Splendour on the Salt Flats

Uyuni is now a tourist base for travelling into the neighbouring salt flats but used to be an industrial base for digging out the salt and transporting it by rail.  Needless to say it all went down the tubes with salt available elsewhere so they shunted the locos into the sidings and left them to rot.

We were warned previously that the salt flats were a highlight of any tour with the chance to take wacky photos because of the trick perspective afforded by the flat landscape and bright light. In the summer rainy season the whole flats are submerged with a few inches of water but we had the good luck to have dry salt in the centre and water at the edges.  Our guide had been 20 times and never seen it like this. Hence the earlier reference to unseasonal rain in Potosí.

As you can see Verity has lost none of her gymnastic ability but has shrunk in the wash. I won't bore you with all the other pics we took involving running away from dinosaurs but they are very clever.

We drove across the flats in 4x4s mesmerised by the views, getting better as the sun went down and we got to a flooded area near our destination.  The solid salt crust easily supports the cars but it is a bit eery to splash through the water. 

As we drove towards the tiny village under an old volcano it was hard not to be dazzled by the reflections of the mountain and the dying light.  In today's digital photographic age it's so tempting to live life through a lens rather than putting the camera/phone down and just gawking at it.

Yes that is snow on top of the mountain. You can see the hexagonal ridges which form as the salt crystallises just under the surface.

The driver had to drag us away to get into Coquesa so we could have dinner. Looking back we could see the other group against the pink glow of the clouds giving some idea of the scale of the surroundings. 

We had a lovely supper of llama steaks in a small dining room close the shore. Everything is built of solid salt blocks, including the beds. The size of the blocks was determined long ago as the size which llamas could carry slung one on each side.

We had been warned about the cold and they were right- but we ventured out to see an incredibly clear starry sky. No light ( or indeed any other) pollution here.

Back at breakfast we watched the llamas as other groups set off to cross the flats.

We were to loop back to Uyuni across the flats and round the mountainous surrounds of the flats, all across incredibly bumpy dirt roads taking two days in all. So off we went first to an island covered in coral rocks and cacti.

We then left the salt behind and ventured into the hills peaking at about 4900m at one point.

More to come....