Hayley in Wanderlust: Salar de Uyuni

One of the main stop on the Gringo Trail (the main route/destinations a lot of travellers through South America take/visit), are of course, the Bolivian Salt Flats.
Honestly, before I started planning and researching (and staring enviously at my Facebook feed at those who made it out here before me), I'd sort of forgotten that they were thing. Look, I've never claimed to be any good at geography. Being born with extreme wanderlust doesn't magically warrent you that skill.

Anyway, since I'd been travelling up through Chile, the logical route was for me to enter Bolivia as part of a Salt Flats tour from San Pedro. The place is full of different tour opporaters who all offer you roughly the same package, for roughly the same price. The tours vary in length too, with one option leaving you in Uyuni, and the other bringing you back to San Pedro. I was going to be doing it with two of the girls from my G Adventures tour (as well as one of the girls I has met in Valparaiso and a guy from our hostel) and, to be honest, they did most of the planning.

We booked with a company called 'White and Green' and, admittedly, our tour was slightly more expensive. It meant that we followed a slightly different route and instead of having six passengers and a driver, we had five passanagers, a driver and a tour guide who spoke both English and Spanish. It was definitely a bonus, but since I speak Spanish, I could have easily done one of the cheaper tours and been fine. Not complaining though, it really was amazing going to different spots from all the other tours and the peacefulness of it all was unreal.

On day one, we set off for the Chilean/Bolivian boarded (where I almost froze to death, it's over 4000m above sea level). Once we'd cleared immigration, we headed down to a thermal spring, which was pretty interesting. I'd never been in one before, and after the cold start to the day, it felt amazing to step into nature's bath. The rest of the day was spent visiting three massive lagoons, all of different colours, thanks to the various elements in the earth. My favourite was the 'Coloured Lagoon' as the water looked pink and attracted thousands of flamingos. So cool, flamingos are my spirit animal.



Day Two started with a visit to Rock Valley, which involved climbing up and around various different rock formations. This included rocks that looked like a camel, the World Cup and entire city. From here we headed to Laguna Mysteriosa, which was absolutely unreal. Hidden, thousands of metres above sea level, we had to cross a field/marshland filled with grazing Llamas and scramble across more rocks to get to it, but it was completely worth it. With water black like ink, and reeds taller than me, it was easy to see why they called it 'Mysterious Lagoon' - it was just so beautiful. Following lunch, we visited a canyon that, yet again, tested my stomach for heights, but gave awesome views of the tiny stream that ran through the bottom of it. After this, it was a three hour drove through the national park to reach our 'Salt Hotel' on the edge of the Salt Flats for the night.

Our final day started bright and early, as we were up and on the move by 5:30am to make it to Cactus Island, on the Salt Flats, in time for sunrise. I'll be honest, it was freezing and I really, really, really haven't packed for the cold weather. Had it not been for a jumper given to me by one of the girls I'd met in Cordoba, I would have seriously screwed. Waiting for the sun to come up in the cold was agonising, and I barely stuck it out. The two things I hate to feel the most are cold and hungry, and by sunrise, I was both. Still, it was bloody spectacular and one of the most gorgeous things I've ever seen, so yes, it was worth almost dying for. Following breakfast we spent an hour or so out on the Salt Flats taking a whole range of touristy and perfect photos (although, our driver kept trying to have artistic direction of the pictures, which I hated). Then it was time to go to our final stop, the train cemetery, which lay on the outskirts of the town of Uyuni. The train cemetery was creepy, but so cool and was basically a big kids playground, as all the trains were there to be climbed and explored.

On top of seeing some pretty amazing things, it has to be said that my group were brilliant (and yes ok, I'd met them all before we jumped in a jeep together for three days), as were our guide and driver. The food prepared each day was delicious and they accommodated a vegetarian and a vegan with absolute ease, something I had been told wouldn't be possible in Bolivia!

Yet another beautiful highlight to this continuously amazing trip.

-xo