3 day tour – amusemusings

I must admit, I was expecting a bit of a letdown after the salt flats on day 1 of the 3-day Uyuni tour but the wildlife reserve brought it. A little bit of everything including snowcapped volcanoes, eerily shaded lagoons, desolate deserts, steaming hot geysers, perfectly warm hot springs (enjoyed for hours on night 2) & altiplano wildlife (flamingo, (formerly endangered) vicuna, ostrich). The tour was incredible but in the harsh environment careening across vast expanses (sometimes salt) on previously barely worn tracks (I’d never call them roads), it was a normal occurrence for our big 4×4 with massive tires to breakdown for a bit. One of those massive tires sprung a leak once too. But we were never stopped for more than 30-45 minutes as our driver / guide also proved to be a capable mechanic & when he needed assistance, other drivers gladly jumped into help. In the middle of nowhere, folks come together.

Turns out I’m a bit obsessed with flamingos. On one lagoon, I estimated a thousand. On this lake, maybe 5k. The red lake below tracks them with chips so they know there are 18k. Woah. They are skittish little things. You get too close, they get nervous & fly off. So I was purposely gettin a bit too close for the shot fully expecting them to freak & fly off so I was prepared with video to capture their escape. It was amazing.

https://youtu.be/KxJctpWoFFw

More flamingos. Can’t help it.

https://youtu.be/5mTV5MhW-p0

I’ve never seen anything like it. I read about it, saw photos & it was number 1 on my list of things to see in South America. It still blew me away. Sorting through my photos for this post was difficult. Go now. There’s already 100 tourists a day doing the same 3-day tour of Uyuni & its surroundings but believe me, it’s just going to increase. I will go again. I must. And next time I’d do a week-long tailor made tour. It’s that special of a place.
Now what is it? Uyuni is this tiny town in the bleak altiplano of SW Bolivia. To reach it, we took an overnight bus from La Paz, got into town around 5am, booked a 3-day tour of the surrounding area & left by 10am. Efficient. You go to Uyuni as a jumping off point to visit the spectacular Salar de Uyuni, 9000 sq kms of by far the largest salt lake in the world. During the wet season with a couple inches of rain, the surface turns into a massive mirror creating bizarre reflections as the horizon disappears. As if that’s not enough, you also visit Uyuni to see the Reserva de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa, a 7000 sq km wildlife reserve ranging in altitude from 4000 to 6000m & featuring a massive contrast in scenery including desolate desert landscapes, glacial salt lakes stained bright red or green & massive snowcapped volcanic peaks. Both are otherworldly. Prior to visiting, I was positive the salt flats, toured on the first day, would be the standout. And then the reserve blew my mind. Both are worthy of their own post primarily bc there’s no chance I could cram all photos into one.

Sunset video bc this one deserves it