Salar de Uyuni

We had a cold night last night but much more comfortable with the sleeping bags. Amazingly there were five flies that woke up with us. We tried to get gas in the morning but the gas station that will fill foreign vehicles was out of gas and cones were blocking the entrance. We drove to the tour company and stopped to dump our gray water and cassette. There was a public restroom at a park that was convenient for dumping the cassette for 10 cents.

At the tour company we met our guide and we were sorted into our own landcruiser. This town is overrun with land cruisers 100 series for tours.

Our guide, Edwin, rode with us and there were six other tourists in the other vehicle. We first went back to the train cemetery for 45 minutes.

We struck up a conversation with a couple from Denver. They were on a seven week south america tour on their own. They went to Antarctica, Buenas Aires, Rio, Iguazu, Fitz Roy and Torre del Paine, Easter Island, and now Bolivia, their last stop. The wife was from China and the husband was Quebecois. He was an aerospace engineer and she was an electrical engineer. There was also a young couple from Holland traveling since October. They started in Mexico. There were a couple of Spanish speaking guys but I was not sure which country they were from. 

We went back to town and stopped at their garage to pick out some rainboots and lunch. There were 8 landcruisers in the garage getting worked on.

They work on them after every trip. Edwin showed me a map of all the languages in Bolivia and there are a couple pockets of Japanese, Portuguese, and German speaking communities.

We drove 30 minutes out of town to Colchani where there were about 100 landcruisers.

This is where they harvest salt from the salar. Edwin walked us through the process of getting the salt and then cleaning and then drying it.

We bought a couple packs of flor de sal for $1 each. We had lunch in a salt building with salt table and salt benches. The spread was quinoa, sausage, beef, cauliflower, potatoes, and an omelet. 

We headed out of town toward the salar and it was a giant mirror reflecting the sky. We stopped to put on the boots and then climbed back in the car for an hour drive to a stairway area.

It is a giant set of stairs for photos. And like the hand of the desert there was pee and poop on the back side of the stairs. Edwin took our photos. The kids loved playing with the water and salt. It got all over their clothes. 

We then drove another 30 minutes to a salt maze and Dd was the first one to the end.

The skies darkened and the wind picked up like yesterday and it became very cold. There was rain getting closer and we went back to the cars and we headed to the Dakar monument and visited the flags and the salt hotel and used the toilets. 

We headed back out the salar and stopped and watched the sunset which was beautiful. They put out a nice spread of wine and biscuits and Pringles and chocolates. It was great. We then drove back slowly in the dark. We drove around 15 mph on the wet salar. All the landcruisers driving together was interesting. 

So the salar was part of the ocean but then the nasca tectonic plate collided into the south American plate and uplifted the area becoming an inland salt sea. It became more and more dry and evaporated 10,000 years ago. Now it is 12,100 ft high. The thickest part of the salar is 360 ft deep. It has alternating layers of white and brown from the rainfall and winds bringing in sand and impurities. There are black areas indicating lithium. Edwin mentioned that the Bolivian government signed contracts for lithium mining at the salar for the Russians and Chinese but the people hope to fight it. They say in the low season there will be 200 landcruisers a day touring and the busy season has 600 landcruisers. Each landcruisers can take six passengers. We saw a lot of asian tourists: Chinese and Korean.

Edwin advised us to try to get gas tonight or else camp out in line at the gas station tonight.

He dropped us off and we changed back into our boots and we tipped him and the driver and drove to the one Chinese restaurant across the street which Edwin recommended. The kids stayed in the RV while Christine and I looked at the menu. We ordered some dumplings, lamb and onions, seaweed and onions, and beef noodle soup. It came to $22.

It was great. It was already 9 pm and we drove to the gas station that was open and sold gas to foreigners. The other two stations were closed. It took around an hour but we made it to the pump and we were able to buy gas for 8 Bob/L without receipt (sin factura) and we bought 20 gallons. 

We drove a couple blocks to a park next to a cemetery and that was our camp.

The kids fell asleep. We will dump and fill water tomorrow and hopefully we can find a car wash that doesn't involve driving through mud which defeats the purpose.