Uyuni
31st July - 1st August
When we decided on South America for our travels, we hadn’t yet heard of Uyuni. As soon as we started to tell people we were going though, everyone was making clear the salt flats there were an absolute must-see.
Most people do a 3 day tour of the area, from Uyuni in Bolivia travelling almost to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. We considered this, but changed our minds upon seeing the temperature dropped as low as -17 degrees Celsius at night, and the accommodation wouldn’t have any form of heating. This made Melissa feel cold just in anticipation, so we opted for a 1 day tour with overnight buses there and back.
After waking up slightly dozy from bus-sleep, (something we were getting used to, but wasn’t improving in quality) we were taken in a 4x4 with a lovely couple from Crewe to see what the area had to offer. We visited a train graveyard (or to my eyes an adult climbing frame), ate in a restaurant made entirely from salt (including the chairs) and put our hands in the ojos de sal - the ‘eyes of salt’, small pools bubbling with volcanic heat from deep underground. The salt flats are also famous for fun perspective photos, as the consistent white makes it difficult to see depth.
We later drove through endless flats (you start to realise how huge they are when you drive for an hour and the scenery doesn’t change at all) to Cactus Island, an island formed of petrified coral. It’s quite trippy to see at first, as it looks just like a rocky island sticking out of the sea, but instead poking its head through the salt. It’s filled with giant cacti - most of them 3-4 times my height. They apparently grow centimetres per year, and some are big enough that they’ve likely been around for millennia.
The highlight was still to come though, as last up we drove to a deserted part of the salt flats to watch the sunset. I think it may be the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen. It was certainly the clearest. On a cloudless evening, with only a few distant mountains obscuring a perfect 360 degree view of the sky, we watched the day slowly close with a glass of red wine. The sky darkened, the yellows turned into reds and the salt glowed pink and orange. In one direction there was a navy blue night time sky, and in the other a rainbow of sunset colours, with the moon directly up above. It was stunning, and I found myself reflecting on just how lucky I was to be there to witness it.
With the activities for the day finished, we headed back to Uyuni and to our bus home. We may well come back one day to see what we would have seen on a longer tour, however as the temperature dropped fast and we started to shiver, we decided keeping it short this time was definitely the right move!
