Across the Salar

It was a big disappointment, but one that we were prepared for. Like everyone we asked had told us, there was too much water on the salt flats to ride our bikes across it, but our optimism told us that we had to see for ourselves. So we left Salinas with our fingers crossed and enough food and water to get us to Uyuni. 35 kms of the roughest road we've seen so far (we had to push our bikes DOWN hills because of all the loose rock!) brought us to the Salar's edge, where we met a truck completely caked in salt, whose driver told us about the "harto agua" and gave us a ride back to Salinas.

We waited through the last day of Carnaval until things started to move again, then loaded our bikes onto the roof of a big old bus that would take us to Uyuni. We asked the driver if we could ride on the roof rack with all of the luggage to get a better view of the Salar and once we were settled in, away we went. They had to bombstart the bus and even once it was running, it chugged so badly over bumps and up hills that we wondered if it could actually make the journey.

What we expected to be a 3 hour trip turned into an 8 hour journey. When we finally hit the town on the edge of the Salar, we laughed that we could have ridden our bikes the same distance in less time. It seemed like every person we passed on the road would wave the bus down just to chat with someone on board.

But at last we were on the Salar, and it was every bit as amazing as pictures and stories make it out to be. Where it was covered in water, the sky and clouds were reflected so perfectly that it was hard to tell which was which. Beyond the water, when we were driving over solid salt, we felt like we were on a huge frozen lake except that it was nearly 30 degrees out. The bus stopped for a pee break in the middle of the salar and we took the chance to run and jump and do cartwheels on the salt before crawling back onto the roof.

It was just like our own personal tour of the salar and quite a bargain for only $4 each!!

-Christine