From the water balloons of Sucre we headed to the Salt Flats of Uyuni. Potosí, one of the highest cities in the world, was en route, but we decided not to stop by partly because the top attraction is to watch exploited mine workers in the mines, partly because talk of road blockades was always on the horizon and we didn’t want to get stuck in the airportless city. We arrived in Uyuni in the early evening and, as we were waiting for our bags to unload, we met four friendly Germans, fast friends with whom we immediately booked two tours. The first, a night trip to the Salt Flats to enjoy the stars reflected in the shallow water; the second, a three-day excursion across the Salt Flats and desert, destination Chile.

Milky Way on the Salar

Train cemetery; as Julien commented, give tourists some abandoned trains, and they’ll go nuts.

Next stop, the Uyuni Salt Flats. The first rains of the rainy season had recently fallen, so we got to experience the gigantic mirror effect.

Our jeep and crew

Two Juliens

Playing with perspective

The Uyuni Salt Flats covers about 4,000 square miles, by far the largest salt lake in the world, and the level of the flats varies less than one meter over the entire surface. Our driver wasn’t authorized to cross the flats as the recent rains brought uncertainty as to whether the flats would be traverse-able by car. Nevertheless, our pretty fearful leader forged on, emboldened by a fellow tour-jeep doing the journey, and we all prayed to our respective rain gods that additional precipitation hold off until we made it across.

Here, the water about two inches deep

Here, the water about one inch deep

Dry Flats!

Jeep-prints on the Salar

Click here for a video of our adventure trip from Bolivia to Chile.