Salt flats, colorful lagoons and volcanoes

“When life hands you lemons - break out the tequila and salt”
~Anonymous

Thursday, November 20th to Saturday, November 22nd 2008

The 3 days 4wd ride from the small town of Uyuni, Bolivia to the Chilean border is usually referred to as "The Salar" although you spend only 1 day in the Salar itself and the trip includes a lot more. It is incredibly popular and breathtakingly beautiful, one of those places where nature did such a great job that even tourists can't spoil it... It is also, in contrast to other places I've been, amazingly accessible to everybody - it's cheap, comfortable ride and the only hardships on the way are the altitude and the harsh cold air when you leave the heated car. I shared the car with 5 others: Oded, Kathy and Dennis, my old travel buddies, and Gili and Harel, who I trekked with at Huaraz, and joined us in Potosi to the uncomfortable bus ride who dropped us in the middle of the night in the small cold town of Uyuni. After knocking on some doors and finding a place for a short sleep, we woke up early and by 9:00 we already closed the deal with an agency recommended by other Israelis we met in the small town square. We bought water, loaded our bags to a rather new red colored Toyota land cruiser and got a stamp in our passport that we left Bolivia on Nov 22nd - 3 days in he future...

The first day started with a short drive to the locomotive cemetery near Uyuni. Dozens of old steam locomotives who once carried the mineral wealth of the Andes to the rest of the world just stand there at the end of the tracks as they were left many years ago, preserved by the dry desert air. We wondered between the relics, climbing on them and trying to reproduce classic western scenes by running on top (harder than it looks..) finally returning to our jeep. Our next stop was at the salt processing fields where locals mine the salts for local use - building small heaps of salts on the edge of the great flat. We continued down the road deeper and deeper into the white plains with the mountains around us looking like floating islands. In the middle of nothing we stopped again near an ugly black scar. This was the place where 5 Israeli girls and a local driver where killed in a terrible accident few months back. There was a small memorial site and we stood silently near it for a few minutes. The silence continued as we got back to the car but for a different reason: we were deep enough in the Salar and the place started to work it's magic. It doesn't matter what the guidebooks say, or how many photos of the place I've seen, nothing can be compared to the huge flat, blinding white surface that stretched around us hundreds of kilometers in every direction. Our driver navigated the vehicle over the featureless terrain until he pulled over near a small island where we would eat our lunch. The island was another wonder, an old reef, now covered with cacti that had a short hiking route that we walked while our food was being cooked enjoying the magnificent views composed of the Salar, the island's cacti and the volcanoes far on the horizon. After the walk and lunch we spend a few hours taking all kind of weird photographs exploiting the lack of perspective induced by the smooth white background. When we got tired we continued to our first lodge: a small hotel build from salt (everything including the tables and beds!) on the edge of the Salar. We drank tea and than Dennis and myself climbed the small ridge behind the hotel to catch the sunset before returning for dinner, a friendly game of cards and retiring to sleep.

On the next morning the group split. Some stay to sleep, others went into the Salar to see the sunrise while Dennis and myself climb the ridge again, playing hide and seek with big rabbits and enjoying the views offered by the first rays of dawn reflecting on the mirror like flats. After the early show we all boarded the jeep, left the Salar behind us and entered the Bolivian high desert heading towards one of the region's many active volcanoes. We stopped in the volcano mirador to gaze on the smoking giant, walked around in an old lava field and continued to visit a series of lagoons inhabited by pink flamingos . Just seeing the lagoons amids the colorful desert mountains was enough but for some reason mother nature decided to add the flamingos to the place to make the experience more special... After the lagoon we stopped at the "rock garden" where we saw and climbed strange rock formations surrounded by soft sand. But it seem that all of this was not enough, and on a whim, nature created an even a greater wonder: Lagona Colorada - a huge lake colored in deep blue, red white and turquoise with hundreds of flamingos - a place weird and impressive as it sounds... we ended the second day in a small hotel near the this natural world wonder after our driver informed us that tomorrow's wake up is at 4:30am.

After the early wake up we drove though the dark cold desert which reminded me similar drives back home, seeing the shadows of the mountains and the dust curling up in the jeep high beams as we covered the distance in the pre-dawn desert. But than the scenery changed and we entered a place that didn't look like it belong on earth. The horizon was covered with smoke and steam produced by a geyser field - where we run between the boiling mud pools, geysers and clouds of steam who all looked surreal in the slanted rays of sunrise. Cold but thrilled we returned to the jeep who took us to eat near another lagoon with hot springs, that were too cold for me but still gave great view of steam engulfed lagoon... we continued through more lagoons and flamingos to the last big lake: Lagona Verda - a green lagoon which reflected perfectly the volcano above it and the surrounding mountains. The ride ended few kilometers later on the Bolivian border post where we boarded a bus to Chile and watched from the window as a lone fox searched for food in the insane land of salt, lagoons flamingos and geysers...