Uyuni I - The World‘s Largest Salt Flats

After a somewhat life-changing experience in the scary silver mines of Potosi and cycling down the Death Road in La Paz, Maria and I were now done with the extreme/dangerous activities for this holiday. In other words, our next stop brought us to Uyuni, which was the starting point of our 3D/2N road trip through the largest salt desert in the world all the way across the border to the desert town of San Pedro de Atacama in Chile.

In Uyuni, we met up with Kim and Ruud, two fellow travellers I met in Peru and La Paz and who would join us on our tour. After sorting out the logistics, we jumped into a car and our driver and guide drove us to the first stop of the tour - a train cemetery just outside of Uyuni town. The train cemetery is a relic of good times gone by and the salty air and abandoned trains have formed this cemetery into quite a beautiful location.

After arriving there, we jumped on the trains with our cameras in hand, explored the old and rusty wagons and wondered what they must have looked like or drove through in old times.

Unfortunately, we did not have much time there, which was a pity as Maria and I could have easily spent two hours or so there. But, at least, we got the idea and visited this interesting place that could tell tales about parts of Bolivia's history.

Shortly after, we made a quick lunch stop before heading inside the salt desert. The first stop brought us to an abandoned salt hotel, which was a bit of a disappointment. However, next to it was an impressive collection of flags from all over the world. The colours of those flags contrasted beautifully with the white and somewhat unreal background. I quickly found the German flag, but Maria did not manage to spot a Guatemalan one, unfortunately. There, we felt we had enough time to take it all in and did a few nice photoshoots before heading to the main event.

The main event was nothing but a long photoshoot. For that, we drove through the white, flat and dry desert until we found a spot where we were literally surrounded by nothing but whiteness and the blueness of the sky. There, we took our time for countless perspective-bending photographs with a variety of props ranging from dinosaur toys, shoes and wine bottles. It was huge fun and we laughed a lot - especially when some of the photos turned out to be completely ridiculous.

Afterwards, we headed to another surreal place, which was a little hill covered in cacti in the middle of the salt flats. It was a little uphill climb and the views from up there felt otherworldly. As if a place like this shouldn't exist. After all, we were above 3600m and the salt flats used to be covered by the ocean, which is where all the salt came from - mind-blowing.

Anyway, our last stop might have been the most beautiful one, as we, again, stopped in the middle of the desert to watch a gorgeous sunset. It was a perfect ending to our day and we were all very happy with the first day. Plus, we were still in awe how such a place could exist.

It was surreal. As if we were on another beautiful planet. Czytaj więcej