It's not a slow car, it's a fast house

What is an Uyuni and why is it salty?

The Salar de Uyuni is the largest natural accumulation of salt in the world. And it is all located in the hot, dry, desert of Bolivia.

But first, we have the train graveyard on the outskirts of the small city of Uyuni. 

This is a large collection of rusting and decomposing old trains. At one time Bolivia made a plan for this town to be the hub of rail transportation for all of South America. The trains arrived by ship from Britain to the Bolivian port. A railway was built to bring them here. Piece by piece, they were assembled to accomplish a dream that never became a reality. But when things didn’t work out and borders changed, the trains were just abandoned in the desert of Bolivia. Now the port and nearest coastline belongs to Chile and the train graveyard represents the defeat this nation felt.   And you can imagine the ongoing feud between Chile and Bolivia. When they lost their ocean access, this landlocked country lost a lot of self-pride in their future.  

These huge artifacts are rusting away in the salty desert wind. But they make a great photo opportunities. They also hide a few fun Geocaches and an Adventure Lab.

We had a lot of fun posing for silly photos on the rusty carcasses.

After the train graveyard we went to smaller village, located on the edge of the sand flats.  Sort of the last stable ground, before the salt begins. This village includes a salt packaging and production plant.  This man and his family have been harvesting and selling salt for almost 100 years.  The entire building you see is made out of blocks of salt that they have harvested from areas of the salt bed. And even once all this is removed, there is still plenty left. We will see more salt structures later. 

After being impressed by his salt workshop and processing plant, we were REALLY impressed by the salt motel. This facility is built of salt blocks, wood and concrete. It has a magical feel to it. And they offered free coffee and the last restrooms for many, many miles!

Then we began driving across the salt with our driver and tour guide. The vehicle was a late 90’s Toyota 4-runner. We were comfortable with a heater on when the morning started. The guide and driver were up front.  Pacha, Mike and Geneva sat in back.  We brought water and snacks and coats and a dog dish, and sunscreen along with us.  

Once we were on the salt, we were surprised to see things that seemed to just pop up out of nowhere.  There were a wide variety of art installations in this vast salt bed. And our driver planned to take us to several of them.

 

We were prepared to take some epic photos for our grandchildren. We had spent a few days searching in the small city to find their favorite characters at various toy stores. Then hauled them along with us into the desert. The tour guide was very skilled at setting us up just right, using the depth of the image to make things appear to be a different scale. Enjoy some of these fun photos, as we hoped our grandkids would also!

 

The vastness of the Uyuni Salt Flats and the lack of any structures really played tricks on our eyes. The photos here show some more of the fun antics we played with props and miles of salt! The dinosaur was actually about three inches tall. And the Pringles can was……. well, Pringles can sized.

We even took a few silly photos using just ourselves as props. By standing closer to/further from the camera we could make our sizes change dramatically.  The tour guide laid flat on the salt bed to capture these funny images of us.  No one was harmed in the taking of these photos! 

 

After all that silly photography we were hungry.  The driver had set up a beautiful lunch for us to enjoy. The setting was surreal, the wind was real and the meal was salted perfectly.  

 

3,860 square miles of salt, just salt!  This area of salt is slightly smaller than the state of Connecticut.  As a comparison, Bonneville Salt Flats, in Utah is 46 square miles. White Sands National  Monument, in New Mexico is 270 square miles.   

But somewhere out near the middle is an island.  This seems like a mirage as you drive towards it.  Then suddenly you realize it is really a pile of boulders and cacti. There is a huge amount of life on this pile, surrounded by sand.  

There is even a cave on the island. This is a welcome respite from the glaring sun, blowing wind and strange heat that radiates off of the sand surrounding this island. Even Pacha felt (and enjoyed) the difference inside the cave.  

Out in the sand there is a structure and services. At certain times of the year this is opened as an active snack bar. They serve cold drinks, hot snacks and offer clean restrooms to the travelers who have stumbled upon it. This place is covered by old, yellowed sheets of plastic to protect the visitors.  But the insides are completely made from stacked blocks of salt. The wood over the top makes the benches, tables, countertops, etc. And of course, the floor is…….. salt.

As the day wore on, we fell into the rhythm of driving for a while on the smooth sand, and then climbing out to look at some new oddity, take a few photos, climb back in and drive some more. Each time we piled in Pacha took the opportunity to drape across laps and legs so she could close her eyes for a bit. By the afternoon, she was truly exhausted.

But our day of adventure was not over yet.  With sunset sneaking up on us, we needed to find the perfect location for the final part of our tour. We visited an amazing area where the water below had worked its way up through the salt. There are actually many areas like this, and it is one of the dangers of self-driving onto the Uyuni Salt Flats.  The ponds and watery zones create a sort of quicksand situation. They are unmarked, level with the surface and serious enough to swallow a wheel, an axle or an entire vehicle. But our driver was very familiar with the proper route, and kept us out of harms way.  We were able to park near the pond area, and enjoy a few more fun photos.

As sunset began to change the colors of the salt, the sky and the distant horizon, our guide and driver set up our evening snack. Wine, cheese and fruit on a beautiful table. This was a fantastic ending to an exciting day of exploring over 3,000 acres of the Uyuni Salt Flats. 

We posed for a few more stunning photos and then climbed back in the vehicle for the soft, quiet ride back to the camper.  It did not take long for us to fall asleep in the back seat, heads lolling left and right as we dreamt about our day on the salt. When we arrived at the camper, we rinsed the salt off our shoes, changed out of our salty clothes and crashed on our pillows. What a fun day we had!