Brad Eat World: Salty and Flat - Tripping in the middle of Bolivia

16 Dec 2011 – Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia - Higher Than The Sun, Primal Scream

Bolivia has heaps and heaps of nice things to look at and see, it even has the biggest salt flat in the … WORLD. WoooooHooooo, who likes salt!! We Do, We do!!. The Salt flats of Uyuni are gigantic, massive, huge, flat, white and SALTEE. They are so flat that they use the area to measure the speed of light, WOW, really how ummm….un-interesting!!

But interesting enough, that there is enough lithium in the flats to make zillions of batteries, and this lithium also causes all navigation equipment to be rendered useless, really, compasses (compi) spin on there head, radios and telephones don’t function and sometimes even people disappear.

The adventure begins in Oruru, where the Bolivian government has managed to keep a train running (albeit running late) to the salt flats of Uyuni, and you better queue for your tickets early, they have a commodore 64 to take bookings on.	After 7 hours of not seeing much up on the altiplano, We eventually I pull into Uyuni around midnight. Hotel Julia across from the railway station provides a good nights sleep (no booking required).
And the next morning I awaken to Uyuni, a no horse town. I am up early to find a tour company for the famed 3 day tour of the salar. On recommendation I pay 650 bolivianos to the “El Desierto” tour company, and they turn out to be great.	The tour is going to take our group to a number of sights. An old train graveyard; a traverse of the great salt flats and to the coloured lakes of the nearby Parque Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa
And off we head, the train graveyard is pretty sweet. All these trains were once used for mining and have been preserved in this low humidity atmosphere	Isaac newton even came here once and wrote some interesting formulae on this train (what a dik and a fool, this function doesn’t take relativity into account)

After about 20 minutes of olden day train action it was time to hit the salt….

There are 2 seasons on the salar, dry season and wet season. During the wet season you cannot cross the salt flats, but you will have perfect mirror reflections of the horizon. I was lucky enough to be travelling at the changeover point, mid December, and was able to witness both seasons.

Our first stop on the Salar is at the world famous Salt Hotel. Here is some salt.	And as I wait for lunch I get acquainted with the other 5 people with whom I will be spending the next 3 days. Turns out they are all totally crazee and we all get on like a house of loonies :-)
Inside the salt hotel, everything is made of salt.	I think the locals might have too much time on their hands.
After lunch we’re off again, this time we stop on the salar in ankle deep water.	and we get some nice reflections of this….hill
What none of us knew was that the lunch we just ate was laced with hallucinogenic drugs… the adventure really begins.	We come across an island floating in the middle of salt.
And some poor lost soul never to return	bing bing bing….things start to get weird
did lee oo	did lee oo