Survivor Bolivia: Salar de Uyuni

Survivor Bolivia: Salar de Uyuni

After a luxury, first class bus ride(free up-grade: karma after our 31 hour bus ride) we arrived into the freezing desert town of Uyuni where absolutely nothing is alive. We chose our tour company based on which had the best heating and, after an expensive breakfast with an America, piled into our 4wd, home for the next 3 days .Our team: Japan, Canada and Chile

Day 1:The photo shoot

-Brief stop in a train cemetery for awesome photos. The trains used to carry mine goods between towns but now they are rusted and sad.

-Head to the Salar and Salt museum: 12,000 m of salt ranging from a few to hundreds of metres thick. It used to be an ocean but then the Andes rose up. This allowed for more awesome photos.

-Arrive after a long day of white at our salt hostel, with bricks made of salt(yes we licked the walls to check). After paying for a hot shower(the first in two days again...) it was a cold night made better by wine and cards and new friends from Brazil. The stars were unbelievably beautiful and we all stood in the freezing desert night and chatted in all our different languages.

Day 2

Next morning we were the last group out, too much beeping of the horn by Theo our guide. We headed on a drive through the desert and passed the snow capped mountains, stopping at crazy Star Wars rock formations for photos. 

For lunch we stopped at a hill with giant rabbits with long tails and our resident Chileno, Jose, took 1 million photos. He is travelling with his friend Yuko from Japan and as she puts it, he takes for photos than the Japanese.

We headed out in the afternoon to the lakes, every mountain had a different coloured one behind it- pink, red, blue, green and brown all filled with flamingos. We stopped at all but it was so cold we didn’t last long.

That night was freezing and we huddled around the one fire. I had all my clothes on that night and I was still cold!

Day 3:

Woke up at 5am to Jose’s music alarm, followed by Jades iphone which sounded like a truck horn-I hate that alarm! 5:30 we huddled around breakfast singing any song Jade started before piling into the car and driving through the desert to the geysers. It was so cold-the coldest I’d ever been(until a certain border crossing to Argentina two days later where our scarves iced over and my hands were so painful I almost cried). The geysers were amazing, sulphurous gas shooting up into the air with no safety rails and the morning sun shining through. 

The best, however, was the hot springs. By a lake is such hot, clear perfect water. I felt cleaner than I had since the Amazon soaking in this healing water. It was amazing and I met the teacher of one of my favourite bands, Goldfish, who offered to set me up for dinner if I ever come to South Africa!!! Awesome!

After that, nothing could ruin my day. We headed to some lakes at 5000m where I got altitude sickness(kind of like being hungover and having a migraine at the same time) but after 1 hour we headed down and I was fine.  Theo, who had definitely warmed up to us at that point, took us to a secret spot called the lost city of Italy: a place of massive rock formations and broken hearts. 

We had lunch and explored before taking the long ride through the mountains, desert and small towns to Uyuni. That night Jade and I caught a freezing night bus through the desert. We were the only tourists again but we didn’t mind-the sky was clear and the stars so beautiful. I even got 2 wishes n shooting stars.

Minute Man Pizza