Flavia & Gregory go LA

This trip was SPECTACULAR, possibly the best we have had so far. It is difficult to compare or rank the places we have visited (where do you put Fitz Roy??? Or Torres del Paine??? Or Perito Moreno?? Or Rio Carnival??? Or San Pedro de Atacama???), but this one was something truly out of this world. For 3 days we travelled through stunning mountain scenery, volcanos and lakes of all colours, only to end in the biggest salt flat in the world in a sea of some 10,000 square meters of very white salt!!

After having consulted the book of suggestions and complaints at the tourism office in San Pedro, we decided to buy our tour from Estrella del Sur, one of three Bolivian agencies offering 3-day tours to Bolivia. It was a very good choice - everything went incredibly smoothly and, unlike all the warnings found in the present tour guides, the food was good and plenty.

I will cut this short and post a few good pictures, though I must say that again, like with the Valle della Luna, the photos do not do justice to what we experienced. Very briefly, during the first day we went through a few lagunas of different colours with lots of flamingos. We stayed at an extremely basic shack up at more than 4000 meters at -20 degrees (nobody slept, despite the 3 layers of clothing plus the sleeping bag plus the 2 blankets) but hey! we were right next to the Laguna Colorada, dotted with hundreds of flamingos. And they were not even indoors!!!! The second day was a long drive through more lagunas, volcanos etc to a hotel by the salt flat shore - a salt hotel built with salt blocs! Walls, floor, beds, tables and chairs were all made out of salt - very peculiar! The third day it was a 5am start to drive to the middle of the salar and watch the sun rise. This was really crazy, we had the sun going up on one end and the moon going down at the other!! Then it was the drive across the white sea to the Isla del Pescado, a small island covered in giant cactuses, where we had breakfast. Then it was another drive in the white salt desert thorugh the salt ´mines´, where they extract the salt for human consumption, then the salt museum and finally a visit to the train cemetery on arrival in Uyuni.

I´ll shut up and let the photos show you the itinerary....