Salar de Uyuni and Goodbye Bolivia

Doing a tour of the Salar de Uyuni was also on my original to-do list for my trip to South America, so after Sarah and I finished our mine tour in Potosí we collected our things from the hostel and hopped on a bus towards Uyuni. I had been recommended the company Red Planet by several people, mainly on the basis that it's the only company where you get to soak in the thermal springs on the second night and enjoy the Milky Way stretching across the sky as the moon seems to rise out of a lake vs. first thing in the morning the third day with about 100 people from the other tour groups. One of those is clearly better than the others. With that in mind, Sarah and I boogied over to the office as soon as we found a hotel in Uyuni to stay in. Despite them most likely being closed, we barged in anyway and were able to get a tour booked leaving the next day. Lucky! And probably obnoxious!

Our group consisted of two full Land Rovers led by our intrepid tour guide Oscar who was perhaps more enthusiastic than factually accurate about the sites we were seeing. As in, yes I'm pretty sure NASA did come study one of the lagoons, but no I'm pretty sure the reason isn't because they found life on Mars. I think I would have heard about that before you told me Oscar.

Nevertheless the scenery was stunning and in some cases very alien looking. And despite spending two and a half days in a car, I never got bored with the landscape constantly changing outside my window. Also it was nice to have my transfer into Chile arranged for me and to have friends to cross the border with on the third day after my previous border crossing experience. Yes, that's right, I'm now in Chile! Bolivia was beautiful but it got the better of me with multiple sicknesses/stressful occurrences so I ended up leaving a little earlier than originally intended. The really cool things list just never seemed to get longer than the crappy things list. Still a really interesting place to visit and I would recommend it, just go prepared. And maybe be less adventurous regarding the food you eat than I was. I've been relaxing in San Pedro de Atacama and will fill you in on my Chile first impressions next blog post!