There isn't enough soup to salt...

Uyuni, Bolivia: Yesterday I took a one day trip through the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt lake in the world. It's bound to get smaller, as the Bolivians are scraping off the salt on the sides and process it into table salt, but with 12,000 km square and a thickness between 20cm and over a meter, we'd have to salt a whole lot of soup to make a dent into this salar.

The most common way to see the area around Uyuni (which includes some spectacular volcanoes, a few lagunas and more thermal hot springs) is to book a 3 or 4-day tour that takes you around all those sights in a 4x4 (on a side note, EVERY SINGLE CAR that runs these tours is a Toyota Landcruiser... if they weren't all stolen from Chile, this would made a great advertisement for Toyota), spending the nights in very simple refuges at temperatures below zero. Since I had my fix of "spending the night sub-zero" and have already taken a bath in some hot springs, I figured a one day tour would suffice for my needs.

The tour left around 10:30am and the driver picked up 7 passengers total that had to squeeze into the car. Luckily I was picked up first, so I got the passenger seat next to the driver with the best view and most space. After another short stopover to pick up some food for lunch, we took off.. of course not quite yet to the salt lake, but to the first "tourist stop" where we could by handicrafts, e.g. ashtrays and figurines made from salt, traditional hats and scarves, etc. I bought two traditional hats (I had been planning to get those for some time, so why not now) and will take one of them back for my sister in Germany. I suppose I need to start thinking about other gifts to bring home to friends and family...

After that we finally set off into the salt lake - and it's an amazing sight. I have never in my life seen anything that flat that stretches out over such a vast area. The driver didn't really have to do much other than steering the car in the general direction and let the car go.... no need to steer if there are no obstacles (other than a dead flamingo every now and then). After about an hour of driving, only interrupted by a short stop to witness the salt being shoveled into large trucks for processing in Oruro, we reached the Island of the Incas in the midst of the salt lake.

Now I am not sure why the heck Incas would see the need to have an outpost on an Island in a salt lake with absoultely nothing around for 80km in each direction, maybe they liked the cactuses there.... and the view certainly was swell too, but I imagine that getting water there without the help of a Landcruiser must have been quite the effort.

We spent a few hours in the area to take pictures, had lunch, and took more pictures. Every Landcruiser seemed to stop on this island - and pretty soon the more ludicrous among the travelers started playing soccer and dancing at 4000m altitude in the desert sun.

Later in the afternoon we started our treck back only to stop occasionally for some picture opportunities along the way. I could have spent countless hours taking pictures there (and in fact I did take about 200 fotos). The route back took us along the Hotel de Salar - which is a building constructed entirely of salt. The walls, chairs, tables - even the beds are made of salt. It's a functioning hotel and for some ridiculous amount of money you can spend the night there, instead we headed back to the rim of the salt lake to wait for the sunset. It wasn't as spectacular as I had imagined (further inside the salt lake the colors would probably have been more amazing), but the total flatness of the surface made for some great shadows.

After the sun had disappeared and only the faint glow of orange was left on the horizon, we packed up and made our way back to the town of Uyuni. The rising moon behind the Andes made for another quick stop for us photo enthusiasts, and around 7pm we were back at our hotels.

Today I will be leaving Uyuni again and heading to La Paz. Like always around here, the buses leave only in the evening, so I have to kill the day here catching up on email and news, and around 8pm get ready for another 14 hour ride. I got a tad smarter this time and booked myself on a bus with heating... and just to be sure I have packed my sleeping bag separately. You never know...