Big, white, salty and behind me

Getting to and from the Bolivian salt flats was remarkably difficult. A broken pannier, sandy paths, bumpy hard-packed soil and stretches of sinusoidal asphalt. Getting accross the 110km of the Salar De Uyuni was remarkably easy. Not just because the amazing views kept my mind on things other than cycling, but the salt flats are not just flat, but also very smooth. The most bumpy parts are those where the ridges that form between the salt plates, when the salt solidifies in the dry season, have not yet been flattened by the passing jeeps. It is a bit like cycling on a pedestrian precinct that has big hexagonal paving stones. The rest of the route is very smooth and a joy to cycle on. Navigating is simple. There is an island near the middle of the salt, Isla Incahuasi, and there are easy to spot tracks from the jeeps that have taken that route since the start of the dry season.

26-10-2010 Starting Out on the Salt Flats

26-10-2010 The view from the edge towards the Isa Incahuasi



26-10-2010 Approaching the Isla Incahuasi

26-10-2010 The view from the island

26-10-2010 Could anything be better than simply sitting down to take in the magnificent view of the Salar? Well...

I stayed at a hotel made from the rough salt which was 10km from the edge of the salt flats that I was due to exit at. For a mere 14 quid I got dinner, a room made of salt, and breakfast. There was no electricity, so candlelight was the source of lumination and a remarkably clear view of the sky was seen with the cloud free night. My one A4 page sky map came out and a few likely suspects were identified on it before it got uncomfortably cold to stay out.

26-10-2010 The Salt Hotel

26-10-2010 Inside the Salt Hotel

I got chatting to the only other resident that evening, a Japanese tourist, over dinner. There were a 10 or so other tourists who turned up in the moring to look at the hotel made of salt and it was then that I started feeling a little bit like a celeb. I´ve had a photo of me taken with each of the tourists after explaining my trip.