Salty Plains

Trip Start Nov 12, 2008
1
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Trip End Apr 30, 2009


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Flag of Bolivia  ,
Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The bus left at 6am from San Pedro and everyone on the bus bar a couple of other tourists seemed to be Bolivians heading back home after working a hard week in their more affluent neighbour. The bus was cramped and apparently farting away on public transport is the way to go here - the bus just reeked. Bolivia is the continentīs poorest country and recently elected its first indigineous, ex-cocoa farmer president. The roads are crumbly, the buildings falling apart, but after spending the past couple of months in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, this is the first time I truly felt I was in South America. Gone are the western fashions, flat roads, modern transport and buildings, in come the women in pleated skirts and bowler hats, shakey breaky roads, and the mud brick homes. Just what i needed after the quasi European cities I had been in.
On the bus I met a couple of French guys and a Costa Rican who were fluent in spanish so I had their language skills on hand when going through the border crossing formalities.
We reached Uyuni and checked into a hostel. Memories from Asia came flooding back as the cost of one night was less than 3 pounds. The Frenchies and Costa Rican were proper travellers - minus dreads and those colourful baggy trousers. Weīd be eating lunch and dinner in all the best salmonella-ridden joints for little under 2 pounds including a drink. Luckily we went our separate ways the next day as I donīt think I could have dined on week-old fried chicken and chewy rice for too long.
I headed to the famous Salar de Uyuni on a tour, and it was one of the most awe inspiring sites Iīve seen on my trip so far. It used to be the site of a massive prehistoric lake, but all thats left now is a 12,000sqkm plain covered in salt as far as the eye can see. It was pretty special - check the pics. We also went to a train cemetery in the middle of the desert, which housed some rusty old locomotives from yesteryear and a visit to a salt hotel which  was deemed an illegal structure but was still used by some tours as an overnight stop over. We also visited a Cactus Island in the middle of the salt plain desert. Iīm bored, check the pictures.
Uyuni hotels Slideshow

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