Bolivia

Salt Desert of Uyuni

Located along the southwestern corner of Bolivia sits the world's largest salt flat. One of the coldest place we have ever been to during our trip in South America. "Harto frio!"

We arrived in the town of Uyuni at 2AM. I remember stepping out of the bus, freezing. We only had four hours to sleep before our salt desert tour. We had the private tour pre-booked from Sucre the day before in an agency we found in the city.

Town of Uyuni

We heard from other tourists that if we don't, we would be wasting one day waiting for an available 4x4 to rent. The one-day tour consists of a driver cum tour guide with his 4 Wheel Drive to take us within the 12,000 square kilometer salt desert. The meeting point was at the tourist office at the town center of Uyuni at 6AM. We only took the day trip because we were running out of days. It is usually a 3-day journey with spectacular views of the breathtaking and unusual landscape while camping in the desert.

It's so tranquil yet eerie to know that if one loses his way, lose petrol or make a mistake in following the trail, people could die of starvation out there.

Isla del Pescado

The trip seemed endless. Make sure to reserve a lot of storage space in your digital camera’s SD card. Views of wide expanse of rock salt desert will keep you preoccupied. There was one point where we couldn't see anything except white salt and blue sky. We had brief stopovers at a Salt Museum with installations made of salt (obviously) and the Salt Factory where salt making was demonstrated by Uyuni locals. A trip to Isla del Pescado (Fish Island) for a tummy filling alpaca steak lunch which was included in the tour package and a hike up the cacti clustered mounds overlooking the sprawling white was the highlight of our day tour. Volcan Tunupa stood quietly surrounded by pink flamingos.