Salar de Uyuni: OMG, what is this world??!!

Sawaddee Kha, I'm from www.fallenforadventure.com (www.facebook.com/fallenforadventure)

We are still at Bolivia. Today, I'm going to take you guys to the most famous and largest salt flats in the world named Salar De Uyuni or Uyuni Salt Flats, or some people call it Uyuni for short 🙂

There are two ways to travel from the capital city of Bolivia, La Paz. You can either take the flight to Uyuni which takes about 45 minutes. They offer, about 2-3 flights a day. It is convenient and not expensive. The round trip is about 130 USD. But if you want to save some budget, you can take an overnight bus which is an 8 hours ride. The bus leaves La Paz around 9 p.m. and reach Uyuni around 6 a.m. The fare is about 15-25 USD. For me, I stopped at Sajama National Park first, so I hired a car to drive from La Paz, stop at Sajama, and then drive to Salt Falts. For more details, please refer to my previous post.

Salt Flat Uyuni is the largest one in the world, with a total area of about ten thousand square meters. It is believed that this area used to be a salt lake and when all the water was dry, this is what has left. This salt flat has lithium as the ingredient as well. Here is the source of 50-70% of lithium in the world (lithium is the element generating power in cell phone, laptop, and electronic cars).

This slat flats is 3,656 meter above the sea level so you have to be careful about altitude sickness because the air is thin and quite difficult to breath. Also, we get tired very easily. Someone could get dizzy and vomit. I also take the Diamox medicine which needs to get a prescription before buying one. You could also take some, it's very helpful.

People usually spend about 3 days at the salt flats and the neighboring area. From what I know, we need to go with the tour too (unless you drive the car yourself). There're two types of tour to choose. One is a shared tour. Normally, the people is not over 6 and it's cheaper than the private tour (less people). However, I don't want you guys to go with much cheaper tour than the agency one because many of them are lack of standard, for instance, the car is old and running without check up, the driver doesn't know the way or even drunken driving. Therefore, please pay special attention when choosing the tour.

One thing that we need to do when we are at salt flats is taking the perspective photo. That is to say, one stands near the camera while the other stands far away (the far away person has to work hard a bit as this person has to jump several time under this thin air). Then we put the camera near the ground and we will get very realistic photos. For the pose, it's up to everybody's creativity!! Let's see our poses!! 🙂

Many people ask when is the best time to visit. I think the great time to travel is from September to April due to there's no rain. However, some people love to come here during the rainy season in order to get the beautiful reflective photos. In this case, you can travel here otherwise (May-June). But there's disadvantage of traveling during the rainy season because it's raining!!! You won't be able to travel elsewhere but only here. Many people weren't aware that there's water on top of this slat flats and get melted when it rains, so you won't be able to drive through the field as it's dangerous. You can only watch it from aside.

And you might also didn't realize that you can also get reflective shots during the dry season because below is still wet. Since the side of salt flat has fewer salt, the water pops up. If your driver or tour guide is experienced enough, they will know where to take you. We go to see the sunset just right there. I have to say, it's the most beautiful thing in the world. Let's see it yourself 🙂

Another place that you must not miss when coming to Uyuni is the Isla Incahuasi. It is a small island situated in the middle of the salt flats. This area grows lots of cactus and it will also be the largest cactus you've ever soon. It's so huge. You guys can also hike up to the viewpoint to see view from above. It's not far but very tiring. It takes about 45 minutes because we rest all along the way 🙂