Day 4 of the Altiplano
Trip Start
Jan 19, 2008
1
23
30
Trip End
May 01, 2008
Uyuni, Bolivia
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
We left on the fourth day at 4am in order to head to the worlds largest salt lake (12000 sq km and apparently 120m deep in places) in order for sunrise. As it happened though it was almost completely overcast and sunrise was nothing more than a frigidly cold experience in, what we couldn't convince our minds otherwise, snow. Soon afterwards we got involved in all the silliness that the near perfect white surface of the salt flats have become famous for - trick photography. There were people walking out of toblerone bars, standing on cans of coke, people standing on other peoples heads etc. We managed to put together a few that we're pretty pleased with. We had pulled up outside the only remaining salt hotel actually in the flats - the other two have been removed and rebuilt brick by salty brick on the edge of the flats near Uyuni. This one remains as a museum and somewhere convienient to eat breakfast on a salty table sitting on salty chairs looking at the salty sculptures...
We had pre arranged to get a 10am bus from Uyuni (the town is only 30 minutes drive from the start of the salt flats) to Potosi, so at just after 9 we set off and got to see probably the most impressive sites of the salt lake. The area near the hotel is pretty dry but large chunks of the flats are covered in a few cms of water which create a pretty perfect mirror surface. The views were out of this world.
Next up - Potosi - home to the largest silver deposits ever discovered and pretty much underwriting the Spanish economy for centuries.
Comments
Cool photos!
That's a great place to fool around and take photos. Looks like you guys had lots of fun.
Louise Brown
TravelPod Community Manager