Laguna Hedionda & Salar de Uyuni
Days Four & Five - Chile & Bolivia - 2017
Two days checking out some of Bolivia’s best sights, including Árbol de Piedra, Laguna Hedionda, and -the highlight- Salar de Uyuni.
Map Credit: OpenStreetMap
1. Trucking Across the High Desert
Due to the heightened risk of mechanical failure, trucks traveling across this desert move in groups in case one finds itself in need of assistance, or -worse yet- is completely beyond repair and needs to be abandoned.
The trucks used for this journey lead a rough life. They run this four-day route round-trip from Hito Cajon on dirt tracks and other rough terrain, and at extremely high altitudes, and then turn around in a matter of hours and make the trip again. It is amazing they run as well as they do. Even more amazingly, the drivers make this same trip with one day off in between journeys. Hats off to them!
2. Árbol de Piedra
The Árbol de Piedra (Stone Tree) is a sandstone rock worn into its present shape by winds sweeping across the vast desert.
What an amazingly strange rock to come across in the middle of nowhere!
3. Magnificent Desolation
The Altiplano is about 100000 square kilometers (about 40000 square miles), roughly the size of Iceland.
After stepping foot on the moon, Buzz Aldrin remarked it was “magnificent desolation.” Traveling in this desert, I felt very much the same way.
4. Crossing the Desert
Trucks on the San Pedro de Atacama-to-Uyuni route drive at an altitude higher than Europe’s Mont Blanc. At this height, horsepower is nearly halved when compared to those at sea level.
I’ve said it before in this travelogue, but I cannot stress enough how intense the altitude is on this journey. Oxygen constitutes about 21-percent of the air at sea level; on this journey, barely 12-percent of the air that goes into your body (and your truck) is made up of oxygen. Walking, sleeping, and -yes- driving are a chore.
5. Viscacha
The viscacha is a relative of the chinchilla. While it looks similar to a rabbit, it is only distantly related, and its similar appearance is due to convergent evolution.
How this little mammal has carved out a living in such an inhospitable place is a complete mystery to me.
6. Bolivian Roadway
This truck travels along a small stream, a shortcut allegedly shaving a couple of hours along the San Pedro de Atacama-Uyuni route.
It was very refreshing to see (and touch!) this cold mountain water, and it was certainly quite an experience to drive through it for about 20 minutes!
7. Laguna Hedionda #1
Laguna Hedionda (loosely translated as "Stinking Lake”) is a small, milky blue lake which is home to a variety of birds, including flamingos. Its name comes from the mud along the lake’s edge, which is rather minging.
Laguna Hedionda was our lunch break location for the day. After a pleasant lunch and a trip to the world’s smallest men’s room stall (no joke!), I spent about an hour wandering around the lake (even had time to give a quick mid-telephoto tutorial to a fellow traveler with a Canon DSLR). The following eight photographs are from our stop.
8. Laguna Hedionda #2
9. Laguna Hedionda #3
10. Laguna Hedionda #4
11. Laguna Hedionda #5
12. Laguna Hedionda #6
13. Laguna Hedionda #7
14. Laguna Hedionda #8
15. Laguna Hedionda #9
16. Ollagüe
Ollagüe, a massive stratovolcano on the Bolivia-Chile border, stands at over 5800 meters (19000 feet) tall.
We came to the end of the Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve and were beginning to enter a relatively flat area south of Uyuni Salt Flat. First we stopped to admire the Ollagüe volcano and the lava field it has left behind.
17. Ollagüe Lava Field
While it has been over 60000 years since its last eruption, the lava field southeast of Ollagüe is still rather prominent, albeit weather-beaten.
There is a small “tourist trap” pull-over near Ollagüe where you can walk the lava fields. There is also a little shop where I bought and tried charque de llama for the first time. I was admittedly not a fan - a bit too dry for my taste.
18. Railroad on the Edge of the Salt Flat
The Ferrocarril de Antofagasta a Bolivia is a 1500 kilometer- (950 mile-) long, narrow gauge freight railway which runs from the Pacific Ocean to many cities in Bolivia.
Man, talk about desolate! Seeing this railroad track made me think of the first train lines that went from the East Coast of the United States to California. Even the setting is similar to that of Promontory Point in Utah.
19. Train Kept a Rollin'
Much of the world’s lithium is carried by this train since a majority of the world’s supply comes from mines around Uyuni. If you have a lithium battery in your home, the odds are good it took a journey on this train.
We got very lucky that a train rolled by as they are not on a fixed schedule. One of the passengers in my truck (a Chilean, who also served as a translator of sorts with our driver who only spoke Spanish) was very keen to see the train, so we took a rather swift off-road diversion through the desert. This was to the chagrin of the other passengers in the truck (a Belgian and two Brits), who were keen on our truck being the first to the Salt Hotel (yes, a hotel made of salt) so they could pick out the best rooms. The driver, undeterred by the diversion, continued to barnstorm off-road almost the entire way to the hotel - we were lucky to still get the pick of the litter (and even more lucky the truck didn’t roll!)
20. Dust Devil
Dust devils are generally harmless vertical columns of wind.
I took this photo at speed - you can tell by the blur in the foreground!
21. Salar de Uyuni Sunrise
The perfectly flat plain of Salar de Uyuni makes for impressive sunrises.
After a sinus-challenging night sleeping on a slab of salt at the Salt Hotel, we awoke at 4AM to catch the sunrise at the Uyuni Salt Flat. The best part of this was the salt flat was revealed to you very dramatically and very slowly - the realization that you are surrounded by miles and miles of flat, homogeneously-colored space with almost no definition or boundaries was quite stunning.
22. Shadows for Miles
The Salar de Uyuni is over 10000 square kilometers (over 4086 square miles) in area.
Shortly after sunrise, shadows are obviously very exaggerated. Here, the Belgian, the two Brits, and I stand next to one another, casting uninterrupted shadows of an unknown distance.
23. Isla Incahuasi #1
Isla Incahuasi is the top of an extinct volcano which was also an island when Salar de Uyuni was submerged some 40,000 years BP. Aside from tourists, Isla Incahuasi is home to large cacti called cordon (and, occasionally, the pets of the tourist service operators.)
We arrived at Isla Incahuasi around breakfast, and we had some time to explore this outcropping. From the top you can get a great vantage across the salt flats. The following three photographs were also taken on Isla Incahuasi.
24. Isla Incahuasi #2
25. Isla Incahuasi #3
26. Isla Incahuasi #4
27. Long Trek Through the Salt Flat
The saline crust of Salar de Uyuni is about a meter (three feet) thick and extremely flat, meaning trucks can easily travel over its surface in the dry season.
There is something very evocative about driving (well, being driven, in this case) over salt flats. It is difficult to explain, but it’s extremely liberating zooming at speed without any real sense of consequence. Of course, this is probably what drives (pun intended) people to push the envelope at places like Uyuni and the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.
28. Nothingness
At its widest, the Salar de Uyuni is about 160 kilometers (100 miles) across.
Many groups visit the salt flats at a time, but it isn’t difficult for drivers to find you your own barren piece of land far enough away from others that you can’t even see them. Removed from other’s, Salar de Uyuni is the definition of nothingness: no sound, almost no color or definition to the terrain, certainly no life, and -if you happened to be stranded here- no chance.
29. Big Wine Bottle
Salar de Uyuni’s lack of definition and perfect flatness makes it an ideal place for trick photography.
Our driver gave us about an hour for all matter of trick photography - he even brought some props, like dinosaur toys, we could use. Certainly a lot of fun to experiment in this unique environment, but I was rather content taking everyone’s photographs rather than being in them.
30. Salt Llama
For centuries, the residents of Uyuni made salt the basis of their economy; now, tourism and lithium are major revenue bases.
On the east edge of the salt flat is a visitor’s center, predictably made from salt. Outside is a statue of a llama constructed entirely from salt…because, why not, right?
31. Uyuni Train Cemetery #1
Locomotives that once carried raw materials to Pacific Ocean ports now lie disused at the Uyuni Train Cemetery.
Around mid-day, we left the salt flats and headed for a brief stop in the town of Uyuni. On the edge of the village is a train cemetery, which we were given 30-minutes or so to explore. A bit anti-climatic compared to the salt flats themselves, but nonetheless an interesting place to visit. Another train cemetery photograph follows.
32. Uyuni Train Graveyard #2
33. Monument to the Railway Worker
In downtown Uyuni stands this statue, commemorating those who worked on the railroads in and around this region.
Our tour ended in Uyuni in the late afternoon after a farewell lunch. Most folks on the tour were continuing on to other destinations in Bolivia, but a couple of us were headed back to San Pedro de Atacama and instructed to wait outside the tour operator’s office downtown. The office was located across the street from this statue, which harkens to Bolivia’s socialist political roots. After being collected, we traveled non-stop to the tiny mountain town of Villamar Mallcu for our overnight stop.
