A few years ago, when I first began thinking about traveling the Americas by motorcycle, I saw a photograph which became the tiny seed around which the entire idea for this adventure crystallized. The photograph showed a man in motorcycle leathers standing proudly next to his older BMW motorcycle on the immense salt flat of Uyuni. I remember feeling amazed at how alien the place seemed, and that image has stuck with me ever since. The Salar de Uyuni has been on my list of must-see places for almost three years now, and it was my next destination in Bolivia.
The highways in Bolivia are somewhat deceptive. The area surrounding La Paz is modern and well-maintained, and the highways boast smooth surfaces and multiple lanes, but when you leave the vicinity of the capital city the conditions rapidly deteriorate. The route I chose followed highway 1 to the (supposedly paved) highway 602 which would take me the rest of the way to the city of Uyuni, but it turns out that my road map lied again – almost the entire 200KM stretch of highway 602 has yet to be paved. I’m not complaining, really, as I’ve come to expect this sort of thing, but it does get tiring after a while.
Even though it didn't rain, I still got very wet on this ride!
Proof that KLRs float. You saw it here first.
Much of the 602 is under heavy construction, and I spent a good chunk of the day on this very wet, very muddy detour, and it left a huge, huge grin on my face. Riding through shallow puddles at speed is a very fun thing, and with the new tires on the bike, I was able to really throw the bike around on the gravel and mud like I’ve never before.
Eventually the detours ended and I rode most of the way to Uyuni on mostly-flat gravel.
Dirt roads have a nasty habit of developing these undulations which resonate through the frame of my bike at hand- and butt-numbing frequencies.
Many of the rivers in South American are so shallow that it's possible to simply lay pavement underwater. I imagine this is a lot cheaper than building proper bridges, too.
The dirt roads slowed me up, but I managed to make it to Uyuni shortly after sunset, and after much searching I found a hotel with vacancy. Most hotels were full-up or had no place to park the bike, but I eventually found one a few blocks from the city center for about $12 USD.
The next morning I found a tour company that would take me for a day on the Salar for the equivalent of about $22 – a pretty good deal, I think. I considered riding out on the Salar myself, but decided that the corrosive salt was more than I wanted to subject my motorcycle to, and now I’m glad I didn’t. This salt flat is big. Like, so big that you could very easily get lost for days and days out there.
The tour leader picked me up from my hotel in the late morning. I was the last to be picked up, so we drove directly out onto the Salar. Our group consisted of two American sisters, three guys from Mexico and a Korean girl who was living in Paraguay. We went through the introductions, and when I told them about my motorcycle trip they became very excited. I’ve seen this reaction pretty consistently during this trip. I suspect that most travelers are constantly swapping similar stories – taking a bus here, flying there, hitchhiking etc – but for many people, the idea of riding a motorcycle is strange and unexpected.
Triumphant first steps on the Salar de Uyuni.
Anyways. The Salar was an intense experience. Our guide took us to several main attractions on the huge salt flat, including the original Hotel de Sal, la Isla de Pescado, and the Ojos del Salar. This is another part of my trip where photos will probably tell the story better than I could write it, so I’m going to defer to them now.
The Hotel de Sal was built with hard bricks of salt taken directly from the surface of the Salar. It was recently supplanted by a newer, more modern salt hotel.
Standing next to the clock tower inside the Salt Hotel.
A table built out of hugely heavy blocks of salt.
I love spanglish.
We spent about an hour at the Hotel. Tourists occupied every available room, and I wasn’t really interested in staying there, anyways – it costs an absurd $55USD per bed, the salty dust makes you feel pretty icky, and there’s no running water so showering off the salt is not an option.
What my pants looked like after spending 15 minutes walking on the wet salt flat. And I'd washed these the previous day!
Our next stop was an hour’s drive away at the Isla de Pescado – a rocky “island” that breaks through the great white sea of salt and supports some of the only vegetation capable of living on the Salar.
A bird (ostrich?) looks for scraps of food near the shoreline of the Isla de Pescado.
I can totally see this as the shoreline of a calm, white ocean.
Standing atop the Isla de Pescado with the whole tour group.
On the way back from the Isla de Pescado I asked our driver if we could stop in the open salt flat for a quick photo-op. Everyone liked this idea, so we piled out of the car and spent 30 minutes or so taking all sorts of photos.
Jumping on another planet.
I love the mirror effect from the thin layer of water!
After the photo session we piled back into the car and continued on. Our guide took us to the Ojos del Salar next; they are a collection of thermal vents that release subterranean water onto the surface of the Salar. “Thermal” seems like a misnomer here, because the water that comes out of them is surprisingly cold!
The cloudy underground water stains the surface of the Salar with red and brown silt.
r
Our guide took us to a train graveyard outside of Uyuni on the way back from the Salar.
The Salar de Uyuni was an incredible experience and I’m immensely gratified to have been able to include it in my trip. I’ve had some hard times on this journey, and several times considered how easy it would be to buy a plane ticket and just go home, but the idea of missing out on this wonder was always to much to bear.
I’m still behind on this blog, but I’m working hard to get it up to date! Ciao.
