My last days in San Pedro de Atacama were partially spent preparing for a road trip to the Salar de Uyuni salt flats, a natural wonder with a uniquely beautiful, expansive, brilliant white landscape.
After shopping around quite a bit, I booked my tour with Eric at White and Green Travel for 100,000 CLP, which ended up being a great call, as they offer a completely different itinerary on the 2nd day than most companies. We had good food and accommodations, and most importantly, safe drivers. After reading about nightmarish tours with drunk drivers, I was really happy that ours, Alcides Fernández, was super professional.
Besides acquiring Bolivianos at a terrible exchange rate, I had to get another coat for the the 3-day/2-night road trip, since I left my good coat in a friend-of-a-friend’s car in Buenos Aires. Unwilling to pay crazy San Pedro prices, I got on a bus to the nearest city, unremarkable Calama, to go on an ultimately successful (2 decent coats, 35,000 CLP/54 USD) shopping expedition, with a side of Captain America.
On Sunday, Eric picked me up, along with another 10 passengers, and we were en route to the Salar de Uyuni. First, we froze outside the Chilean customs office in town for a good 20 minutes, then made our way up to Hito Cajón, at over 14,500 feet above sea level, to get into Bolivia via the tiny border outpost and eat breakfast.
This is where my Salar de Uyuni tour got interesting. And expensive.
I’d never had an issue exiting a country with one passport and entering a completely different, sovereign nation with another. Up until that Sunday, juggling Mexican and American passports had saved me at least $320 in reciprocity fees. But Mr. Prepotent customs officer in Bolivia decided that I had to enter with my American passport, and pay the $160 visa to do so. I told him I’d rather go back to Chile, he confiscated my passport, and I went to eat breakfast, where I was shaking because it was so god damn cold, even with every layer and gloves on, because of the wind chill. But breakfast was solid and hit the spot.
Eric, who is Bolivian, saved me here, saying we’d just need to chill out and go back in when there was no one else so that we could speak with the Bolivian authorities and work on a resolution to our issues (Jan, from Malta, also had trouble getting in).
Once the masses left (there were, probably, 35 different tour groups of 4-6 people in their own 4 x 4s), we went back with Eric, Jan’s friend Benjamin Franklin, and my three homies, all named Andrew Jackson, who successfully lobbied on our behalf to secure our Bolivian visas and get us on the road. #FIFAstyle
The two trucks on our tour had a very international flavor, with Switzerland and France also represented in my ride (where I rode shotgun the whole time. Boom!), while the other had Australia, Malta, England, New Zealand, and France. Good times.
The first day we stopped at Laguna Verde, Laguna Blanca, Laguna Colorada, thermal bath, some geysers that reeked of sulfur but were pretty cool, drove past the aptly named Dali desert, picnic-ed inside a refugio in the shadow of a volcano, and settled in at a little hostel in Mallcu Villa Mar.
And, of course, we saw lots of llamas.
Spaghetti and my 2L box of Gato Cabernet Sauvignon hit the spot that night (Gato wine was one of my favorite finds in Chile). And while the hot water in the showers was not even warm, at least the rooms were.
We woke up to pancakes & powdered coffee (not proud of it, but it’s all you get in Chile and a bit of Argentina), loaded up, and were on our way.
On day two, we went to some rocky formations that were reminiscent of Utah, had lunch at a really cool canyon, drove past an endless amount of quinoa fields, lonely adobe structures and livestock pens, and ended up at the salt hotel in San Juan, about 1.5 hours from the Salt Flats, which meant a 4:30 a.m. wake-up call the next day, so we could see sunrise.
The salt hotel is just what you think: a hotel made of salt, which was awesome, even if it had no insulation. Unfortunately, none of my other pics want to upload (thanks, WordPress!).
After showering (and working hard to find a happy medium between scalding hot water and cold stuff), picking up a good new card game thanks to Salome and Ivonne, and eating dinner, I layered up and went outside to enjoy one of the starriest skies I’ve ever seen. With an ancient, pre-Inca necropolis in the background, 0 light pollution, and only a few dogs nearby as company, I enjoyed the black and white scenery for as long as I could stand freezing my ass off, because even with layers, a hat, and gloves, it was cold.
Off we went the next day, (coffee-less!) in the cold and dark at 5:15 am, for the highlight of the trip: the Salar de Uyuni salt flats. And they did not disappoint. With 12,000 km of white, salty terrain, the Salar de Uyuni is the largest in the world!
Following sunrise, we headed to Inca Huasi island, a cool landmass full of cacti in the middle of all this sodium & lithium, where we enjoyed a nice breakfast and spiked coffee on tables and chairs made of…salt.
Once we wrapped breakfast, we drove a bit for a photo session, then another hour or so out of the salt flats and towards the town of Uyuni.
Overall, the adventure to the Salar de Uyuni, winding through a little slice of beautiful, dry, mountainous southern Bolivia was memorable and worth every penny.
After saying goodbye to a bunch of good people in Uyuni, I hit the road to Potosí, a mining town that was once one of the richest and largest cities in the world, thanks to the insane amount of silver found at Cerro Rico, a mine that is still active today.
[…] got off to a rocky start at the border, but not combative & laughable like the my experience getting into Bolivia. One step into the building, the health officer hassled me quite a bit for not having a yellow […]