2007-02-14T18:32:00.000-08:00

You are here: home > my Bolivia > My Salar De Uyuni

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After saying goodbye to beautiful copacabana, I am heading for another beauty hidden in the deeper regions of bolivia, closer to chile... Salar de uyuni... The biggest salt flat in the world. It is estimated that it contains 10 billion tons of salt, and 25000 tons is extracted annually. It is definitely a hidden wonder, and soon you will see why..

On our way there I have my second bolivian bus experience... Of course it doesnt cease to surprise me and it is broken one more time.. From the first picture, you can see the guy trying to repair our bus inside the wheels =).
The second guy here is Wilson.. He is a bolivian cingle maker, which is the first guy I met in my life in that sort of a musical industry. Bolivia consists of a lot of people like those guys who are entrepreneurial in the smaller sense. In la paz I even bought my yogurt from the street sellers rather than the supermarkets, and everywhere around street sellers, you will see some smaller kids asking for the change you just received from the sellers.. A fully entrepreneurial mind everywhere, but the order missing.. Customer satisfaction absolutely not important at all. Anyways, lets return back to wilson, he surprises me saying that he traveled to congo.. I was surprised but later I learn that he was in the united nations team, which sent a group of soldiers from bolivia too to help to prevent the massacre in Congo... It was very interesting for him too, he told me how poor those countries were, and for me honestly bolivia is the poorest country I have seen in my life... He told me about this father and his son, who both tried to gain control of the country and because of that a civil war popped out in the country. Because of this civil war apparently there were an enormous amount of killings and there are only a few men at the age between 14-30 in Congo right now because of this massacre, after that UN sent their soldiers there to keep the situation contained... It is very heartburning to see how ignorant decisions from people on higher status can effect lives of many more who dont have any idea about what they are fighting for. No matter which one was right, or which had a better leading ideas, was it worth all that blood... This is a question that is always simply forgotten... Not that I know anything from congo, but at least I have a good instinct that something is not right when the age group of 14-30 is ripped of from a country... Anyways, after giving a pose with the railroad lady, I get out of my additional information mood, and get ready about what I came here for.

And meet my group.. This is a very cool group consisting of the widest variety of countries, a turkish, a brazilian, a spanish, an australian, an american and an israeli.... All very interesting characters, all bitten by the travel bug, and all fun to be with, and after all those words I guess one not so humble =) .. And a driver who is interesting in his senses, which I will explain later...
Our first stop is the small cooperative where the salt is extracted...

We see the process of salt extraction, which is not the cutting edge technology, but nevertheless works,,, more or less,,,,, the bolivian style =)... And we immediately start from the salar, as you can see the salt desert gives the reflection feeling which really gives the image of doubling nonflat surfaces on the road...

The salar formation is especially famous for the fake feeling of walking on the sky it gives when it is raining.. If it is raining the salt formation with the water acts as a mirror and it feels like as if you are walking on the air... If you look at the thirt picture you know what I mean... And this is a better time to introduce my friends here, from left to right.. Danielle on the left is an Australian Public Relations expert (more to come about her later), meagan is a psychology graduate with emphasis on developmental psychology of children, debbie is an israeli post army traveler, umut is a turkish crazy enough to build a blog for 5 months of his life when he is unemployed and homeless, rosio is (you have to be very careful while pronouncing her name) a crazy spanish who has been travelling for 8 months by now in cuba, venezuela, colombia and other countries in south america, and raphael (raphi for guys, and rapha for girls =) is a cool brazilian business student who just knows too much about brazil (good for me =) and wants to know some more about other countries... The funny thing is all the group speaks spanish and english other than danielle, so the language consistently changed within the group, we really didnt have an official language =)

And of course,,,, we are in salar enjoying the view, we are young, we are crazy, and we have time,,, so we will obviously give some weird poses aye??

But there are some times where you need to enjoy the view too....

These are the montañas de sal, which are used for salt production, the salt is accumulated in small hills for letting it dry under the sun and to be transported to salt production cooperative. No matter what their purpose are they are very picturesque. Especially in the first picture, you get the false feeling that the structure is a full diamond, thanks to our salar...

And this is how they form in real...

We spend our first night in the small Salt hotel, hotel de sal, which is the only hotel in salar de uyuni itself.. And it is made of Salt!!!! It is this way too cool little structure which consists of all tables chairs statues beds and anything you can imagine from salt... I decided after this trip that no matter where I am going, I am taking at least 2 turkish flags with me and some turkish money.. I would way too much love to have some flag on that flagpole in the picture in bolivia...

And then we go ahead with our rooms to get ready for the beautiful sunset of salar de uyuni...

As the sun slowly starts going down, I see the green light, where it is believed that you will see the love of your life... And it was true, I met the love of my life there... The beautiful salar de uyuni, a huge continent on the horizon in front of me... Travel is my passion, and after all this it is really hard not to see this...

Anyways,, the pictures really prove that I was not feeling overly poetic for any reason.. I have never seen anything like the sunsets in south america in my life.. There are times when you think you are really missing a lot in your regular life, and this travel was definitely a huge collections of those times for me.

Yeah the sun is gone, but the beauty stays. Doesnt it look like the initial planet in starwars 5? It looks like ice but it is not and much warmer and actually more beautiful with all the crystallized form of salt.

Me giving another artistic pose and Debbie joins my other unhumble photo with her smile. The salt hotel looks even more attractive in the sunset.

Hotel de Sal has no showers no flowing water, so you need to get used to the fact that you are not coming to a 5 star hotel.. But still it has the most comfortable beds I have ever seen in my life.... I got a good night sleep after that tiring bus ride and am way ready for our next day after the sleep there... And even though I slept only slightly less than 6 hours... OK I admit, I could have slept 7 hours if I didnt insist on seeing the sunrise early in the morning.. But come on, who can really resist seeing the sunrise after seeing this of a sunset!!!! And you will see that it was more than worth it...

After all this beautiful views, I promise that I will return back and wake up early for the sunset for salar de uyuni too... And I hold my promise..

The morning starts giving its signals slow by slow. I am with Violeta enjoying the morning, an argentinian girl with the same blood infection for travel, and she is doing it even the harder way. Meet violeta, she is travelling in south america for 3 months, from bolivia to Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Venezuela, and she will be campin all around, actually she is camping just near to Hotel de Sal for covering part of the winds that hit her tent... I just wake to the morning and she is there waiting for the same beauty as me. So we have a chance to talk a little bit about those stuff.. She doesnt know any english, I absolutely love my spanish...

Yeah, the regular amazing sunrise poses =)

The sun finally starts showing its tip on the horizon, it is daylight now, but still where sun hides has more jewels to show... And Violeta is not willing to give up on that either no matter how cold the weather is...

And finally, buenos dias Salar... Me giving a semi-morning pose with a long shadow... Montanas de sol are even more beautiful at this time of the day with our swimming pool =)

Can you see me in the first picture =)... The second picture shows the hexagonal form salar takes, it is caused by the water under the salt freezing in a form that makes the salt look like a honey well. And yes, there are UFOs seen in the salar =)... The last picture is commentless =)

This place is an island in the middle of the salar. It is called the island of fish because of its shape. As you can see it is picturesque with all the cactuses in the middle 0f the desert!!!! The last picture is commentless again =).

Yes, we spend like 1.5 hours in Isla De Pesca, having our lunch there too. When you climb all the way to the top of the island you see the good luck bulls again in here after Peru...

Red kit in the desert =)...

Our guys trying to take pictures, I couldnt resist publishing this pose =)

And also Salar de uyuni is famous for its giant eggs, they believe that there used to be huge chickens living here from the medieveal era, but with the formation of the salt desert they dehydrated... But their hard egg shells still remain.. Me in one of them =)

Finishing the poses of salar saying goodbye for other sites around... Sorry salar, but we have quite some travelling to do for 4 days non-stop....

Yeah guys, right now I am in Brazil, Belo Horizonte, Minais Gerais (yeah I know am a bit slow in updating the blog =)... And this state is famous for its food. I had only one day in Belo Horizonte without night, so I went to an all you can eat restaurant and just tried everything from the state.. Moment of sensory failure =)... Right now I cant think much more than my stomach.. But I have to do this blog too, this means more pictures and less words... Enjoy....

We spent the night in a picturesque village which was really in the middle of nowhere. As you can see the streets are not the middle of new york city in new year´s eve... Anyways, perfect for me to give my clint eastwood poses =)

And we come to the final graveyard scene of good bad and the ugly... =)

Of course no salar de uyuni trip is complete without drinking the salt beer=)

We stop by a volcano view on our way, but having seen costa rica, I am not impressed with the view and prefer to go ahead with monkey poses =)

And we come to the wildlife part of our trip finally.. We start with a cute coyote, who is hungry for our food.. We know it is evil, but we cant stop our conscience and the driver feeds him... Then we stop in our first lake, which is famous for its flamingoes. This is my first time in my life seeing flamingoes in the wild, they are simply amazing...

While we are having fun with our flamingoes, our jeep is in the altitude of more than 4500m, standing gorgeously with a glacier view in the background. After all this fun, we say a picturesque goodbye to our gorgeous lake.

Now it is time to be back in the roads... Even roads themselves here have their own beauty in salar area. We finally arrive in arbol de piedras (trees of stones).. I have no idea why they would give this name though. =)

Anyways, we obviously have our fun with the trees, and enjoying the fact that my mom is not around me watching me anymore I exploit the rocks to the fullest =)...

Of course I will blend in a little imagination here too, I try to guess the names for those rocks given by the indians =)... The third one is called Ozgur Sahin (the free eagle =)... The last one up is called homer and the indian (dont tell me that you dont see the head of homer simpson in the middle of the last pose =)

The rock in the first picture is called the rocking terrapin by the indians (you can see the turtle looking towards the right (no the one on the left is his ass... It is my imagination, I can imagine what I want right? =)).. The second picture gives a picturesque (!!) view to the overall rock-o-system..

And we go on, the first one is scooby with the cowboy hat, the second one is called the mushroom garden, while the third one is called the lazy condor... The last one is a piece by michelangelo that depicts the second world war.. You can see the tanks and the transformer robots...

No better way to finish all this with our friend submarine joe... And I give a few up-high poses to scare my mom too of course =)...

After all this too much fun with tree rocks, we come to our lago colorado (red lake)... Obviously it is interesting because it is a lake and it is red =)... The rocks around contain a mineral that gives it the red color, but if we asked our good indian friends they would say the gods were annoyed at the incas because of little sacrifices, so 1000 incas were sacrificed in one day here and the color of the lake is just blood of those incas.. To protect the color, the mountain god transformed the vultures around to flamingoes... (you can see that the effect of the minais buffet is passing cant you =)

Flamingoes and other views from the red lake, and I finish all this with a turkish army soldier caki (swiss knife) pose....

On our way back, we find this cutie around... And of course as a group with 4 girls in 6 we are dominated by our maternal instincts...

We start our final day with some hot geysers... Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!! =)

And of course the path of the constant sunrise.. Totally invented by me,,, copyrights belong to me... If you live in an area of constant mountains in a raising order and if you travel in the right direction with the correct speed during sunrise, you can have multiple sunrises in the way... Kind of tantric sex philosophy with the romantic view =)... I dont know about multiple orgasms. but I had multiple sunrises =P

Time for our funky poses... The first one is in the hot springs on the mountain taken by Danielle, and the second one is me with Danielle on the laguna verde (the green lake).. The reason the lake is green is because of the oxidized copper under the water, and during windy days the color of the lake becomes even greener... And now a little bit more on Danielle, our cool friend... She is a PR specialist in movie industry, and she does the public relations for movie stars, which basically means that she spends around one week with nearly every single artist you know... =).. Cool isnt it?? Yes we went with the simple known ones and she had them all somehow, Orlando Bloom, Charlize Theron, Russell Crowe, the guy in the jackass,,, ... She got stoned with Drew Barrymore, surfed with Owen Wilson and went around with many other artists around... We were playing the game about who she met and who she didnt for 3 hours after learning more about her job... She likes to carve wood and she is quite interested in Bonzai... Ohh by the way, she likes travelling too, she has been travelling in south america for 1.5 years by now and was going to end her trip within 2 weeks in Antarctica.... A really nice company to be around with...

I guess anyone who comes to Bolivia as a backpacker is somehow an interesting person, because it really is not the first country to travel in the minds of people.... Lets come to our three muskeeters... Meagan is a down to earth psychologist from USA with some interesting stories to tell about mushrooms =)... Rocio is the funniest spanish I have ever met without a doubt, and cracked us a lot with her mimics,,, can you believe that she has been working in library in UK for more than a year as a librarian,, I guess she was hiding her potential to boom at south america, I really believe that she would be perfect at theater with her funny english accent, and maybe one day go out surfing with Danielle =).... Debbie is our perspective photography expert and Raphael is my perfect guide for brazil. He is also the guy who has the turkish blood in him about bargaining, and he is studying business administration which is perfect for his skills... What can I say, "Que Liiiiindo!!!!!!" in his own words =)

Yes of course after all this fun we had together we had to take a cool group pose in our final stop, laguna verde.... On our way back we see some more of the ecosystem in salar mountains....

And a little bit more about on our way back in Salar de uyuni, if you are going to take the exact same trip that i am taking, you should better buy some cassettes from the market before leaving for salar... Otherwise you are going to travel the same freaking music which the bolivians apparently love for 50 hours non-stop during the travel.... It is a group called alaska, which is VVEEERRRRYYYY famous in Bolivia, and only bearable up to listening twice... Dont believe me, ask to Raphi, and he will explain it to you in a clearer way =)

On our way back we stop another cute village with a crashed airplane for our lunch....

On our way back, we also stop in another rock park... You can see the fighting birds, the holy eagle and the chief sitting bull in the pictures.... In the last picture up, I am getting a little bit too up close with the chief =)

The last two pictures are dedicated to my adventures with the indian fishhead....

Yeah, you should always be careful about llamas when driving in bolivia =)....

And we end our looooongggg trip in the train cemetery... As you can see we complete our cowboy movie here with train scenes...

I am sorry but I dont care about what you think, I am putting all those pictures here for myself because I sweated for every single one of them, especially the last one... =)

A suggestion in the mean time... If you go for this trip too, seriously consider buying some cassettes on your way for listening to, because the driver only has a cassette player, and he will not hesitate to listen to this group called Alaska, which is apparently way too popular in Bolivia, for 1000 times during your 4 day trip.... Or from the words of Raphael When we were listening it 150th time just at the start of our long return trip which would take 9 hours:

"The same fucking music every single time!!!!!" =)

Personally I really did not like it, but after listening to it around 100 times, I started getting used to it, and now I may even buy their CD... I started liking the group, it worked, and at the very least, it fires some memories, right? =)

And this concludes our looooonnnngg trip about salar de uyuni... One very important warning about bolivia and especially salar de uyuni.... DONT TRUST ANY BOLIVIANS.. Our idiot travel agent told us that it was secure to leave our luggage in their office, and said nothing had been stolen, and I left it there.. This is the first time in my life where I had something important was stolen from me. I lost my cellphone which was perfectly secured in some deeper area of my luggage, and apparently the thief knew that it was there (I had briefly opened that part to put my charger for my ex-camera in it and forgot that my cellphone was there too)...

Lesson 1. No matter how expert you are in travelling, you can always have something stolen...

Lesson 2. Anything you will not be carrying always with you and is valuable is totally not for your travels, if you are not going to carry something valuable with you all the time with you, simply leave it at home.

Lesson 3. A traveller should be like a businessman, always selfish and never believing blindly in what others say. I should have simply ignored those stupid comments and taken all my luggage with me.

By the way the group I travelled with was called Playa Blanca, so if you travel with them take a lot of care with you belongings... Other than that, overall it was a nice tour...

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