. I was glad I was on the warm bus as outside it grew colder. We passed houses made of adobe brick but with snow on their thatched roofs, quite a strange sight. Even more strange, on the other side, a castle with a turret and a rainbow slide. Random. At one point we stopped for a toilet break in the middle of nowhere – for men, of course, it’s no problem, they just face away from the bus; but the women managed to protect their modesty equally well, their long skirts hiding everything from view as they squatted right in front of the bus. I was wearing jeans. I stayed on board.

In Oruro, I awaited the train to go down to Uyuni. The police were checking everyone’s bags at the entrance to the platform, but I walked through the middle of the queue to find the baños and nobody stopped me. How reassuring. The entertainment on board: a local country singer first sitting on the stage on a bale of hay and then riding a horse in time to the music: “Un viejo joven, un joven viejo”… Very catchy. More entertainment came from the American students sitting behind me, discussing the seven wonders of the world which, I grant you, is a complicated and often contentious topic, given the many different versions of lists that exist:
“What’s it called, Stone…?”
“Stonehenge?”
“Yeah, where is that?”
“It’s, like, in Scotland.”*
Outside, I could see flamingos on both sides, a double rainbow on the left (“Wow, double rainbow!”) and a golden sunset on the right. Then it was dark.

So, Uyuni: on my first day, it was quite warm and sunny, which was a nice change after grey and rainy La Paz. But it was incredibly windy, which soon caused problems in the form of a partial and then total power cut. What do you do in a city where there’s nothing to do when there is no electricity, the wifi not working in the hostel and Internet cafés in town not working either? I went for lunch in a dark restaurant and wandered aimlessly around town. There weren’t any cafés where I could sit with a nice latte either, darling. And without the electric showers, of course, were cold. Uyuni seems to exist for tourists for one sole reason, which is to send us off on 4WD tours of the salt flats. And based on advice from Lonely Planet and online forums, I hadn’t booked the tour in advance and instead waited to talk to the agencies in person. Great idea, except that I found the good tour agencies were fully booked!
“No, please, I can’t stay here another two days!”
Thankfully, my chosen agency took pity on me and somehow managed to fill a second jeep so I could head out the next day. Details of the tour itself next time!

*For the record, Stonehenge is actually, like, in Wiltshire, which is, like, almost as far from Scotland as you can get.

20130706-210224.jpgI managed to buy my train ticket already in La Paz; although I arrived at the office in the far end of town at 12.15 and they were closed for lunch 12-2.30pm. I waited with an Apfelstrudel and cappuccino in a nearby Austrian café, which wasn’t so bad.
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20130706-211338.jpgUyuni looks quite nice in this picture, doesn’t it?

20130706-211503.jpgBut most of it looks like this…

Filed Under: Bolivia, Travel Tagged With: Bolivia, La Paz, Oruro, salt flats, South America, train, travel, Uyuni

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Anna Lundberg is a success coach and business strategist who helps experienced corporate professionals reimagine success outside of the 9 to 5.

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