Salar de Uyuni

Salar de Uyuni

Having arrived rather late in Uyuni, we proceeded to attend to the natural order of business: chocolate chip cookies, then accommodation, then dinner. A few cookies and some blocks further, we settled for Hotel Julia right by the central plaza. Kai discovered a nearby Japanese restaurant for dinner, which was a true rarity in Bolivia (Kai’s favorite cuisine is Japanese, so we couldn’t let this opportunity go).

Japanese dinner

Still hungry after a good meal, we headed next door to a pizza place for seconds before falling into our beds, fully exhausted from a long day. Nothing like two dinners to catch up on some calories :)

El Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flat and spanning an area of eleven thousand square kilometers, is the natural wonder that attracted us to Uyuni. This became the site of our guided tour the following day (we decided we needed to rest our legs, hence we signed up for a tour). José, our guide, first took us to lunch in the tiny salt miner’s town of Colchani, which displayed various architectural elements made entirely of salt (including whole buildings!).

A bench and statues made from salt bricks

Little notepads Kai purchased at an artisan market

Then we were off into the massive salt desert, a sea of white with occasional “islands” of rock sprinkled here and there. During Argentinian summers, most of the flat is covered in water; however, as it was winter, our vehicle was able to glide along the unpaved path to a larger island some 45 minutes inward.

Kai standing on the island, salt flat behind him

35 foot tall cactus!

Posing on the flat; notice the naturally formed polygons 

Close-up of the ground (we can confirm that the ground tastes extremely salty)

After touring the island for some time and marveling at the many enormous cacti, José took us to an isolated spot for some fun perspective photos.

Stomp!

Oh how the tables have turned

Representing Recycled Cycles, the bike shop in Seattle where we got our bottles from

For the final part of our tour, we drove to the lowest part of the Salar, a place where all of the rain water pools and transforms the ground into a gigantic mirror. This place was truly magical: here earth and sky become one.

Sunset posing

Another car?

Where is up and where is down?

We have yet to see a phenomenon as breathtaking as a sunset on the Salar. The Uyuni salt flat was the final item on our list of destinations in Bolivia; the next day we would start looking toward the border to Argentina.