One of the most impressive and picturesque places in the whole of South America is the extraordinary Salar de Uyuni. From out of this world landscapes, 4 x 4 off-roading, awesome sunrises and epic photoshoots, Salar de Uyuni is a truly unique bucket list adventure!

Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world, stretching 4,086 square miles. It is located in the southern-west part of Bolivia, near the top of the Andes and sits at 3656m above sea level. At some points during the tour, you will visit landscapes that are situated at nearly 5000m above sea level. It will leave you breathless! (literally). Not only is Salar de Uyuni the main tourist attraction in Bolivia, but it is also home to one of the largest reserves of salt and lithium in the world and therefore holds incredible importance for Bolivia’s economy.

So, if you’re planning on visiting South America, I would highly recommend taking a tour of these spectacular salt flats. This tour really was the highlight of my trip to Bolivia and if you do anything in Bolivia, it should be this!

Read below to find more details of my salt flat tour, prices, visa information and some top tips 😊

My tour experience

Day 1

On day one we were picked up at our hostel very early in the morning around 6am by a small mini bus. The bus was full with a range of tourists/backpackers from different countries. The bus took us to the border ‘Hito Cajon’ and here we changed into 4 x 4 vehicles. There were 6 people per jeep and then the driver. The driver was a very happy and friendly guy. As soon as he began to introduce himself in Spanish we realised he didn’t speak a word of English. We all looked at him with a blank face. This was going to be an interesting trip considering none of us really spoke any Spanish.

In the group there were two other English girls, a Dutch girl and a couple from Belgium. The driver moved our large luggage/backpacks from the mini bus to the roof of the 4 x 4. He found it hilarious how big and heavy my bag was and he actually struggled to lift it onto the roof! (It had my whole life in… I don’t pack light!) We kept our smaller bags with us in the jeep. Thankfully.. I don’t think there was any more room for any of my stuff!

We gained our exit stamp to leave Chile and our entry stamp to enter Bolivia. It was a simple and easy progress and did not take long.

The whole place was very futuristic and looked like something out of another planet. We drove for hours without seeing anything except miles and miles of lagoons, mountains, desert, volcanos and a range of animals. It was fantastic and so untouched; I had never seen anywhere like it before!

At every stop, the driver would stop and we would get out, spend some time at each place and take photographs.

On day 1 we visited:

• White lagoon

• Green Lagoon

• Dali desert

• Hot springs
• Sun geyser

• Red Lagoon

They were all unique in their own way and it was amazing to see such diverse landscapes. My favourite was the red lagoon, it was beautiful and full of flamingos!

Over the course of the day, we had travelled from 2500m in the driest desert in the world to a whopping 5000m above sea level. Around 4pm, I started to feel it. It began with a pain in my head than gradually got worse and worse until it felt like it was exploding. This rapidly got worse until I was in a pretty bad way! (Read more about my altitude experience here).

Around 5pm we arrived at the accommodation. It was a small place with several dorm rooms situated in a little village town at 4300m above sea level. I shared a room with 2 others and there were 2/3 bathrooms for us all. The accommodation was basic with no electricity or hot water. We each had a single bed and were offered some extra blankets if we wanted them.

Due to my awful altitude experience, I was fully out of it the whole night until breakfast the next morning!

Day 2

On the second day, I woke up around 6.00 am and still felt quite terrible. I was encouraged by the others to try and eat/drink to gain some energy and put some nutrients back into my body. We were having pancakes for breakfast (something I actually really liked). I managed to eat some pancakes and drank a lot of coca cola and slowly began to feel human again. We packed up the jeep and left the accommodation ready for day 2 of exploring.

We explored the little village, watched the children play and saw the llamas by the river. It was so interesting to learn about the community of this little desert town and how they live in such a rural place.

On the second day we visited:

• World cup and camel rock

• Catal lagoon

• Vinto lagoon (Black)
• Valley of rocks

• Anaconda canyon

• Lost Italy

• Sora Bofedal

• San Augstin and Julica train cemetery.

We arrived at the next accommodation around 6.00 pm. It was a ‘hotel/hostel’ made from salt. We stayed in shared double rooms and had private bathrooms. We actually had ‘luke warm’ water to shower in but we did have to squat to get the water pressure to actually work! Nevertheless, it was more luxurious (if you can call it that) than the previous night! We also had electricity for two hours on the evening to charge any devices we needed too.

We enjoyed an evening meal of meat, vegetables, chips and ‘vino’ (wine) before having an early night ready for a very early start the next morning.

Day 3

On the final day we woke up at 3.30 am, packed up our things and were ready to go at 4.00 am. Our first stop was to watch the sunrise at the famous Salt Flats- the moment we had all been waiting for!

It was pretty cold at this time so we were wrapped up with several layers of warm clothes. We took a few pictures and then went to our next stop, Inca Huasi Island. This was one of the coolest places we visited on the tour – a small island full of giant cactuses!

We followed the route around, admiring all of the cactuses and the gorgeous landscapes views of the mountains and salt flats.

After this, our guide had prepared a breakfast buffet for us to enjoy before our salt flat photoshoot.

By this point the sunshine had come out and the weather was sunny, meaning we could take off a few layers. From hats and gloves to t-shirts (all within a few hours!)

We spent a couple of hours taking perspective pictures at the salt flat. Our guide helped us to stage and take some pictures and then he left it to us. I think he assumed that we knew how to take them by ourselves… haha… he was so wrong! We definitely did not! It was much harder than it looked and after numerous failed attempts, we managed to take a few good ones!

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Following on from this lengthy photoshoot, we went to see the handmade salty crafts in Colchani town. There were a wide range of stalls selling handmade crafts, the popular knitted sweaters, hats and everything else. The prices were very cheap and affordable and it was helping the local communities so we bought a few bits and bobs.

Our final stop was the train cemetery. This place is full of old, rotting trains which date back to the 20^th century. Uyuni was originally planned to be an important destination for trains. Unfortunately, these plans never happened, yet the trains remained and as a result of the salt and strong winds these huge structures decayed over time. There are over 100 train cars located at the cemetery.

We had lunch in a small café/restaurant in Uyuni and then the tour ended around 2pm. Our guide helped us find the booking office of the company ‘Cruz de Sur’ to book our transport to La Paz. There is literally nothing in Uyuni so we had a long afternoon waiting in a coffee shop for the bus to La Paz.

Best time to visit the Salt Flats

The dry season and also winter season are between April and October. During this time, it gets pretty cold on an evening with temperatures hitting well below freezing. I visited Bolivia in October and the weather was very clear, a little chilly on an evening but sunshine and warm during the day. If you visit in this time, it will be accessible to visit all areas on the tour.

If you’re lucky enough to visit in February during the rainy season, you may be able to see the amazing effect of the rain on the salt flats. The water accumulates and reflects of the sky creating a fantastic mirror effect – the perfect photo opportunity. Although the mirror effect is fantastic, during the wet months, the mud and rain can cause disruption to the routes and the jeeps cannot gain access to some areas.

Cost

The price of the tours will differ vastly depending on which company you go with and what is included. I booked my tour with the hostel in San Pedro for a reasonable price. The tour cost £125 for a 3-day, two nights tour. You also need to take some extra bolivianos for the National Park entrance 150BS, Inca Huasi entrance (30BS) and the border tax (15 BS) as these are not included in the price.

Visa information

As I mentioned on my Bolivia itinerary blog, the visa progress differs depending on which country you are from. Fortunately, UK citizens do not require a visa to enter Bolivia for tourism, however certain countries do. When I visited back in October 2019, American citizens required a visa and it was expensive. This has recently changed in December 2019 and now visas are no longer required for Americans. Certain countries can stay for up to 90 days without a visa, other countries can obtain a visa on arrival and others require you to organise one in advance. Depending on which country you are visiting from, these can range in price. Check out this website for the latest visa information and to see which category you are: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/Bolivia.html . This also differs depending on which type of visa you wish you gain.

On the first day of the tour, you are taken to the border and supported by the guide to cross immigration. Firstly, you receive your exit stamp from the Chilean immigration and then you go to the Bolivia immigration. It is a very small little hut in the middle of nowhere. You will be instructed by your guide to enter and show your passport. It was very simple and easy and took only 15 minutes for our whole group to cross the border.

Accommodation and food:

Both the accommodation and food/snacks were included in the price of the tour. On the first night we stayed in the Siloli Desert- Tambo Loma Hotel. It was basic dormitories and shared bathrooms. The second night we stayed close to the Salt flats in a salty hotel and each room had private bathrooms.

Most of the food was homemade by the driver’s wife. There was a wide range of different options to cater for everyone- meat, vegetarian options, homemade cakes and biscuits, hot and cold drinks. Even for the pickiest of eaters (me!) I managed to find some things I liked to eat!

What to bring:

• Small amount of Bolivianos
• Camera/phone
• Props to take perspective photos- bottles, pringles tins, dinosaurs, toys… anything really!
• Warm clothes for the evening or to sleep in.
• Swimsuit (if you want to go into the hot springs)
• Sun cream and a hat (the temperature gets pretty hot during the day)
• Headlamp or torch- many of the hostels are ran on generators so the electricity will shut off at night.
• Toilet paper- you never know!
• Power bank to ensure you can keep your devices fully charged.
• Auxiliary cord- most of the drivers will let you plug in your phone and play your music.
• Sleeping bag if you have room- some companies will provide or rent them if needed for extra warmth during the night.

Top tips

• If you get car sick easily, try and sit close to the front of the jeep and take sickness tablets. The ride is very bumpy!
• Have some ideas of perspective pictures you want to take and bring some props with you. Depending on your guide, they may already have some and give you some ideas but you may also want to use some of your own.
• Research the companies to ensure you have a guide that can speak the language you speak. Our guide spoke only Spanish and none of our group spoke any Spanish so most of the time it was a guessing game what was going on. Thankfully we had a little handbook written in English to explain the sites but we would have learned a lot more if we could have understood.
• Make sure to book with a reputable agency who vet their drivers. There have been lots of horror stories about drivers driving drunk or recklessly with tourists and using poor quality 4x4s.

Where to next?

From Uyuni I travelled to La Paz to ride the death road. For further reading, take a look here:

Biking the death road in La Paz, Bolivia.