There is no place like the Uyuni Salt Flats.  Expanding over 4,000 square miles wide and at an altitude of 11,995 ft, they are a natural marvel that is unparalleled…and at sunset their majesty is magnified (the pictures are coming, don’t worry!).

But before setting out on a 3 day/2 night tour of the salt flats and southwest Bolivia, I checked into the most unique hotel in which I have ever had the pleasure of staying at, Hotel Luna Salada.  This 23 room wonder was perched right off the salt flat, and to my delight everything was made of salt (minus a few obvious things)!  It is one of those places on our planet you don’t think should ever exist…but it does and it is beautiful.

A sitting area in Hotel Luna Salada.

The salt rock floor crunched like fresh snow under each step.  I loved all the vibrant colors that they chose to decorate the stark white salt.

Vibrant hammocks to rest in while keeping an eye on the vast salt flats outside.

Sunset as seen from the dining room at Hotel Luna Salada.

The first night I watched the brilliant sunset while sitting next to the fire in the dining room.  With a glass in wine in hand I thought it couldn’t get much better…little did I know what my second night would bring…wait for it :).

Hotel Luna Salada at sunset…the first night.

At breakfast the next morning I met Wilson, the owner of the hotel.  He told me it took 4 years to construct the hotel, and when he set out to do it everyone thought that he was loco.  Turns out they were wrong. During my stay the USA ambassador to Bolivia also took a room made of salt as did a filming crew commissioned by National Geographic to do a documentary on the hotel.  In fact, they interviewed me as part of the piece! (I will post details once available)

Learning that I had traveled there alone, Wilson invited to show me the sunset over the salar that evening. He had a special spot in mind. A part of the salt flat still had some water and would be perfect for witnessing the sunset reflect off the flats (during the winter months the salt flats is full of water.  I am here during the dry season so hardly any water is present.).  I was to be ready at 5:30pm sharp.  He would bring the rubber boots.

Yours truly and piles of salt that are being harvested to create table salt at a nearby factory.

We reached the special spot…

Some of the beautiful forms of salt in the water.

Wilson’s truck in the background. The colors were breathtaking.

The wonderful reflections that the water created was literally mesmerizing.

This could be my favorite picture of the sunset.

The brilliance and variety of colors created were spectacular. I was so captured by the majesty of sunset and Wilson’s kindness to show me one of nature’s greatest marvels I couldn’t help but get overcome with emotion.  It was an incredibly special moment at an incredibly special place in this unique country called Bolivia.

The final moments of sunset.

After dinner, Wilson and I went out again, but this time to experience the brilliance of the stars over the salar. It was frigid out, but the millions of stars sparkling against the backdrop of the pitch black night sky and Milky Way made it gleefully bearable…a glass of Bolivian cabernet sauvignon and good company helped as well.  We had watched the moon set earlier (which apparently happens down here) so the stars…and some shooting ones…were the main event.

I woke up the next morning with food poisoning :(.

But not wanting a little upset stomach, nausea, dizziness and exhaustion stop me, I pressed on with my scheduled 3 day tour that would bring me further into the salt flats as well as down into southwest Bolivia. Thankfully my group which should have been 6 was only 5.  This meant I got the entire backseat of the 4X4 jeep to pass out in…and that is what I did.  But I did muster the energy for these few stops:

Me being tormented by Godzilla!

On the salar it is possible to do all this fun, trick photography.  Our guide, Dioni, brought this Godzilla prop for one of our silly poses.  In others I am running from Godzilla, eating my other miniaturized tour members from a pot, and standing on a Coke bottle. The French guys in my group wanted to do a picture of us holding up the jeep….but Dioni forgot to do it.

Somehow I stood long enough for this picture…inside I really preferred to die. 🙂

I unenthusiastically took this picture of our next stop, Isla Incahuasi.

In the middle of the salt flat is an island covered with cactus (i?).  Incas use to inhabit this island and used the cactus to make houses.

A few more stops were made this first day including one to watch the sunset over the salt flats.  Having seen it at its most majestic the night before I stayed in the jeep while the others endured the fierce wind and dropping temperatures. I did get out of the jeep for this final photo conjured up by our ever creative guide, Dioni:

The Evolution of Humans…at least I am not the Neanderthal.

The 3 day/2 night tour I took out of Uyuni is done by around 80 tour operators that more or less follow the same circuit.  Finding a good agency frankly is a bit of a challenge as many have horror stories of drunk guides (who are also the drivers, cooks, mechanics…you get it), poor food or cramming more than 6 people in the jeep.  I, however, hit the jackpot with my agency, Quechua Connection (quechuaconnection4wd@hotmail.com). Our guide went out of his way to make the standard tour as special as possible.  This meant the first night we didn’t stay at the same hotel as all the other groups, but rather we stayed a bit off the beaten path in this wonderful little hotel run by an Argentinian man and his Chilean wife.  It was rustic yet so charming…plus we all got a private bathroom and electricity (amenities that would be missing the following night).  I wasn’t up for the meal so I paid 10BS for a piping hot shower and another 10BS for a towel.  I was in bed by 8:16pm.

Feeling a bit more like a human the following morning! (The volcano in the background is semi-active…see the smoke coming out of it?)

…And having lunch next to these lovelies boosted me back to 110%!

One of 3 different types of flamingos that can be found in the Andes.

When we weren’t looking at flamingos, this was mostly our view at around 14,000 feet. It was a rough road, dry, cold and windy, but beautiful as I had never seen scenery like it before.

Laguna Colorada!

Its color is from the red plankton that inhabits it, which is why also it is home to around 27,000 Andean Flamingos – the hardiest of the species as they endure extreme altitude and cold.  Simply amazing.

From there we headed to the hostel located in the national park that had Laguna Colorada and other sites we would visit in the morning.  I had heard our hostel called “The Gulag,” but I couldn’t quite appreciate the comparison until after arrival.

Dinner with the boys on my tour, Ferry from Spain on the left and the two guys from France on the right (Anna, Ferry’s girlfriend, was sick in the room with altitude sickness). The bottle of wine was a gift from our tour company.

At the hostel (aka: Gulag) all 5 of us were put into one cement encased room. There was one hideous bathroom that was shared by our block of 4 rooms, each holding 5/6 people.  It was freezing out and there was no heat and the electricity was only on for 2 hours. We all couldn’t help but laugh miserably. One of my French tour partners even suggested that perhaps they hand out t-shirts like those we received at the end of The World’s Most Dangerous Road trip, ones that say “I survived.”

Dioni did make the evening better for us by giving us sleeping bags and hot water packs to stick at our feet.  5am would come fast after all.

The scenery as we all hurriedly jumped into the unheated jeep in the morning (no tears came when leaving the hostel). We were all bundled from head to toe as it was going to get colder…we were headed for 15,000 ft!

We continued to see more marvels as we walked next to active geysers and bubbling mud pots (uh, pretty sure not so safe!), admired strange rock formations shaped by the wind, took pictures with views into both Chile and Argentina, passed herds of llamas decorated with colorful ribbons (these adornments are placed to show respect to the sacred animal…but they aren’t so sacred that they won’t eat them.  Six years of age is harvest time for a llama.) and stood awe-struck by the reflections of the mountains into the Laguna Verde…

Laguna Verde

But one of my favorite parts of our last day was visiting the town where our guide, Dioni, was born…

This is Bolivia….Alota, Bolivia

Dioni’s parents and grandparents still live in this little rural town of a few hundred residents and 15,000 to 20,000 llamas. All the homes are made of mud brick and electricity just became “normal” one year ago (it arrived in Alota 4 years ago, but was riddled with problems and not reliable until just last year). Cellular signals can be received by no wifi.  His family runs the bakery in town and offered us each one of their fresh made potato and meat stuffed empanadas.  Delicious!

Home in Alota

Dioni no longer lives in Alota.  He moved to Uyuni 8 years ago.  He just had a son one month ago! His wife was home “feliz” with the baby while he worked hard to support them as well as his brother’s family.  His brother was murdered while working in Chile 3 years ago leaving his widow and 3 young sons.  Dioni says he loves them like they are his own.

The crosses above the homes mean they are a Catholic family…most homes had these.

Our superstar guide, Dioni!

Between Wilson at Hotel Luna Salada and Dioni with Quechua Connection tours, I think I had the two best possible Bolivians sharing some of the grandest parts of their country with me.  I am lucky.

And I am not only lucky because I get to see beautiful parts of the planet with wonderful and interesting people, but I am lucky because I am always reminded coming to these parts of world – where I witness a way of life that appears so much more difficult than all the conveniences I have always known – that for some reason I was born in another part of our world that allows me access to privileges and amenities the majority of our world doesn’t know. Lucky and blessed indeed…and ready to take on another part of this beautiful country.  I am off to the world hightest lake, Lake Titicaca (yep, translate that!).

Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.

– Helen Keller

Ribbons are used to celebrate and adorn the sacred and important Andean animal, the llama.