Bolivia - Part 2: Uyuni Salt Flats

11 May 2025

The Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flats and is located in southwest Bolivia. We took an overnight bus from La Paz and arrived at dawn in the small, dusty town of Uyuni. It was packed with tourism agencies in Plaza Arce, its main square. We checked out a few and finally settled on one offering a day-trip, starting a few hours later, with an English-speaking guide at a reasonable price (it is often cheaper than booking on-line, as you can haggle).

Our first stop was a decrepit train cemetery; the trains were left to erode when the mining industry collapsed in the 1940’s. With the minerals depleted, trains stopped running to the Pacific Ocean ports and were deserted in the once important distribution hub of Uyuni.

Our second stop was at Colchani, a one-road mining town not far from Uyuni. It was the proverbial tourist trap and fortunately we soon moved on to the highlight of the tour, the Salar de Uyuni.  

Formed from a prehistoric lake, the salt flats cover about 10,582 square kilometers and consist of a thick salt crust with an underground layer of lithium-rich brine (the salt flats are estimated to contain 50-70% of the world’s lithium reserves).

The vast, white expanse is famous for its surreal "mirror effect" during the rainy season (January to March) when a thin layer of water creates a reflection of the sky. In the dry season, in which we now were, it offered a pure white landscape with visible polygonal salt patterns. The fact that there was little to no water in the lake allowed us to circulate more easily across the salt flats in our tour van.

Local artists have created some impressive salt sculptures and buildings, including a salt labyrinth and a salt hotel, in which you can actually stay. As for wildlife, it was very sparse but we did spot some pink flamingos in the distance.

One of the highlights of our time there, in addition to sharing an early dinner with our new tour friends in the middle of the lake while gazing at the spectacular sunset, was the endless horizon (apparently it is the flattest place on earth) which allows photographers to play with perspective and depth of field.

We staged all kinds of scenes with the camera low to the ground and close to a prop, such as a toy dinosaur. This gives the perspective that the prop is larger than the human subjects, who stand farther away. It was really a lot of fun!

As darkness descended, it was time to head back to Uyuni and our hostel. It had been a long day and we felt tired but our heads were full of images of what we had just witnessed; it was truly something truly unique and had been well worth the time and effort to get there.

The next day we headed back to La Paz.