Salar de Uyuni-Day 1: Welcome to a White Paradise

Salar de Uyuni 3 day tour, all included - 560 Bolivianos plus 45 blv for park entrance fees = $85 Colque Tours 54 Potosi - Highly Recommended. Tip: Bring a few bananas to snack on in between meals.

We showed up at 10:45 a.m. to meet the rest of our 11 person tour group: 2 English girls, a Swedish couple, 2 Brazilian chicas and 3 guys, and of course las dos americanas (that´s us.) We hopped on our tour bus headed for the Salar. (The Salar was a salt water lake that dried up and left an impressive, salt covered expanse of 12,000 sq. km.)

First we stopped by the train cemetery which our tour guide prefaced by saying "It´s just a heap of trash, but it´s part of the tour, so we have to stop." We actually thought it was pretty cool and took the opportunity to take some creative photos.

We then moved on to the entrance of the Salar which isn´t completely dried up, so there is still shallow water that you can stick your feet in. The salty bottom was surprisingly warm and massage-like on our feet. (Everything is so white and blinding, you almost expect it to be snowy and cold!)

From there we made various stops over the course of 5 hours, around the massive, white paradise. Everywhere we looked was a glistening, never-ending white horizon. Our group got a little carried away with the picture taking. There were plastic dinosaurs, Brazilian flags, a furry llama and an Arabic drum that all made an appearance on the Salar. Since the Salar is a huge, white desert, there is nothing to measure depth. Therefore, you can take some pretty wild and amazing pictures with a few amateur tricks.

Due to our group´s picture taking frenzy, we didn´t make it to the designated lunch spot, but instead had a much more spectacular lunch, sitting in the middle of our white universe.

The next stop was the Isla del Pescado (Fish Island) where we walked through paths lined with gigantic cacti. From the peak of the island we had a beautiful view of the out of this world landscape. (Yes... more white!)

We arrived to the hostal around 6pm and went outside with our drum and riq (Arabic tambourine) to make some noise. This is when we met Hiro (our hero), an Asian dance teacher, easily identified as Japanese by his "funky hi-tops" (according to our new British friend, Ianthe). While I drummed out Arabic rhythms, he busted out techno, Japanese, break dance moves, while some curious onlookers watched from a distance. He eventually begged us to stop playing because he literally couldn't keep his feet still while we played. It was almost as amazing as the Salar ("Not the coolest thing we´d seen all day, but absolutely the coolest human thing we´d seen all day.") Ianthe said it was definitely better than watching TV.

We spent the rest of the night chain tea drinking with Ianthe and Holly (our new British friends) and laughing like old friends while discovering some funny differences between American and British English. When the electricity went out, we joined in on a Brazilian-led sing along with of course, a few Arabic intermissions which continued on through the night.