Salt. Cold. And really freakin’ awesome pictures. That’s what you can expect from Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. Sitting at about 12,000 feet above sea level, Salar de Uyuni is the world’s largest salt flat and roughly the size of the State of Connecticut; that’s a lot of salt! The out-of-this-world landscapes surrounding the Bolivian salt flats truly make you feel like you’ve landed on another planet. Drawing more tourists than anything else in Bolivia, Salar de Uyuni is worth all the salt and all the cold. Here’s your guide to touring Salar de Uyuni and tips for the trip.

Overview

• What: 3-day/2-night Bolivian Salt Flat Tour (we went one-way from Uyuni, Bolivia to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile)
• Tour Operator: Red Planet
• How Much: $190 each
• Worth It: Yes, but if you’re short on time do the day trip to the salt flat and skip the other stuff.

Our salt adventure began in La Paz where we took an overnight bus to the town of Uyuni (population 10,000) in southern Bolivia. This “major highway” was a bumpy dirt road proving to be an interesting night of “sleep” which included chipping ice off the inside of the windows (did we mention it was cold?). After arriving in the dusty and freezing town of Uyuni, we spent about ten minutes exploring the six blocks making up the center of town and checked in with Red Planet, our tour company for the salt flats. We chose Red Planet based on recommendations from other travelers and booked our tour online about a week beforehand. Salar de Uyuni is an extremely difficult attraction to see on your own without the assistance of a tour company because you need a 4×4 off-roading vehicle and extensive knowledge of the roads in the area.

Don’t stay in Uyuni longer than you have to. But for the one night before the tour, we recommend Toñito Hotel which has warm rooms and showers, good Wifi, and a bomb pizza restaurant inside called Minutemen Pizza run by a friendly guy from Boston.

Next on our list was paying Red Planet $190 each in Bolivianos cash for the 3-day/2-night tour. Two of the three ATMs in Uyuni were out of service and the remaining one had a line around the corner. Not to mention, we had to withdraw money SIX times in a row because of the tiny Boliviano maximum withdrawal. Sometimes the seemingly simplest things are challenging in another country. Luckily we have Schwab which doesn’t charge international ATM fees!

The next morning we met our sturdy off-road SUVs filled with water, gas, spare tires, and six tourists each. Our car had two other awesome couples, one from Finland and one from Belgium, in addition to our driver/guide, Rolando. We took all our belongings with us because we were going one-way to Chile (not returning to Uyuni). Make sure you’re very clear with the tour company about your final destination because they need to buy your connecting bus tickets in advance or you may be left in the middle of nowhere (also known as the Bolivian border crossing):

Once we hit the road, it took no longer than 20 minutes before we arrived at our first attraction: a train cemetery. For the transit geeks in us, this was cool! The trains were under operation in the late 1800’s transporting minerals to the Pacific Ocean for shipping. After the local mining industry collapsed in the 1940’s due to mineral depletion, the trains and the tracks were completely abandoned in the dust. We would have liked to spend more time here, so if you do end up spending the night in Uyuni, consider taking a taxi out to the train cemetery around dawn or dusk for better photos without the crowds.

An hour later we hit the last town we’d see for the next couple days complete with its very own salt factory. We thought the salt factory tour would include a large warehouse, some kind of machinery, assembly line, cleaning processes, and finally packaging and shipping. We didn’t realize it’d have that unique Bolivian flare to it. Here’s an idea of what the “salt factory” included:

After that we continued our salt adventure across hundreds of miles of Bolivian landscape and 8+ hours in the car per day, stopping every hour or so. Highlights included: visiting a coral/cactus “island” so far from any water, taking fun perspective photos on the never-ending salt flat, throwing a snowball in the desert, Tam being the coldest she’s ever been, natural hot springs at midnight under the stars, sleeping on a salt bed in a salt house, and peeing behind the only rock in the landscape. We’ll let the pictures do the talking:

 

To us it seemed like the attractions were a bit of a stretch, outside of the salt flat of course. If we had been short on time or not interested in getting to Chile, a one-day trip to the salt flat may have been just fine. After dropping us off at Bolivian boarder patrol with a bus to the Chile side, the rest of our group continued driving on the third day all the way back to Uyuni. Our destination in Chile, San Pedro de Atacama, was a cute little town in the Atacama Desert with crystal clear stargazing, great mountain bike trails, and cool tourist attractions like Valle de la Luna. It’s definitely worth a few days if you can spare them. Overall, Salar de Uyuni was a cool trip, we’re glad we did it, and we got lucky with a great group!

Transit Trekker Tips

• Bring lots of bottled water and snacks.
• Go one-way if possible unless you’re into spending more time in the car.
• Bring lots of warm clothes especially in the winter! Tam slept in five layers, a sleeping bag, and several heavy blankets.
• Prepare and locally download long Spotify playlists with some great 90s driving music.