Trip of Salar de Uyuni 1 - Landing on another planet

Salar de Uyuni, some 40,000years ago, it was a lake. The Tunupa volcano stands between the perfect blue and white.

After visiting all the wonderful places in South America, this trip in the Salar de Uyuni and the region around is still my favourite among all the places. I felt so lucky that I could finally enter Bolivia and had such an incredible experience.

Salar de Uyuni is the largest and the highest salt lake in the world(over 3600m),to visit it, the town of Uyuni is the gateway and you can find plenty of travel agencies organzing 3days or 5days trip.

The quiet little town, Uyuni.



Once got off the 10hours bus ride from La Paz to Uyuni, all the tourists were surrounded by people from the travel agency. After some bargainings, I got a deal of 85USD(per person) for a 3days trip with 4WD and all the accomondation and food were included(it was really cheap, but the price was actually around the middle range of all trip).

A few hours later, a group of 6 people has already jumped on the 4WD and set off for our first location of the trip, the cemetery of trains.

Illams on the road to the Salar.

The abandoned lonely train under the super cremy sky.

Rail without the end.


This is life!



The salt lake is the source of salt products in Bolivia. So we could see many salt domes, a few trucks and workers there.



Then the salt will be processed in the little factory near by.

The final products (the salt under the little child) will be transported to other cities in Bolivia. However, because there are quite a few salt lakes in South America, so the demand of export is not high. The salt products in Bolivia are mainly for domestic consumption.

Our 4WD.


Driving on the salt lake was a wonderful experience. As we saw nothing except the blue sky and the big piece of white salt.

The little kid wanted to be a salt lake worker also.

The salt hostel, everything was made by salt.

Deep inside the salt lake, there is the amazing Incahuasi (means Inca House) or named Isla del Pescade (mean fish island). It is a coral island thousands years ago . But now it is raised over the land and covered with giant cactii which has been living for over hundreds of years.



This hugh cactus has been living over a thousand years!

A coral cave on the island.



Lunch between the island and the salt lake. But because of the strong sun and the reflection effect of the salt crust, even though I put on sun block, I was still burnt.

Human being is so trivial.

I questioned myself,"Is it the earth or another planet?"