Exploring the scintillatingly spectacular salt flats

From Rio we flew back to Santiago where we had a day and a bit to recover before flying to La Paz. We used this time to catch up on sleep, detox and plan our week in Bolivia.

Arriving in La Paz is like waking up drunk. The altitude, (4,000 metres above sea level) hits you the moment you land, you're short of breath and even the slightest effort is exhausting. Instead of waiting for me to trip over my own dangly legs, we made the wise choice of jumping in a cab and heading to our hotel, which was 30 mins drive away in a residential area of La Paz. There we had 20 hours to catch our breath before we were due to take a short internal flight to Uyuni.

(lack of pictures due to camera number 1 getting lost in Uyuni)

We headed back to the airport the next morning, and subsequently spent 7 hours there waiting for our plane to arrive. It never did, and with a short apology we were booked onto the flight to Uyuni the next morning. A quick phone call with our travel insurance company meant we were booked into the Radisson for the night, and the next morning we woke up at 5am to once again head to the airport. This time we were a bit luckier, and with only an hour's delay we were on our way to Uyuni, from where we would visit the salt flats.

Our first stop in Uyuni was to head out to a hotel made almost entirely of salt, where we would spend the first night. Located right next to the salt flats, we were able to explore them on our own and take some amazing pictures.

 

The next morning we headed back to Uyuni to go on a one day tour of the salt flats, which enabled us to venture much further into this incredible environment. Tours to the salt flats are a major source of income for the local community, as well as anyone associated with importing, repairing and refuelling Toyota Landcruisers.

On our trip we visited a 'train cemetery', salt production sites, as well as a derelict salt hotel in the middle of the salt flats. Below are some more of the incredible pictures that we were able to take.