Our Great Adventure: Salar de Uyuni Day 250 26/05/2015

We had a good nights sleep and after breakfast at the salt hotel packed up and headed off to visit the salt flats. They are the world's largest at 12,106 sq km and sit at an elevation of 3653m. Nelson was a bit confused at first and set off in the wrong direction but it was soon rectified! The edge of the flats near to where we were staying was brown in colour but it wasn't long before we were driving across a white expanse of nothingness (you could be in a snow tundra). It was incredibly smooth as we sped across, stopping for photos before continuing to the Isla Incahuasi in the centre of the flats. It's a rocky outcrop covered in Trichoreus cactus and with numerous coral mounts. We walked up to the high point on the island in awe of the views. Despite the overcast skies (there was a storm coming in from Chile) the sights were amazing. The salt surrounding the island is drier and forms hexagonal tiles. The site of jeeps speeding across the flats like tiny ants was very surreal. Back down at the jeep we watched Nelson participate in a game of football with some of the other drivers and tourists before setting off again. Another stop for photos and Pablo found some salt crystals in the water layer under the hard top surface. He is also clearly an expert in deceptive photography and had a bag full of plastic animals to use as prompts to which we added Clyde (the mascot from the Glasgow Commonwealth Games). Several years ago a hotel was built on the flats but has since been closed due to environmental concerns. It remains open as a tourist attraction along with the nearby monument for the Daker rally which takes place in January and crosses the flats. From here we went off in search of water which, at the right depth, perfectly reflects the clouds and sky and the horizon disappears. We certainly found water, hitting it quite hard and seemingly coming as a bit of a surprise to Nelson no doubt demonstrating how difficult it was to see. The skies were very overcast but even so it was impressive to see. From here we continued on to the Cochani salt extraction area, initially seeing where the salt is collected before heading to the factory where it is dried, crushed, mixed with iodine and bagged. There was a local craft market nearby selling all sorts of salt souvenirs and other items we which had a look around before continuing on to reach Uyuni, another desolate town and, at c3700m, extremely cold. It was quite a sight as we near the town with rubbish strewn across the barren landscape. We stopped at the Cemeterio de Trenes which has a large collection of historic steam locomotives and railcars, mostly British made, decaying in the railway yard. Sad to see what was such a major feat of engineering simply rusting away. By now it had started to snow and we drove to our hotel where we said our goodbyes to Pablo and Nelson. We'd had a fantastic 3 days. Pablo was an excellent guide with a huge amount of historical and cultural knowledge and importantly loved mountains and we had both felt very safe with Nelson's driving. We definitely paid a premium to go with Topas but we both felt it was a worthwhile investment. We'd decided to treat ourselves and had booked in the Hotel de Jardines, a lovely courtyard based hotel with very comfortable furnishings and important heating and hot water! After checking in we headed out in the snow to buy our bus tickets for our onward journey to Potosi and to find somewhere open for lunch. Despite being a major tourist destination, as the main entrance to the salt flats, most places were closed but we did find a small cafe near the main square and enjoyed a mexican meal. Back at the hotel we took advantage of the hot water and spent what was left of the afternoon chilling out and reflecting on what a great adventure we'd had. In the evening we went to another restaurant in the main square and shared a pizza and glass of red wine.