A Road Less Traveled: Bolivia

crossing the border into Bolivia

My first 4 days in Bolivia were in a jeep driving on dirt roads around the mountain side of Bolivia as part of the "Salt Flat" tour. The first 3 days we saw volcanoes, geysers, lakes, flamingos, llamas, and the beautiful countryside of Bolivia. We were all anticipating our arrival to Salar de Uyuni on our 4th day. After three 8 hour days in a jeep shared by 6 people, we arrived !

flamingos

Laguana Colorada - my favorite part of the salt flat tour

Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat at 10,500 square meters. The Salar was formed as a result of transformations between several prehistoric lakes. It is covered by a few meters of salt crust, which has an extraordinary flatness with the average altitude variations within one meter over the entire area of the Salar. The crust serves as a source of salt and covers a pool of brine, which is exceptionally rich in lithium. It contains 50 to 70% of the world's lithium reserves. (taken from Wikipedia)

We drove around in a jeep for 4 days with 2 guys from Sweden (Anders & Jonas), the tour guide (Ruben), and the cook (Maribel). We had her pounding back 40s by the end of the trip. We enjoyed the delicious beer made of Quinoa beer. I think it is safe to say, we had the fun car (thanks to the crazy guys from Sweden).

We drove through many ghost mining towns, where they used to mine gold, silver, & tin.

I'm glad we did the tour from Tupiza, because we got to save the best for last (Salar de Uyuni on our last day). Some of the lakes we visited on the way were my favorite part of the trip. At the laguana verde we actually got to see the lake change color from blue to green (because of the wind & all the copper in it).

Laguana Colorada (aka the Red lake). The color was red because of the pigmentation of some algae. This was probably my favorite part about the tour. It was so incredible seeing this lake full of red water and surrounded by llamas and flamingos.

salt hotel

Another highlite would be the clear desert skies at night. I have never seen a sky so clear. Stars that looked so close that I could just pull them from the sky. I also really enjoyed soaking in the hot springs. We were almost 15,000 feet high, so you can only imagine how cold it was. Eating cocoa leaves helped with that.

The last night we stayed in a hostel made of salt (the tables, chairs, bed, floor, walls... everything!) The 4th and last day of the tour we woke up at 4:30am to make sure we got on the salt flat to see the sunrise (the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen), the sky behind the sun was this purplish blue color. We had fun taking perspectives pictures with our group. Unfortunately, it was a lot harder then you would think. We got a few good ones, but we could have spent hours being creative and doing fun pictures. After 4 days of living in a jeep without a shower, and a 12 hour bumpy night bus to La Paz, I'm ready to be back into civilization for a little bit.

My sister in law, Greta, comes tomorrow!