Although Uyuni is known worldwide for its Salt Flats, we are able to affirm that Uyuni it is not just the Salar. Within the tourist circuit you can also visit deserts, colored lagoons, volcanic rocks, salt hotels, vicuñas and flamingos, small communities and many colors; above all: pure nature!
We always seek to explore and learn as much as we can, within the limited time we have for each of our trips, this is why we make a big effort in searching and informing ourselves a lot, in the case of Uyuni, since there are many tour operators and very few are authorized and that fulfill what they promise we did not wanted to make a mistake. Thus we came to hire the "Bolivia Trip" tour, which begins its journey every day from Uyuni, with 4 passengers, unlike the rest of the tours that we saw that left with 6 passengers, we wanted to have more comfort within the 4wd car, which still being a 4x4, it seemed small to us for such a long trip sharing with 6 people.
Also we have chosen this tour because we did not need sleeping bags because we were going to spend the night in hotels with private bathrooms and heating, which are perfectly prepared to withstand the -°20 that awaited us during the trip; this is a very important aspect to take into account, because the rest of the tours consider accommodation in basic hostels with shared bathrooms and rooms without heating.
The day of our trip arrived, we where going to spend the three next days traveling through the Salar de Uyuni, the Colored Lagoons and the Deserts of the Los Lípez region, within the Eduardo Abaroa Andean Fauna Reserve.
We started the first day just after dawn, our driver Raúl picked us up with a 4wd car that was super equipped and appropriate for the occasion. Our first stop was at the entrance to the Eduardo Avaroa Reserve in the “Dali Desert”, at an altitude of 4750 meters above sea level, we began by being shocked by this beautiful palette of colors that enveloped us from the beginning. Enjoying the landscape of the Lípez Desert we reach the imposing “Laguna Verde” and “Laguna Blanca”. Our eyes could not believe the majesty of the place.
The next stop was “El Sol de Mañana” we went even higher, we were at about 4950 masl, this place is full of cracks where volcanic lava and different sulfurous gases come out. And finally we arrived to the most famous and impressive of the lagoons, the “Laguna Colorada”, the most important site in the region, where it is possible to observe flamingos of all species. With the little air that we had left, we made a hike at this beautyful place, the Red Lagoon activated all of our senses, so we could not miss anything in the landscape.
Before arriving at the hotel we stopped at the mythical “Stone Tree”, carved by the desert wind and sand. At dusk, and extremely exhausted, we rested at the beautiful “Hotel Tayka del Desierto”.
The second day, after having breakfast at the hotel, we began the itinerary visiting the “Andean Jewels”, the lagoons: Honda, Hedionda and Cañapa. Each one offers an incredible environment to observe the immensity of the nature that surrounds them, full of wild birds and also some flamingos.
Leaving these jewels behind, with the “Ollague Volcano” that we could enjoy from a viewpoint, we arrived at a terrain similar to what we imagine of the planet Mars. We arrived for lunch at the Tayka de Piedra, a hotel next to the “Pueblo Quemado de San Pedro de Quemes”. Just finished lunch and after having rested a little we went for what we came for, to see the imposing Salar de Uyuni.
Once in the Salar, we had fun for a while in the middle of the white immensity without being able to believe what we were experiencing and with the joy of knowing that on the next day we would be able to continue enjoying it. Passing through the “Fish Island” we quickly arrived at the last hotel that was going to house us, the beautiful “Tayka de Sal”, we arrived at the hotel to rest a little, but without wasting more time we went to see the sunset at a place that only Raúl, our driver, seems to know, since we were completely alone contemplating the moon and the sun at the same time, with colors impossible to describe with words.
On the third and last day, we began our tour visiting the town of Coquesa, where there are museums managed by the local communities: Coquesa Museum and Chantani Museum, there we could observe fossils, rock formations and pre-Columbian mummies and other instruments.
Then we headed towards the Tunupa Volcano, we reached its first viewpoint where we enjoyed a spectacular panoramic view of the Salar de Uyuni. They told us that it is possible to take a walk of approximately 8 hours to reach the crater of the Tunupa volcano, truly a unique experience that we hope to be able to do on our next visit to Uyuni.
Later we crossed the entire Salar from north to south, with different stops in between. One of them is the incredible “Incahuasi Island”, unique in the world, where there are a large number of giant cacti that can measure more than 10 meters height, within the Island you can take a short hike and reach the top to admire the wonders that surround us. From its summit you can almost see the first salt hotel in the entire salt flat, a place that was used as the starting point of the Dakar Rally, which is next to a small salt platform where all the participants leave a flag of their country.
Finally, we visited the “Train Cemetery”, which has machines and wagons from the early days of the railways of English and French origin.
We arrived in Uyuni at 5 in the afternoon, just in time to organize ourselves for our next adventure in these beautiful Bolivian lands.
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