First day of the Salar de Uyuni tour!!

We booked a tour for 3 days (Spanish because it is cheaper) at the Salar de Uyuni, which is the biggest salt flat on earth with the biggest lithium reserve in South America. I also booked on our „chill day“ my flight to GUAYAQUIL (South of Ecuador) at the 12.03 from La Paz.

I skip Peru now, as well as the Northern part of Peru, where the riots are not sooo heavily.

Unfortunately Lena felt sick at the first day, so she was not able to join there.

They still mine the salt with the hand after the rain season. It needs to get dry (with fire) and Iod will be added after that process step. The different levels on the are getting the plates because of sand and different salt years. (So it is not only salt there ; deepest point 18m)

The salt flat also gets every year bigger and bigger, because when it rains, the mountain takes some more salta into the salt flat and after „verdunsten“, the salt will stay there. Crazy.

They also want to mine the lithium below the salt flat, but the government changed and there is no big plan right not how to mine the lithium. Unbelievable🤦🏼‍♂️🙈
(Currently lithium mine Situation: Australia 52%, Chile 25, China 13, Argentina 9 + Rest. Especially with the electric vehicles an interesting topic.)

To our tour:
We started at 11:00, when we first went to a Railroad Museum. They transported mostly silver. which was mined in Potosi to Chile, where it can also be shipped.

After that we went to Museo de la Sal, where we got in touch how the salt is
produced. (See above)

After that we drove over the Salar the Uyuni, which is on a lover sea level as other salt flats & that’s the reason why it is in this region the biggest (Water and Verdunsten 😉) We saw also big holes in the salt flats, which impressed me.

We ate lunch and saw from far away flamingos. Amazing.

We also made a lot of pictures to see the reflection on the salt flat because of the water there. Most parts are at the raining season not dry.

In the evening we saw the sunset and that impressed me soooooooo much! It was the beautifullest sunset I have ever seen in my life. Especially with the reflection.
We drunk wine and drove back to a nice hotel, where we had a good lunch.

During the tour a married couple (Jan and Kathie) was with us. I am now sleeping in a private double room, because Lena is not sleeping in our hostel. Hopefully she is feeling better tomorrow, that she can join us for the next day and also for the border crossing to the Atacama dessert.Read more