White Infinity Landscape

Few months ago we booked the mandatory tour to Salar de Uyuni. We took an option of 3 days and 2 nights though the Kanoo Tour. After a night long trip from La Paz in a very confortable bus, we reached Uyuni. It’s a small city in the south desert of Bolivia.

This region could be comparable to the Road 66 for its wild and infinity landscapes. Nonetheless when you reached Uyuni, even if it is the same feeling of surprise as when you reach Vegas, the look and feel is far away from the US glamorous effect. Uyuni is a truly lost city with wild dogs, no proper roads and construction which look like stowage rather than proper houses. Our tour started at 10 AM and we were 16 persons divided in three cars. Luckily we were assigned the newest and which seemed most comfortable vehicle. Our group was majority of english and nice fun persons.

It is the most extended and highest salt reserve in the world. Its superficie of 10.582 square meter is located at 3.653mts of altitude. It is a semi desertic region which, apart from the touristic interest, offers an immense ressources such as lithium and a large variety of minerals. Once you will enter in the Salar, you will start an peculiar adventure in a world completely isolated from the outside without any connection. You will also experiment changing landscapes as well as unstable climats which can switch from hot and sunny to very cold and windy in a second.

We started the tour by visiting the “Train Cemetery” which features old metallic train carcasses. It was real fun to go around and climb those old vestiges. We hit the road for less than an hour and our first stop was at the very beginning of the Salar. It was really intriguing to obverse how the ground was gradually turning into salt from brown color to a pure white. We stopped there to have our lunch and what a stunning view to enjoy some fresh food prepared by our drivers!

After that we spent the entire 1st day within the white infinity going through an island to another and passing by the Dakar departure. Each landscape and place were unique. You could feel how isolated we were by looking around and observing nothing more than an intensity of imposing nature. Thinking that this impressive plateau used to be covered by water was unreal. Nonetheless the remaining gigantic stones you could find on the different islands showing clear corrosion and corail prints gave us an undeniable proof of it.

We could take pictures of the sunset which was the most impressive we ever saw. The sun goes down very fast and the first thing you notice is how cold it suddenly turned to be. Without the sun rising you can really feel you are in the middle of an intensity where you could so easily get lost. Everything is white and you can’t see any point of to direct you around. The combo of color with the white, blue and reddish declination the sun creates on the horizon is breathtaking.

We left short after to go to our first lodge. Each small cottage was typically built with thatched roofs and the ground was made of salt. It was the most lovely lodge where we stayed, a real unique nest.

After diner we walked a bit afar from the village to enjoy the sky. Without any city lights and others to contaminate the view, we could admire the most beautiful starry sky. It looked like the milky-way duplicated and stars were everywhere. If it has not been for the freezing wind which was killing us, we would have spent hours there to look at this marvellous nature paint.