The enormous salt flats near Uyuni in Bolivia make up a landscape unlike any I've ever been in.I spent four wonderful days with Filippo and Davide (Italy), Jean-Baptiste and Eugenie and Vincent (France), and our guide/driver/cook José, who spoke excellent English and looked after us superbly. This is one of the reasons for the hiatus in posting recently, but I trust I'll make up for it over the next few days.
All content © 2011 Pete McGregor
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8 comments:
Ah, one of these just west of us. Salt flats, remnants of old seabed, Lake Bonneville in Utah.
Who lives here? I wait with great interest.
Rather surreal and I am most impressed. Beautiful as always, Pete. Take care.
Zhoen, I imagine these salt flats are strange and impressive places anywhere. The Salar de Uyuni is enormous, though, and the sheer scale must give it unique characteristics.
RR, no one lives on the salt flats themselves, but small villages on the edges supplement fairly traditional ways of life (grazing llamas, growing quinua, etc) with providing services like accommodation to tour groups.
Barbara, thank you :^) So far I've been very lucky, but I heard just a day or two ago that yet another friend had been robbed on a bus further north. South America's a wonderful place, but not somewhere to be casual about security.
What a strange landscape! Can't wait to hear more about this. Hasta pronto.
That does look so other-worldly, like a moonscape. Beautiful.
Glad your travels are going well.
Maureen, the Salar was only one aspect of an excellent tour. The altiplano (photo coming up soon) affected me strongly, too.
Robin, in other ways the Salar also resembled a moonscape — most noticeably in the apparent lack of life. On the salt flats themselves, no trace of a plant, no birds, not even invertebrates (although they're likely to be blown there), and perhaps microscopic organisms live there, unseen.
P,
Indeed, at about 4K SqMiles, vs the 40 Sq miles here.
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