We had decided that we would dare the trip off the tarmaced road to see the wonders of the Salar of Uyuni, a huge salt plain in the middle of the Atacama desert. So we stocked up on food as much as possible in the local market of Potosi. A supermarket did not seem to exist.
We managed to get out of our hotel by again unloading all the items of the roof of the camper and with the help of half a dozen by-standers we managed to avoid scraping the house. We quickly left the nice roads of Potosi and found ourselves on the 250 km stretch through the desert to Uyuni. Initially the driving was quite good allowing speeds between 30 and 60 km/h. But soon we hit some nice corrugated stretches that demanded slowing down. We met several fascinating groups of road
We managed to get out of our hotel by again unloading all the items of the roof of the camper and with the help of half a dozen by-standers we managed to avoid scraping the house. We quickly left the nice roads of Potosi and found ourselves on the 250 km stretch through the desert to Uyuni. Initially the driving was quite good allowing speeds between 30 and 60 km/h. But soon we hit some nice corrugated stretches that demanded slowing down. We met several fascinating groups of road
workers in their yellow overalls who stopped us and asked for some water. We left them a few bottles of our water.
The landscapes were pretty and varying between dried out valleys and small salt lakes. When the time came to look for a camp we struggled since one could not go off the road. Left and right of the road there were big stones, hefty ditches and bushes. So we carried on until we went back up a hill and found a flat piece that had been used by heavy equipment. It was right next to the road but at the rate of one vehicle per hour during the day we thought this would not be a big problem during the night. It turned out that the heavy trucks carried on all night.
The landscapes were pretty and varying between dried out valleys and small salt lakes. When the time came to look for a camp we struggled since one could not go off the road. Left and right of the road there were big stones, hefty ditches and bushes. So we carried on until we went back up a hill and found a flat piece that had been used by heavy equipment. It was right next to the road but at the rate of one vehicle per hour during the day we thought this would not be a big problem during the night. It turned out that the heavy trucks carried on all night.
After some discussions and travel agency advice ranging from "no problemo, todo secho" to "never go there without an experienced tour guide (:-)" we decided to go for it and spend a few days on the salt. There are only a few entrances to the Salar because along the edge the salt is often wet and soft and one would just sink in and not be able to get out anymore since there is nothing to attach a rope to. With our map and the GPS coordinates we found the entrance and after having crossed a few wet patches with people making salt we found ourselves on a completly rock solid surface of salt. The surface had the pattern of the shell of a tortoise. A few small holes that needed to be avoided but other than that it was flat as a modern road - just there where no roads. After 15 km on the Salar one could not see the edges any more and since there were no tracks we needed to navigate with the GPS to find our first stop - Inca Wasi. A small island on the salt plain with cacti up to 1200 years old.
The problem with finding the island was that like on the ocean the curving of the earth stops one from seeing an island (unless it has a big mountain on it) until one is just close enough. So we didn’t see where we were going other than the coordinates on the small handheld GPS we had purchased in the US. Only close to the target the island suddenly popped up out of the "sea".
The girls enjoyed for the first time in their lives driving a 4,5 ton truck at 80 km/h across the salt. Anna and Cleo couldn’t reach the pedals properly but with some help of Daddy they made their first turns.
The night we spent another 40 kms further at "Isla Pescada". I went for a run around the island and found the girls dancing to "Cold as Ice" on the salt in the middle of nowhere. The sunset and the moonrise where incredible - we will never forget the changing shapes and the colours.
We spent a second day on the Salar climbing a small mountain and burning the remains of some century old cacti on the salt to have a small fire. The temperature as opposed to the desert itself did not change on the Salar between night (around 0°C) and day (around 2-3°C) a lot. The salt reflected all the sunlight that could have warmed the ground.
The girls enjoyed for the first time in their lives driving a 4,5 ton truck at 80 km/h across the salt. Anna and Cleo couldn’t reach the pedals properly but with some help of Daddy they made their first turns.
The night we spent another 40 kms further at "Isla Pescada". I went for a run around the island and found the girls dancing to "Cold as Ice" on the salt in the middle of nowhere. The sunset and the moonrise where incredible - we will never forget the changing shapes and the colours.
We spent a second day on the Salar climbing a small mountain and burning the remains of some century old cacti on the salt to have a small fire. The temperature as opposed to the desert itself did not change on the Salar between night (around 0°C) and day (around 2-3°C) a lot. The salt reflected all the sunlight that could have warmed the ground.
The next morning after school we drove the last 100 km to Uyuni that we saw from the ridge of the surrounding mountains lying in the flat next to the salt plain.
Uyuni was a strange town that originally only existed because of a railway junction connecting the trains from LaPaz with Chile. In the meantime, tourisme had been added and a military attachment also. The town was build on a perfect grid with a few restaurants, local travel agencies advertising the trip on the Salar in beautiful pictures and the local market, the only place to buy groceries.
We decided to stay for a couple of days to check out whether it was already possible to get onto the Salar after the rainy season and to decide whether we should risk it.
The one extraordinary discovery we made in Uyuni was a hotel/restaurant run by an American/Bolivian couple. He was a Pizza baker teacher from the US and they offered the best pizzas that we had eaten all along the entire trip !!!
Uyuni was a strange town that originally only existed because of a railway junction connecting the trains from LaPaz with Chile. In the meantime, tourisme had been added and a military attachment also. The town was build on a perfect grid with a few restaurants, local travel agencies advertising the trip on the Salar in beautiful pictures and the local market, the only place to buy groceries.
We decided to stay for a couple of days to check out whether it was already possible to get onto the Salar after the rainy season and to decide whether we should risk it.
The one extraordinary discovery we made in Uyuni was a hotel/restaurant run by an American/Bolivian couple. He was a Pizza baker teacher from the US and they offered the best pizzas that we had eaten all along the entire trip !!!
The following day we went back to Uyuni. Just when we wanted to leave the Salar we saw these golden glowing dots in the distance. As we got closer we saw a helicopter circling over a crowd of cars and when we finally met them it turned out that the we encountered the G4-Challenge, the successor of the Camel Trophy. About 50 brand new and bright read range rovers were just making it onto the Salar to have a cycling competition. It was weird. Particularly, when the following day we met them at the ...
... petrol station in Uyuni. A nice queue!!
We spent another night just in front of our favorite Pizza place. Having tasted some of the wonders of the Atacama desert we were ready for some more adventure and decided to go further South trying to reach Chile.
... petrol station in Uyuni. A nice queue!!
We spent another night just in front of our favorite Pizza place. Having tasted some of the wonders of the Atacama desert we were ready for some more adventure and decided to go further South trying to reach Chile.