Le desert de sel de Uyuni (Sud de la Bolivie) Salt Desert

Nous voila de retour en Bolivie! Le choc des frontieres est saisissant ! 50m apres la sortie d’Argentine, nous nous retrouvons en pleine Bolivie. Les vendeurs ambulants, la bouffe bizarre (plein de graines style popcorn mais en moins bon), vetements typiques, boutiques d’artisanat, gens moins sympathiques et moins patients et l’heure qui recule de 2h.

So here we are sad to leave Argentina and returning back into Bolivia. It was such a shocking change from just being at the both borders. The amount of of hawkers selling food, ice cream in the streets. More people wearing their typical and traditional clothes, the people as well are different(less friendly, impatient.. almost as if they were rude but it is just how they are)and 2 hours in advance before Argentina.

Apres 3h d’attente a la gare, nous montons dans le train ! After 3 hours of waiting, we hop onto the train.

Nous n’avons pu obtenir que des places dans les wagons populaires ! On s’attend au pire mais en entrant dans le train on se dit que finalement ce n’est pas si mal avant de voir nos sieges ! Ce qu’on pensait etre pour 2 etait en fait pour 3 personnes ! Les premieres heures se pssent bien, peu de monde dans le train et des paysages extraordinaires : des montagnes de toutes les couleurs, des cactus a perte de vue, une riviere rouge qui coule au milieu de tout ca et le train qui zig zag entre les montagnes, passe dans des tunnels, etc…

IT was quite busy but we managed to get 2 seats on the train (in the popular wagon - the cheapest) Since it was meant to be the most economical we were waiting for the worst. Thinking it will be full and tons of locals with wierd things with them and certain smell. As we went into the wagon we thought ahhhh, it is not to bad after all. There is space for 2. AHHH.. we were fooled... it was a space for 3 and our seats was like for a person and a half. Got to squeezed. Well, the first few hours went pretty well actually cos there were only a few people on board and therefore we had other seats available and could stretch out and enjoy our space for a few hours.. The landscape were very beautiful, passing through the mountains of all colours, cactus plant everywhere, the rivers and going through tunnels...

Par contre lors d’un arret, le train se remplit soudainement et nous voila dans une boite a sardine..Il nous reste 7h de train, il fait nuit et il commence a faire froid vu qu’on est a plus de 3000m d’altitude

After a nice tranquil spacious ride, the train stopped and suddenly the train was fill up!! Like sardines in a tin can, we had to go back to our seat. We still have 7 more hours of travelling. Night was falling and it was getting cold since we were at 3000m in altitude.

A 2h du matin, on arrive dans la petite ville d’Uyuni par un froid glacial ! Les premiers hotels sont soient trop chers, soient complets, il nous faudra 30min avant de trouver 2 lits dans un grand dortoir ! 3h du matin, nous nous endormons avec tous nos vetements !
2 am we finally arrived in a little village, UYUNI. Cold and tired from the sardine ride. We had to look for a hostel and a room to sleep in. The first few were too pricey and out of the budget, the others around were FULL (on top of other tourist and people from the train searching as well) After 30 mins of walking around and asking we finally found 2 beds in a dormitary room. By 3am, we finally crept into our cold bed with our cloths on.

Briques de sel pour construire les hotels touristiques Brick made of Salt for building, the hotel... WE tasted it and it was REALLY salty

Le lendemain matin, nous avons rendez vous avec Yann le suisse et Ignacio l’argentin pour negocier les prix d’un tour dans le desert de sel ! Apres 1h de shopping, nous voila embarquer dans un 4x4 ! 30min apres, nous arrivons a l’entree du desert dans un tout petit village ou il y a un hotel, quelques maisons et des sculptures de sel…
Next morning, a beautiful sunny day...we met up with people who were on the train, Yan from Switzerland and Ignacio from Argentina, to negotiate a better price to visit the salt desert. After an hour of looking for the best price we went on a 4x4 jeep and went on our tour. 30mins, we arrived in the salt desert village where there was a hotel where you can stay in, sculptures and a house made of salt.. pure salt!!



Exemple d'une maison de sel House made from Salt





Une des nombreuses sculpture de sel One of the few Sculpture





Le resto dans l'hotel de sel Tables and chairs made of salt (the restaurant in the hotel)





Flo sur un lit de sel Me on a bed of salt (pretty comfortable)
Puis nous entrons dans le desert, la MAGIE commence. On a l’impression d’etre sur la banquise en plein Antarctique: de l’eau d’un bleu limpide ou se reflete nuages et montagnes puis du blanc et encore du blanc qui ressemble a de la glace ! On a beau etre prepare a ce spectacle, cela reste un instant memorable.
Then continued in the jeep for a few more minutes and the MAGICAL moment unfolds... We arrived at the wide area space of just PLAIN WHITE... where it looks like ICE and snow.. The water around blue as the sky as it refelcts the colours of the sky, it reflects the mountains and clouds... just like a mirror. We felt as if we were in Antartica (although we never been there but....) WOW... Spectacular.. It is so beautiful, seen nothing like it.. that it stays implanted in our memory.

Le desert de sel est un phenomene naturel qui s'est produit il y a des millions d'annees. Suite aux mouvements des 2 plaques terrestres (atlantique et pacifique), la mer serait reste coincee entre des volcans et se serait petit a petit transformee en desert de sel. Ce desert grandi chaque annee en epaisseur et en largeur. Les pluies tombent sur les volcans alentours qui sont eux memes charges de sel, l'eau ruisselle jusqu'au desert et se transforme en sel.
corals in the sea??

This desert of Salt is a natural phenomena which has been reproducing and increasing in size after millions and millions of years. I am not too sure of how it happened.. but I will try to translate what Johan has explained above. Apparently, the movement of 2 plates in the earth (the Atlantic and Pacific) has made the sea stucked in between the volcanoes which then slowly transformed itself into this Desert of Salt. Each year, it increases in depth and width. The rain falls and the water from the mountains also carries some salt and other minerals which forms around the desert will eventually dries up and adds onto the quantity of the salt desert.

Le 4x4 se lance sur le sel, c’est blanc de partout avec les montagnes tout autour.
Nous avons eu de la chance car nous sommes arrives a la fin des grosses pluies. Nous avons donc pu profiter de paysages magnifiques ou sel et eau se melangeait (en saison des pluies, il est impossibe d'entrer dans le desert, trop d'eau; et en saison seche, tout est blanc).

En sechant, le sel forme des hexagones When it starts to dry up, there is a hexagon formation. somehow it just dries up like that.

We were fortunate cos it is the end of the big rainy season so we could see the best of both wet and dry season. Apparently when it is the big rainy season, the desert is covered with water all around and no one will be able to walk out on the desert of salt (too much water) The landscape is different cos with the water it will have like a mirror reflection of the sky. Which we saw some parts of our visit. Then during the dry season, everything is WHITE.... ALLL BRIGHT and WHITE.... just like in some of our photos... incredibly beautiful.





On s’arrete a un autre hotel de sel en plein milieu du desert. De la, on se sent seul au monde, il n’y a plus de bruit, plus de vie, ni humaine, ni animale, seulement nous qui marchons sur le sel !

We went to another hotel in the middle of the desert. WOW.. here.. you are just walking right in the middle and all you can see is WHITE... salt. No living things... no trees, no animals.. not even a bird .... just us... SILENCE...





Au retour, on s’arrete voir les pyramides de sel. Elles sont realisees par les hommes afin de le faire secher avant de le charger dans les camions en direction de l’usine de transformation pour en faire du sel de table pour les marches sud americains.

Then when we return back , we stopped to see the salt pyramid. Made with human hands of course. It is done after they work to dry up the salt and gather them together before loading them onto the truck to be taken to a factory where it will be transformed and cleaned... well whatever that is they do before selling it.
Le transport du sel





Derniere etape, on fait un stop au cimetiere des trains…pas tres glorieux…ce sont tous les vieux trains qui servaient pour le transport des mineraux !

Last stage of our visit was to the railway graveyard. Not very pretty site and such a dump. It´s just old trains that they used sometime ago to trasport all the minerals. It is sad to see so much wasted iron and steel. Maybe they will use to recycle more of the steel.
Forme originale de recycler la feraille des trains Well here is one way to recyle the wasted steel... interesting.

Voila, malheureusement c’est deja fini ! On aurait bien fait le circuit de 3jours avec la visite des lagunes colorees (vertes, rouges) infestees de flamands roses avec la baignade dans les sources d’eau chaude mais c’etait beaucoup trop honereux pour nous !

So that was our short one day visit to the salt desert, the village, the hotels made of salt and the train graveyard. We could have visited more and did a 3 days visit and stopping at other villages, and visiting other lakes where it is FULL of Flamingo birds and a hot spring but it would have been too much and too long of a ride for us... so as you can see we did it only a day. However it was still a beautiful day.


Apres cette journee de plein air, nous sommes bien creves et nous avons une faim de loup. On decide de multiplie les petits repas dans differents endroits, d’abord, des patates sautees avec de la viande et du mais, puis un cafe avec des « beignets ».

After our little visit, we were ssssssooooooooo HUNGRY, we decided to have our meals in various places.... .

Petit resto de rue Our first stop was this little shop by the roadside, flied sliced merinated meat (pork) with corn kennels and potatoes.



Le dessert Followed by a little stop for coffee and some sort of dessert... hmmmmm, like curry puff pastry but BIGGER and nothing in it... just the fried pastry with sugar coating. YUMMY...



C'est la ou on a pris le dessert That where we took dessert.. YES.. in the middle of the road.




La nuit tombante, on retournera dans notre grand dortoir se mettre au chaud sous les couvertures de lama en attendant notre bus du lendemain pour Potosi. As night falls, the weather gets colder and the wind starts blowing.... we were tired as well from the visit and sun. We had such a lovely weather. We went back to our big dormitory room where it was just for us... there were 8 beds in the dorm. Went under our covers made of llama and try to keep ourselves warm. Slept and got ready for the bus next day to go to Potosi.