The town of Uyuni is about a six hour bus trip away from Sucre and doesn't have much to offer downtown. As with most travelers, what brought us there was that the town acts as a gateway to the largest salt flats in the world.
Three-day tours from Uyuni, through the salt flats and the Bolivian part of the atacama desert, finishing in Chile, are less than $200 each and are actually the cheapest way to get to Chile from Bolivia. The advantage is that you get to see some spectacular scenery along the way.
Three-day tours from Uyuni, through the salt flats and the Bolivian part of the atacama desert, finishing in Chile, are less than $200 each and are actually the cheapest way to get to Chile from Bolivia. The advantage is that you get to see some spectacular scenery along the way.
We chose one of the most reputable and most expensive companies for our tour. There have been plenty of tourists who have died on cheaper tours because of drunk guides/drivers so we were happy to give them a miss. Even then, as a couple we met in La Paz told us, this is Bolivia and some of the better companies can be dodgy. The altitude of the tour varies between 3600 and 5000 meters, and the girl we met had got quite sick. Her tour operator gave her aspirin without telling her what it was and when she got an allergic reaction he refused to drive her to hospital (despite being told by a doctor that she'd die otherwise) until her husband, together with other kind tourists, produced a $400 cash incentive.
Luckily our tour wasn't that eventful. We started in Uyuni early in the morning before heading to a nearby town where locals took salt from the flats to make salt bricks (for building houses) and table salt. Although no permits are required to extract the salt (apparently they have more than they know what to do with), it's not a particularly lucrative business; large salt bricks are worth 15 cents each and packaging a metric tonne of table salt in one kilo bags earns locals less than 10 dollars.
We spent the rest of the first day on the massive salt flats themselves, taking lots of silly perspective shots (Sam thought a few too many) and enjoying a stunning sunset. We were able to get a great view of the scale of the flats from the central Inca Wasy island, a rocky hill full of cactus and petrified coral (a reminder that thousands of years ago, before the water evaporated to leave just huge amounts of salt, this area was part of the ocean). Our first night's accommodation was at a modest hostel here the walls, bed frames, chairs etc were all made out of salt bricks.
Luckily our tour wasn't that eventful. We started in Uyuni early in the morning before heading to a nearby town where locals took salt from the flats to make salt bricks (for building houses) and table salt. Although no permits are required to extract the salt (apparently they have more than they know what to do with), it's not a particularly lucrative business; large salt bricks are worth 15 cents each and packaging a metric tonne of table salt in one kilo bags earns locals less than 10 dollars.
We spent the rest of the first day on the massive salt flats themselves, taking lots of silly perspective shots (Sam thought a few too many) and enjoying a stunning sunset. We were able to get a great view of the scale of the flats from the central Inca Wasy island, a rocky hill full of cactus and petrified coral (a reminder that thousands of years ago, before the water evaporated to leave just huge amounts of salt, this area was part of the ocean). Our first night's accommodation was at a modest hostel here the walls, bed frames, chairs etc were all made out of salt bricks.
Day two started early as we drove from the edge of the salt flats to the neighboring desert. Over the course of the day we traversed the Bolivian side of the Chilean border and saw plenty of flamingos, unusual rock formations, volcanos and lagoons. At sunset we visited a field of geysers near the top of a semi active volcano, which at over 5000 meters was the highest we'd ever been. It was also the coldest part of our trip. At our hostel only a few hundred meters down the hill Cindy put on five layers of clothes before crawling into her sleeping bag, layering on blankets and complaining about still being cold. It didn't help that we had to sleep with the door open because of the scarcity of oxygen.
On the third day we visited one last lagoon before catching a bus across the border to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. Although San Pedro is a rustic little town, we quickly realised we'd crossed into a more developed country. Almost all of the cars in town had been built this millennium, many of them in Europe. Unfortunately, prices were substantially higher, with very average meals costing more than Bolivian fine dining.
Tourists use San Pedro as a base to take day tours featuring geysers, lakes and all sorts of other things we'd already seen plenty of in the preceding couple of days on our way across from Uyuni. One unique sight is the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), a rocky red desert valley that really looks, as the name suggests, unworldly. Seeing the sun set over the valley was a particular highlight. After a couple of relaxing days in San Pedro de Atacama we took a short bus ride to the larger, but unremarkable, town of Calama to catch a flight to Santiago
Tourists use San Pedro as a base to take day tours featuring geysers, lakes and all sorts of other things we'd already seen plenty of in the preceding couple of days on our way across from Uyuni. One unique sight is the Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley), a rocky red desert valley that really looks, as the name suggests, unworldly. Seeing the sun set over the valley was a particular highlight. After a couple of relaxing days in San Pedro de Atacama we took a short bus ride to the larger, but unremarkable, town of Calama to catch a flight to Santiago