The few days we spent ripping around the Atacama Desert in our camper van were some of the freest I’ve ever felt. It was an incredible feeling driving for hours and not seeing a single other person. We ended our camper van adventure in the same little desert town we started – San Pedro de Atacama. San Pedro was only a few hours from the Bolivian border, so when we were doing our research we decided to pair our time in San Pedro with a tour up to Uyuni, Bolivia to visit the worlds largest salt flats.
We had originally decided against going to Bolivia because the the visa fee for US citizens was $160 USD! But after some research we discovered that Taiwanese citizens could get a visa for only about $30 USD, so we had gone to the Bolivian embassy in Peru to get a Bolivian visa for my Taiwanese passport.
We had booked a 4 day San Pedro to Uyuni tour with World White Travel. Our last day in San Pedro, we headed to the World White offices to do a quick pre-trip briefing. When we got there the lady at the briefing told us that we had accidentally booked a Spanish speaking tour guide, and an English speaking guide would be an additional $250 USD. We decided it wasn’t worth paying extra to get an English tour guide and just hoped that someone else on our tour would be able to speak better Spanish and translate. We spent the rest of the afternoon exchanging some cash, buying some snacks, and preparing for our tour.
The next morning, the van arrived at our Airbnb just past 6 am. We drove about 45 minutes to the border station between Chile and Bolivia, but the border wasn’t open yet! The sun was just rising, so it was very, very cold.
As we waited for the border station to open, our guides set up a breakfast picnic with fresh baked bread, guacamole, cheese, ham, coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. We huddled around our cups of hot tea trying to stay warm as we watched the sun rise over the mountains in the distance. Around 8 am, the border post finally opened and we lined up to stamp out of Chile.
The process to stamp out of Chile was exactly what you would expect – one by one we stepped up to the border guard, they checked for our entry stamp, gave us our exit stamp, and we were on our way. After our whole van had loaded up, we drove another 10 minutes through no mans land until we reached the Bolivian border post.
We were each assigned into groups of six and introduced to our guides. Our guide was named Elvis, and the other members of our group were a British couple named Sam and Lois, and 2 German girls named Steffi and Dana. Elvis helped us to switch our bags from the van into his all terrain 4×4, and told us to go line up at immigration to stamp in.
The Bolivian border post was exactly what you would NOT expect. There didn’t seem to be any direction or instruction on where to line up, so everybody was just aggregating outside the door. We waited around for 15-20 minutes, with no clear objectives. Suddenly, the line started moving and one by one we waited to stamp in. The border guard stamping our passports looked suspiciously familiar. As we got closer…we realized it was Elvis! Maybe the Bolivian border guards didn’t show up that day? It was so random.
After we all officially got our passports stamped, we loaded back into our 4×4. Despite the fact that we had supposedly booked a Spanish only guide, Elvis’ English was excellent. He had such an infectiously fun energy, and gave us a run down of what to expect from the tour.
Elvis explained that our first few stops were going to be a series of lakes, so we piled back into the van and headed to our first stop, Laguna Blanca, only a few minutes away. The lake, rich in minerals, had a stunning white color and reflected beautifully against the mountains. We had some time to take photos and explore the lake, before hopping back into the car for lake number two.
After a short drive, we arrived at Laguna Verde, another lake with different minerals, giving it a turquoise hue. Although it was beautiful, it was really cold and windy so we snapped a few quick pics and hopped back into the car.
We then made our way to Desierto de Dalí, named after Salvador Dalí because the mountain structures resembled his surreal artwork. We discovered that Elvis had a hilarious eye for silly photography, as he directed an entire photoshoot for us, making us do funny poses and group shots at all different angles.
The stop we were all looking the most forward to was the hot springs, or Aguas Termales. We had been in the cold all morning, so we were so stoked when Elvis told us we had an hour to relax and soak in the natural hot springs before heading up the hill for lunch.
We quickly changed into our swimsuits and enjoyed the 38-degree hot water, continuing to chat with our tour group. We had a beautiful view of a big lake, and got to know our trip mates a little better. Sam and Lois were doing a similar trip to ours, but they were spending their entire 6-8 months in South America. They had started in Brazil and worked their way down to Patagonia, and were going to be following the route basically in reverse. Dana and Steffi were on a shorter 3 month trip, but were also really looking forward to heading to Peru after their time in Bolivia.
After our relaxing time in the hot springs, we changed back into our clothes and walked up to the lunch spot. They had whipped up a delicious meal of steak, mashed potatoes, and salad, with Coke and water on the side. The food was surprisingly good, as we had been burned before by terrible food on other tours.
Our finally stop of the day was about a 2-3 hour drive across the bumpy unpaved roads to Laguna Colorada. Laguna Colorada, with its bright red waters, was home to hundreds, if not thousands, of flamingos. Everywhere we looked was straight out a postcard. The red lake stood out in striking contrast against the bright blue skies, and the thousands of flamingos were hilarious to watch. We had about an hour to enjoy the lake and take photos of the flamingos. Saz and I walked all along the lake, trying to get as close as we could to the flamingos.
After a jam packed day, we had a final two-hour drive to our accommodation for the night, Villa Mar. It started to get dark on the drive by the time we arrived, everyone was exhausted.
We enjoyed some quiet time before dinner until Lois popped in to let us know the shower was hot and free, so we quickly jumped at the chance to wash off all the dust. We didn’t even realize how dusty we had gotten from spending the entire day on dirt roads, and it felt so good to have an actually hot shower on a chilly night.
Clean and refreshed, we headed downstairs for dinner which was a tasty meal of potatoes, rice, and chicken. We spent the evening chatting with our new friends, but we were all so tired that we retired into bed early. We were fast asleep by 9 pm, absolutely exhausted from the day’s early morning wakeup and multiple adventures.
The next morning, we were able to sleep in until 7 am, which felt like such a luxury! We packed up our things and got ready for breakfast, which turned out to be delicious. The spread included pancakes, bread, coffee, tea, dulce de leche, hot chocolate, and butter. They were really keeping us well fed on this tour.
After breakfast, we loaded up the car and set out for another day of exploring. Our first stop was Tomas Lakha, where we got to see Pre-Incan cave paintings. Saz had just been reading a new book called The Great Cosmic Mother, which talked a lot about ancient civilizations and their connections to rock paintings, so she was extremely excited. Elvis showed us a bunch of different rock faces that had many different rock paintings from the Pre-Incan civilizations, and it was so amazing to see that the paintings were still intact after all this time.
Our next few stops were various rock formations, vaguely shaped like different objects. There was one shaped like the World Cup, another shaped like a camel, and a 3rd shaped like a teapot. Elvis, as always, insisted on taking ridiculous group photos, and directed us to do some silly poses. While we didn’t quite see his vision, it was funny to see how committed he was to getting the shot.
The highlight of the day was Rock City, a bunch of rock formations that we climbed to the top of for a breathtaking viewpoint. The views were amazing, but all we could think was that this was one of those spots that would never be allowed in the U.S. due to safety concerns. One slip and you’re a goner.
On the way to lunch, we stopped at a lake called Lago Catal that had a big heard of llamas grazing. Elvis gave us some free time to explore the lake as he prepared lunch.
Lunch was simple but delicious—potato cake, tuna, and rice. After eating, we continued driving, stopping at several viewpoints, including Anaconda Canyon (which was freezing and had no railings, so you could walk right up to the edge), a few other nice lookouts, and a town called Chiguama.
Elvis told us that Chiguama was famous for it’s variety of special beers, with unique flavors like coca, cactus, and quinoa. Saz tried an Italian lemonade alcoholic drink that was super tasty, while I opted for the coca beer.
After a jam packed morning and afternoon, we arrived at a town called Colcha K and checked into our hotel around 4 pm. Our hotel, Hotel PadreSal de Coach K, was was made entirely of salt! Quite literally everything, walls and all, were made from a sort of hardened salt paste. We had a big room with a private bathroom which felt like such a luxury after the past few days, and we got to have a relaxing evening to recharge before our pre-sunrise wakeup for the salt flats the next morning.
As we were killing time waiting for dinner, I checked my email got some unexpected news: The Head of School from Kaohsiung American School had emailed me asking if I would be coming back to Taiwan anytime soon, as the position of HR Manager had recently opened up at the school. It was an exciting opportunity but it would’ve meant putting our current plan of going to Australia to do a working holiday visa on hold, so we decided to think about it and discuss it more in the next few days.
We enjoyed a Bolivian specialty dish for dinner that included fries, beef, tomatoes, onions, and sausage. The meal was delicious, and they even served us a bottle of Chilean red wine. We shared a glass with Elvis and finished the rest with the group. Dana and Steffi also brought a bottle from San Pedro, so we had a fun little wine night together, wrapping it up around 9:30 p.m. in preparation for our early start the next day.
We woke up before 5 am, quickly dressed, and loaded the van by 5:20 a.m. We were on the road by 5:30 a.m., heading towards the salt flats. It was pitch black, but the drive to the salt flats only took about 20 minutes. Elvis found a spot on the flats that still had big puddles leftover from the rain and pulled over. Despite the freezing cold temperatures, we hopped out of the warm car to take photos. The sunrise was truly breathtaking, and the reflection of the brilliant colours in the big puddles made the scene all the more magical. Elvis directed an entire photoshoot and video shoot with his signature wacky pose suggestions. I was also able to fly the drone and get some incredible shots from up above as well.
After watching the gorgeous sunrise at the salt flats, we started driving towards a spot in the flats called Isla Incahuasi, a cactus-covered “island” in the middle of the salt flat. Despite being surrounded by this insanely vast expanse of salt, the island is covered with giant, ancient cacti, some of which are over 1,000 years old. We were able to climb up the hill and look at all the huge cactuses, and take in the views from up above.
When we returned, Elvis had prepared a breakfast spread with bread, yogurt, pancakes, bonbons, coffee, tea, and other treats. It was finally started to warm up a bit and the sun was shining so we enjoyed a really delicious breakfast, chatting with the group.
After breakfast, we had the classic Uyuni Salt Flats group photoshoot with creative perspective shots. Elvis had loads of props that he used to make it look like we were being chased by a dinosaur, climbing out of a Pringles can, and being stepped on by a giant foot, among others. We spent over an hour shooting different poses, including handstands and drone shots.
On our way into the town of Uyuni, we visited the Museo de Sal, where there was a square of flags, including one from Taiwan and Canada (but no U.S. flag!) And a large salt tower called Montones de Sal.
After a few quick photos, we drove to the village of Colchani, where they had a big local market with tons of hand crafted goods. We found a beautiful turquoise blanket with llama and Pachamama patterns in a shop. We had seen a blanket that we loved in Peru but didn’t end up buying it, so we had really made it a goal to get a nice hand crafted blanket before we left South America. This one was perfect!
Our last stop of the tour was the Cemeterio de Trenes, a collection of abandoned, rusty trains that you could climb on. Although the trains were fascinating, our entire group was too hungry and tired to fully explore, so we didn’t stay long.
Our final meal of the tour was a delicious spread at a local restaurant that included quinoa soup, beef steaks, quinoa, and salad and bread. During lunch, we finally had good wifi to connect with our group on WhatsApp and Instagram and pooled a tip for Elvis, who had been an amazing guide. Everyone else from our group was leaving Uyuni that evening, taking the overnight train from Uyuni to Sucre, so they had lots of time to kill before heading out. Saz and I were spending the night so we walked over to our hostel and checked in.
We realized that we were essentially completely out of clean clothes, so I ran out to find a local laundromat in hopes that they could do a rushed load. I walked to 3 separate laundromats with our big bag of laundry until I found one that was actually open. They said that our clothes would be done by 9 pm, and I had JUST enough cash to pay for the laundry.
That evening, we found a local churrasqueria with great reviews, so we decided to give it a try. The incredible smell of barbecued meat greeted us, but they told us they didn’t accept credit cards and we were completely out of cash. We decided to have Saz wait at the restaurant as I went out to try to find an ATM, but that proved to be an adventure in itself. I walked to 4 different ATMs all around town that each had their various problems. The first one had a glitch on the screen which made it unusable, the second didn’t accept foreign cards, the third had a homeless man sleeping in the ATM booth, and the 4th kept freezing as I was trying to take out money. FINALLY on the 5th ATM I was able to take out cash, and ran back to Saz. It was honestly worth it, because that steak was without a doubt the most amazing steak we had ever tasted. We each ordered the steak, and got a huge slab of meat that came with a side of salad, rice, and fries, and it cost the equivalent of $6 USD per person.
It was such an incredible tour, and we felt so lucky that we had such an amazing tour guide and group. They truly made this an unforgettable experience and hopefully we can go back to Bolivia some day and explore more that this amazing country has to offer.