Salar de Uyuni

So, after our experience on Death Road, we slept well and woke up early the next morning to join our GAP tour. We have never travelled with a tour company before, but had heard GAP was awesome, and we didn´t have time to plan the trip ourselves.



It was a LONG day of travel to Uyuni, by sick, disgusting bus, and the bumpies, rockiest, bounciest train ride ever...thank god for my Ginger pills (natural cure for nausia). We had a brief stop over in Oruro for lunch at a lovely restaurant called Nayjama. It was also recommended in the Lonely Plant book, and their speciality is lamb. So we shared a platter and enjoyed it very much.



We arrived late in Uyuni, but stayed at a lovely little hotel, unfortunately I cannot recall the name, but it was clean and charming. This was the start of our 3 day journey to the Salt Flats-Salar de Uyuni. We were asked to pack a small seperate bag for 2 nights, and we couldn´t bring our big packs. There are 13 of us in the group (from all over the world) and we hopped into one of the Jeeps with 3 others....one being our adorable Gap guide named Sollydad (Solly for short) a La Paz gal who is very passionate about her country.



The jeep bumped along some very rough terrain (can be very dangerous, as they say 13 people die each year from the Jeep tours, so it is important to choose the right company...again another reason to use GAP)...there was so much to look at...and it seemed every hour or so the scenery would change. We arrived at our first stop to see large piles of gleeming white salt, and saw the production line, of how it is ground down and then placed into bags for sale...some of the most pure salt around...of course we had to buy a bag!



Then we drove on...it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere....all your eyes could see is white salt and then the sky...Solly said if you drove stright it would go on for 100 kms. We arrived at an ¨Island¨...in the middle of nowhere called Isla de los Pescadores....it was a big rocky hill covered with cactus, a few lamas and an extrodinary view. It was called an Island, because all of the salt flats used to be part of a prehistoric saltlake, when it dried up, it left behind 12,000 sq km of salt!



We did a little hike to the top for photos and then went back down for a wonderful lunch. We had 2 cooks travelling with us for the 3 day tour, and it was wonderful because we ate very well. Lunch consised of potatoes, veggies, local cheese, tomatoes and LAMA steaks. It was awesome...never tried Lama before..it was a little on the tough side...but very tasty!



After lunch we continued along for an hour or so, and stopped in the middle of no where....all your eye could see was pure white salt. Here is where we took some awesome prospective photos....for example, a miniture Ivan standing in the palm of my hand.... a tiny me sitting on top of my hat....jumping on a banana, and being chased by a dinosaur....again, cant wait to post these photos..they look so fun!

After that we drove for a few hours more, I couldnt imagine where we would be sleeping, because there was nothing in site....but eventually, we came around mountain side to this old dumpy looking village...lamas everywhere, and we parked in front of what looked like an old abandon shit hole....I was more than unimpressed...Ivan could tell....he tried to make jokes.....I imagined the divorce papers. We grabbed our bags and ventured inside to a pleasant surprise....one of the most unique, creative and cool places I have ever been....EVERYTHING was mad of SALT!!!! The ground was pure white corse salt, the tables in the dining hall were huge slabs of gleaming salt..even the cute chandalieres were made of salt.....then we went to our bedrooms and our BEDs were big huge slabs of salt with a mattress on top...all of the walls were salt (we licked them to be sure)....we were in one of the famous Salt hotels....there we enjoyed a typical Bolivian Christmas dish of beef, creamy mashed potatoes with corn in a spicy sauce....it was wonderful!

Another lesson not to judge a book by its cover eh! It was most certainly an experience to remember..although one night was plenty enough to enjoy!