Salt flats

After a short stop in La Paz, we flew down to Uyuni to join a tour of the Bolivian salt flats, Salar de Uyuni. The only way to see the Salar is with organised tour. There are dozens of operators and reviews tend to vary from barely adequate to terrible. We booked with a company called Red Planet Expeditions, which I found relatively amusing for a company that runs tours to a white desert. Red Planet had good reviews and was considered a mid-level tour with reasonable safety and accommodation.

Our tour began with the realisation that we had no tour guide, as the guide's seat had been sold to another tourist, fitting six of us in the truck. The driver spoke a little English and we were told that he would be the guide. His guiding consisted mainly of telling us when we should take photos.

Our accommodation was also somewhat questionable. We were told that we would have double rooms on the first night, which we spent in a hotel constructed entirely from salt. Instead we had a four bed dorm. We had to pay for showers - there was one shower for the 30+ guests staying there. The second night was in a 6-bed dorm with one bathroom ($3.50 for a shower). The toilet was of the non-flushing variety; not so much a long-drop as a short-drop. Disgusting.

Food was predictably bad for us. We had warned the company well in advance that we were vegan, and they assured us that that would be no problem. As we left Uyuni, a company rep handed me a big apple pie to carry 'for the group'. Did it contain butter? Yes. Then for dinner we were provided the entirely vegan 'meal' of shredded carrot and potato chips. Breakfast on day two was pancakes, which we can't eat because they have eggs and possibly milk. We asked for something we could eat and were given stale bread buns... topped with cheese.

Enough about how crap the tour company was. The Salar was beautiful and amazing. The flats are approximately 110km by 120km, all covered at varying depths with pure salt. The glare is blinding - salt miners literally became blinded by the light before sunglasses were brought in. The contrast to the deep blue sky was spectacular. Our 'guide' told us that the salt plains were formed around 8000 years ago when rivers of salt water from the Pacific Ocean flowed down to these plains. Yes, he said the Pacific drained into the Andes (the flats are at about 3500m above sea level) just 8000 years ago. He is several million years off with that calculation. Wikipedia (the real man's travel guide) tells me that the Andes (in which the Salar lies) were formed between 138 and 65 million years ago. The salt plains themselves were formed around 30,000 years ago when Lake Minchin evaporated.

On the second day of the tour we visited some incredible lagoons of many different colours. Streaks of red, yellow, blue and white cover the water and hundreds, nay thousands of pink flamingos strut about. Our 'guide' told us that the flamingos ate shrimps. The shrimps come from underground. It later transpired that he didn't know what shrimps were. Anyway, the flamingos and the lagoons were really beautiful.

We also visited what our 'guide' (I'm persisting with the inverted commas) said was a semi-active volcano. It was blowing smoke. I think we can agree that it was active. The fields of lava rocks surrounding the volcano were also very cool. Wind erosion had formed the rocks into interesting and diverse shapes. We were told to take photos.

We had some great company on the tour with two New Zealanders (yay) and a French/Dutch couple who were all of similar ages and interests. Some good ghost stories were told, and the ills of the world were put to right.

Overall, it was a fantastic place to visit. It was just a pity to be so badly let down by the tour company.