We were not planning on taking a tour to the Uyuni salt flat from San Pedro, just because in our minds we thought we go to Bolivia afterwards anyways, so what’s the point? But in fact taking this 3 day tour was one of our best spontaneous decisions. Quickly after finding out about the existence of such a tour and the possibiliy to do it one way (that is, without coming back to San Pedro but staying in Uyuni, Bolivia) we started our research about agencies offering the tour and user reviews.
It turned out pretty much any agency in San Pedro and in Uyuni offers more or less the same tour, but the traveler’s experiences ranged from enthusiastic to nightmarish. So we did some more research (which I would recommend anyone wanting to take this same tour) and focused mainly on safety aspects. We don’t mind if we don’t get good food, sleep in a simple hut with no extra comfort, if people are rude or unfriendly, if we don’t get the super discount price, and so on. But we definitely don’t want to have problems with either the car or the driver, as accidents have happened in the past and you can find many horror stories on the internet. So we found one agency which got consistent positive reviews with respect to safety and went to talk to them in their office in San Pedro. Soon after we had booked our ticket. And I can tell you already now, we didn’t regret it… at all! It was surely one of the highlights (well, many highlights, actually) of our year!
Day 1
On the first morning we got picked up at about 7am by a minibus which would take us to the immigration office in San Pedro first, and then to the Bolivian immigration at the Bolivian border to hand us over to our new guide/driver/cook on a 7 seats Toyota Landcruiser for the following three days.
There were 12 people on the minibus, so it was easy to imagine we would be split into two groups of 6, and so the guessing and praying begun, as some people were able to get on our nerves before we were even able to say hello… which rarely happens, but believe us, these were the dictionary definition of “pain in the neck”… But, we were extremely lucky and our group and our guide were perfect so that we got along really well for the rest of the tour (which is quite important considering you are sitting next to eachother for almost 72 hours)…
After a quick breakfast at polar temperatures with a strong cold wind in our faces we got in the car and visited the white and green lagoons in the Eduardo Avaroa national reserve with their flamingos and unique colors. So beautiful… a perfect start into the tour.
Other sights and stops were first at a small natural hot spring and pool, where we were pleasantly surprised about how nice and cosy it was in the pool despite the ice cold air temperature outside the water, and later in a geothermal active area at almost 5000m with some boiling pools and geyser like steam jets.
The first day ended by the “laguna colorada” where we had lunch, visited the lagoon and finally also had our shelter for the night. The colored lagoon is full of flamingos and the colors of the lagoon itself, of the surrounding mountains, of the minerals and microorganisms in the water and of the grass by the river make for a unique setting, a true photographer’s paradise.
Pictures of Day 1:
…contines: day 2