there.today - Salar de Uyuni

There Today | Salar de Uyuni

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There Today | Salar de Uyuni 👋 Where today? Peru 🇪🇨 well-nigh us instagram facebook real-time Salar de Uyuni The warmed-over salt flats of Bolivia August 27, 2018 - 7 minute read - travel overlanding south-america bolivia ✨💎✨ I’m not sure when we first heard well-nigh the Bolivian salt flats in Uyuni — maybe it was a National Geographic vendible well-nigh mineral extraction a decade ago. It described an island that provided the only refuge for tourists in a vast empty and harsh landscape. It talked well-nigh divisive tour operation practices that left human waste on the Salar and deep tire tracks on the salt surface. What a strange preconception to have floating in our mind! It was not a positive memory — it made visiting the Salar seem much increasingly dangerous and logistically challenging than it was. In reality, visiting the Salar de Uyuni was a total highlight of our time in Bolivia. Preparing for the journey: The momentum from Tupiza on the trademark new Ruta 21 to the municipality of Uyuni was fabulous. We crush withal a crazy mountain ridge all by ourselves for hours on perfect new pavement. We spent the night on the street in Uyuni, met up with Maayan and Chai from @practice_freedom, and then made plans to throne out in the morning to prep the vans for the salt. We had moreover made sure to fill our water tanks surpassing we hit the desert — Uyuni and the surrounding zone doesn’t have a lot of fresh water, and that was made doubly well-spoken to us when we went to get the undercarriage of the vans washed and greased up. The lavadero we went to did not use ‘agua dulce’, but salty water to do the first rinse of the undercarriage surpassing spraying everything (brake rotors included, be careful!!) lanugo with used motor oil. The motor oil protects a little bit the undercarriage of the car from the salt — when we left the Salar we found flipside lavadero that uses fresh water to do a very thorough power wash of the marrow and engine bay – make sure to imbricate your alternator and starter with a plastic bag beforehand. Spraying Rocinante's chassis with used motor oilWithoutwashing and oiling and negotiating with folks near the gas station to fill ‘bidones’ (jerrycans) of fuel for us at the local subsidized price, instead of the ridiculously expensive ‘extranjero’ (foreigner) price for fuel – we hit the road! We left virtually noon, which was perfect as most the tour operators had left in the morning and we weren’t in a big queue to do the first water crossing onto the Salar. Water crossing and archway into the Salar Little van holding her own through the water Out on that unconfined salt lake As soon as we hit the Salar and all that was in front of us was white gleaming salt and a couple of Toyota Landcruisers packed full of tourists flying towards the Dakar Monument. We were in heaven. It’s such an incredible landscape and versus the white salt everything is exaggerated — the undecorous sky is as cerulean undecorous as a sky can overly be and the sun is as golden unexceptionable as you’ve overly seen it. We were moreover at an upland of 3,656 meters (11,995 ft) which doesn’t hurt. Our intended route in the Salar was a triangle — from the archway to the Dakar Monument/Salt Hotel (gotta put a sticker up on that window), then to Isla Incahuasi (because it’s like the place to go), and then to find a campsite, and then south to the whet of the explorable Salar (at a unrepealable point it is cordoned off for mining) and then when to the entrance. Isla Incahuasi We found our people's flag We found our people's flag We found our people's flag The Dakar Monument was fun considering there were so many people out there with big smiles excited to be exploring the Salar. Isla Incahuasi wanted 30 BOL ($4.30) to walk virtually the island (and use the bathroom) — we weren’t impressed, and moved on without making lunch. For the next few nights we ended up at an island named TNA Island by other overlanders considering it was so out of the way that you can hang out naked all day if you like — not personally recommended though with all that cacti and sharp volcanic waddle and a really upper UV rating and you know, lots of urgent salt, but you do you. This island, though, was amazing. It had all the fun of Isla Incahuasi – weird ruins, tons of big trappy cacti, gorgeous views from the top, bathrooms (of the ‘dig your own’ variety) – while stuff self-ruling and full of vizcachas and explorable caves. Sunset and sunrise on the Salar Arriving at sundown DSCF8776.jpg DSCF8786-HDR.jpg DSCF8790.jpg Arriving at sundown That's not ice, it's salt! Morning reflections That's not ice, it's salt! The salar used to be a giant prehistoric lake (technically a series of lakes) – as the tectonic plates shifted and the Andes rose, there wasn’t anywhere for the water to drain. As the lakes zestless out, the salt well-matured into a thick crust, in some places 10 meters thick, over a liquid souse containing huge deposits of lithium, magnesium, and potassium. The islands that rise from the salar are all that’s left of warmed-over volcanoes – they provide shelter for vizcachas who live among the giant cacti and shrubby whiffy bushes. Since the salt we crush on is unquestionably just a husks over a still liquid lake, you have to treat your tideway to the islands the same way a wend tutorage would consider unescapable land from water – with unconfined superintendency so as not to run shorewards and get stuck in the thick mud. We saw a lot of deep tracks where other vehicles needed to be dug or pulled out!Tidewaythe islands thoughtfully DSCF9195.jpg The Island and Cueva del Diablo The waterfront at TNA Island The next day we hiked to the top of TNA Island (also known as Cerro Phia Phia) to trammels out the trappy Cueva del Diablo. Camille is making a dangerous friend It’s important to have a good travel buddy — someone you don’t mind sharing small spaces with while you are on the road to the big ones. Perspective Photos And of undertow you can’t go to the Salar de Uyuni without a few cheesy perspective photos. Seeking a spiritual lift? Big friendly giant DSCF9097.jpg DSCF9103.jpg 2018-07-31 16.35.02 Photoshoot with Maayan and Chai (@practice_freedom) Cementerio de trenes Uyuni is a small town – it’s got a nice market and a unconfined pizza place, but once you’ve checked those off you’ve really seen the town. The only other big witchery without the salt flats is the train cemetery where the trains of the old mining companies were hauled off to rot when the marrow fell out of the mining market here in the 1940s. We walked out there at sunset and had a pretty grand time psoriasis virtually on these old hunks of iron. The only working 'train' we saw in Uyuni DSCF9245-HDR.jpg DSCF9246.jpg IMG_3471.jpg IMG_3478.jpg IMG_3482.jpg Thanks for reading! until next time, Camille + Ryan 2018-07-31_18.04.04 maayan and chai, our salar venture buddies Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.