Day 1 – The Flats

Our three day road trip around southern Bolivia started in the tiny town of Uyuni. We met our guide, packed up the truck and we were off! Very quickly we came to the first stop on our journey – a railroad cemetery. We scrambled over the rusted hulk of steam engines like an adult playground.

Next stop was a salt factory in the small village of Colchani. We saw how they processed the salt from the salt flats into cooking salt in building made of…salt!

Now we were finally headed into the real salt flats, the road ended and became two tracks in a sea of white. There was nothing around for miles and miles except perfectly flat salt. It was confusing since there was no frame of reference my depth perception was all out of wack. We tried to take advantage and make some silly pictures, but the camera focus wasn’t set properly and they didn’t turn out well. After driving what seemed like forever in a straight line we came to an island covered with cacti.

After even more traversing the white expanse we arrived at our hostel for the night. Of course everything was made of salt! The floor, the tables, the chairs, even the bed was salt! It was surprisingly bright and refreshing. The food was basic Bolivian fare, broth soup with fries and Platos Macho for dinner. For breakfast we had eggs and bread.