Salt Lakes

It was all worth it…

Four cameras with a total of 6GB of memory can tell the story of this trip through 700 pictures. It was sunny the whole time, giving me a nice tan, except for a small area around my left eye (courtesy of the camera).

It’s funny when you first see the desert (coming from a town); everything feels like a perfect opportunity for a picture. Over three days, we spent more time taking pictures than we did sleeping.

We started with a few lakes—some dry, some with water. We saw volcanic rocks and stinky geysers, and we ended the first day at a pink lake, which turns the birds that drink its water pink as well. There’s no point in trying to describe the views; just look at the pictures. (and no, I didn’t try drinking the water to turn pink...)

We spent the first night in a very basic settlement in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t mind the lack of drinking water, or the lack of hot water, or any water, the lack of showers, the absence of heating, the black market on toilet paper, or the random electricity outages. The only thing I couldn’t accept was that there was no internet. After dinner, we had to engage in conversation and actual vocal interaction. Crazy stuff...

The next day offered different scenery. Big, unnaturally shaped rocks that looked like they were carefully placed under instructions from Dali. Wild desert rabbits, llamas, and a few desert/deserted towns provided some incredible views. I’m sure that in the future, when we go back down this travel memory lane, this place will be a favourite.

The second day ended in a hostel. It had all the “facilities” of the first place (nothing) but with the addition of showers (cold water) and three hours of electricity—enough to recharge our cameras.

The third day brought yet another change in scenery. We spent several hours driving through the world’s largest dry salt flat. Looking around 360 degrees, all you see is white ground. There were two main attractions in this lake.

First, an island (in a dry lake!!!) with a 100m tall hill made of rock and soil. This is home to hundreds of cacti. Every size and style of cactus you can imagine is there, hundreds of them. I have enough pictures to prove my point. I have pictures of every single cactus (and pictures of us taking those pictures, so we’re fully covered).

The second attraction (and the last of this trip) was a hotel built from salt (salt bricks). Everything was made of salt. Not just the walls, but the tables, chairs, and everything else you might find in a hotel (well... in a hotel in the middle of a desert, so chairs and tables pretty much sum up the full furniture set). For some reason, we weren’t impressed by this; maybe because we had been driving for three days, covering 486 km (average speed 45 km/h), and were too tired even to take pictures (we only took about 50).

We ended the trip in a town called Uyuni. From there, we will head to La Paz using various means of transportation (mostly in random routes), which is too confusing to explain now, but I’ll try in the next message.