March 27 – Bolivian salt flat, Uyuni and Pulacayo

 

The small red dot is Uyuni and the white blob is exactly what you think it is - astonishing!

View from our hotel towards the salt flat - a vast horizon.

Yesterday as we drove through Uyuni it was pouring with rain and look dismal, but this morning the skies were clear as we launched into another exciting day  – we were to visit Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat. Measuring 12,000sq km, this salt-encrusted prehistoric lakebed cradled at 3,660m above sea level, can be seen from space evidently. Today much of it was mostly covered with water from the rains and from water draining from the mountains. The reflections were breathtaking. Staggering! I could only stare open mouthed at the endless horizon, the reflections that washed out when the sky met the land - much of the salt plain where we were was covered with water so it was like driving on a mirror. I have run out of superlatives so I'll post pix for you to enjoy.

We hopped out of the car, pulled on rubber boots and walked - amazing stuff.

At one spot we stop to see pools where lithium, in some form or other, bubbles up through the 140 m deep salt layer. Evidently Bolivia has the largest reserves of lithium in the world.  

We drove and walked across the lake and then had lunch at a rather rundown place, once a hotel, made of salt blocks. Eddy prepared a delicious picnic lunch for us there.  The Dakar rally came through here 8 or 9 years ago so there’s an international flavour to the place including a cirque of flags - our Aussie one was sadly shredded, and the windows were covered in stickers from all over the world. 

A salt art gallery. Very imaginative creations

The sky was starting to look a little dark so we headed off. It was the most astonishing place I'd ever experienced - perhaps! We ended up sunburnt from the reflected light in spite of having sunscreen on. One last photo before we leave this wonderful place.

In Uyuni we visited a train cemetery. A bit of an oddity but once trains carry massive loads of silver, tin and zinc out of the area to a port on the coast of Chile. The lines were built by the British.  Being a bit of a steam train-lover Lindsay was fascinated. I wandered around an installation of creative works made from scrap metal and bits from trains. 

More trains! We drove out of Uyuni to visit what was once the second largest silver mine in the world, Huanchaca in the mining town of Pulacayo. This mining operation  which used steam power and railways employed men from all over the world. It was also the site of labour strikes in the 1940's. Before that however ……..  

Remember the film ‘Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid’?  Well the train that the real Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid travelled in when they were robbing the miners of their wages was sitting in the derelict rail sidings at Pulacayo Bolivia wow!  So many stories to tell – if I could remember them all.

THE very train

The town is run down  but they still mine here on a small scale. The place is guarded by the army.

All of that before we headed boarded a n overnight bus to La Laz.