I gave you a bit of a taste of the Salt Flats yesterday with I thought today, I would fill you in on a little more of the details. Getting to Uyuni, which was our jumping off point was pretty complicated. Actually more so than it really should have been. It all started with The Potosi Accomplishment and ended with The Potosi Taxi
If I had to give a recommendation on the ‘right’ way to make the trip…I would suggest booking a bus straight into Uyuni. Potosi isn’t even worth a stop in my opinion unless you are interested in taking the Silver Mine tours. Teresa and I aggreed that the mine tour sounded like nothing that we were interested in. Besides all the plethra of toxic gasses that we would have come into contact with…I just simply dont care for confined spaces. The conditions in the mines are atrocious from what I have heard..but if your into that sort of thing, by all means; go to Potosi. If not? Head straight to Uyuni. Travel during the day and enjoy the scenery…it’s mesmerizing!
We rode in the mini-bus pictured below with our belongings stored on the top under the blue tarp. Constantly wondering if the skys were going to open and downpour on our limited belongings or if just the wrong bump or curve in the road (there were many) would jostle our things loose to be left aside the road for some wandering Bolivian.
There isn’t really much to see or so in Uyui other than book the Salt Flat tour and watch the hippie travelers gather in the main park/square. It was, however pretty relaxing to be in a small town and not have all of the smog and pollution like in La Paz. Despite the dust and high elevation; we were both breathing a little better.
We booked our tour with Red Planet. This company was recommended to us by several other travelers that we had encountered during our previous days travels. We were told that they were a good and more importantly…a safe company to do the tour with. Safe sounded good to us. We arrived at their office and didn’t ask much….simply booked the tour. $200 usd for the 3 night 4 day Tour. You can get the tour cheaper; but taking the recommendations to heart, we stuck with them. We obviously made it through the tour safely…more details soon.
NOTE: The bus from Potosi to Uyuni at this time DOES NOT leave from the new station. It leaves from the old Bus Station in a totally different location. Check carefully. This cost us an extra taxi ride.