San Pedro de Atacama, Chile to Uyuni Bolivia

We left Santiago on another LOOOOOOOOOOOONG bus journey, heading north to San Pedro de Atacama. San Pedro is a tourist town with great views but a very strong sun. We rented bikes and headed out touring for the day, but had to call it quits at about 2pm as the sun was having it's way with us.
After our short stint in San Pedro, we headed for Bolivia via one of the most amazing drives we have ever done... 6 of us piled into a Toyota Land Cruiser with our driver/guide Nilfe. The tour company was called Estrella del Sur. We went up to nearly 5000m, over high passes and watched thousands of flamingos graze in the brilliantly coloured but shallow lagunas. Apparently the colours are only one of the interesting things about the lakes. They are filled with borax, sulfur and one even has arsenic!! Nilfe was shocked to see flamingos in that one, as it is usually void of life. We wondered if the flamingos liked their phytoplankton with a side of arsenic.....?

The best thermal hot springs we ever saw were located at 4300m elevation on this circuit. Shortly after the hot springs we arrived at camp, where we were treated to a hot meal and a warm bed, though we had our sleeping bags with us so we just used them.... it seemed pointless to dirty the bed when the nearest washing machine was about 200km away and water was not easy to obtain. The food was much better than we were expecting, given the reviews we read and what information we managed to obtain from other travellers.

We arrived in Uyuni after 2 long days, and had a quick stop in the train cemetery before trying to avoid being sprayed with water and foam as part of the Bolivian carnival festivities. The music was loud but our things for no listening (earplugs - we didn't know the Spanish word for earplugs, so we went to the hardware store and asked for "things for no to listen" and pointed to our ears and managed to get what we wanted) worked wonders and we were well rested for the Salar de Uyuni the next day.

The Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat in the world, and sits at an elevation of about 3800m. At this time of year there is water on the flats, and it creates a perfect mirror of the sky and surrounding mountains. When looking at objects far away from you, it looks like they are floating in the sky. An incredibly surreal landscape. We tried our hand at creative photography, using depth perception to play tricks on the camera. Some turned out great, others.... not so much, but hours of endless entertainment nonetheless. Check out the photo album for a few minutes of entertainment....

Normally we hate tours, but undoubtedly, this was the best tour we have ever been on and we enjoyed every moment of it; even when it was snowing at 5000 m, we're from Canada. The intimate group made it feel less like a tour bus and our guide was fantastic about explaining any question we had, no matter how simple, in a very in-depth and informative answer. We were amazed at how well we were able to interact with him as he did not speak English and our Spanish is far from fluent. He spoke slowly, explained words we didn't understand, and repeated things 3-4 times if necessary!