Bolivia 3/3

Salar de Uyuni

Our last stop on the way to Chile.

The salt flats of Bolivia, called Salar de Uyuni, were starkly beautiful.

You know when you fall asleep in a patch of sunlight, and when you finally wake up your vision only registers the colour blue for a while? That's how I felt for 4 days in this desert landscape of cobalt skies and snow white salt. I blink and blink again and all I see is blue.

I must say our guide for this tour was the most fun out of all of the ones I'd experienced while in South America. Fun, but uncomfortable. You can't see my face in the distance but it's no doubt a grimace of awkwardness. Though the picture was worth it. Thank you Nate for forcing us to do 10 takes.

Allow me to walk you through a day in the salt flats. The day begins with a 5am wake up, have our tea, jam, and crusty bread in time to see the first rays of the sun peeking over the horizon.

You bundle up and find yourself questioning whether it's even worth brushing your teeth in the darkness, because if you're like me there's no way your phone is charged and you lost your headlamp on day 5.

Everyone shuffles out into the puny land rover. Don't ask me how this happened, but out of the 7 people jammed into the car, 5 of us were over 6ft tall. 3 Germans, 2 Canadians, and a Colombian as passengers... no joke. It's a polite gamble between us tall folk as to who will take the even smaller back bench seat.

The car jumps to life, headlamps illuminating the salt and making it look like dirty snow. We crunch on, sardines ready to escape at every stop. Luckily we stop often, as there are beautiful new landscapes that begin as smudges on the horizon. These smudges slowly grow into shapes and acquire beauty alike to that seen in the below image.

One lagoon, two lagoon, red lagoon, blue lagoon

We were lucky and managed to visit these lagoons at a time of year where flamingos frequent their briny waters. They are more white than pink, but are still very distinct with their long necks and legs as they slowly stalk whatever lives in the muck below.

Another stop, at another incredible lagoon.

This time a stop at an outcrop populated by chinchillas taking naps in the shaded cracks in the rock.

There's lunch somewhere during the day, hidden underneath a parasol from the deadly sun. A forgotten moment as we wait to begins the ride along to the next destination.

Dinner, tea, and we watch the sun set along the ridge. The sky turns a dusty pink and as the gentle stars begin to peak through the darkness, the temperature rapidly drops.

Another day comes, another bright sun rise.

This time we get to enjoy the suns rise with the geysers.

Which sounds beautiful, but mostly smells of eggs.

The sun has illuminated the valley just enough to see the hot baths from the thermal water produced by the geysers. This is where we watched the rest of the world wake up. From a thermal bath, under weak morning sunlight, black sand beneath our feet, sulphur inhaled with every breath.

Time to hit the road, and it's off to my final country, Chile.