I visited Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia on a work trip to Santiago in Chile. Uyuni is the largest salt flats in the world and one of the main tourist attractions in Bolivia. It is estimated to contain over 10 billion tonnes of salt and at places salt is 120 meters deep. Salt does not get exported but used locally. You can however buy it in the local market when visiting Uyuni.
Why Uyuni Salt Flats? Largest Salt Flats in the world.
Top Things to see - Uyuni Salt Flats.
Best time to visit - January for dry and wet season changing.
Safety - Reasonably safe.
Costs - Affordable.
ITINERARY
DAY 1 - Take Santiago (SCL) to Calama (CJC) flight with LATAM. They usually go every hour or two. After landing in Calama we encountered an issue with booking an Uber as no-one would accept the ride so we ended up taking airport taxi and paid with card £15 to our hotel. We stayed in “Geotel Calama” £72 per night. Highly recommend as it had 2 bedrooms and a welcome drink. They also gave us packed breakfast box.
DAY 2 - Arranged the same taxi we took from the airport to pick us up at 05:00 to bus terminal and then took a bus from Calama bus terminal to Uyuni in Bolivia at 06:00. Booked tickets in advance with “Trans Salvador” bus company for about £65 return. Journey takes about 8hrs in total (3 hours until border. About 2 hours in immigration as you will need to pass through both Chilean and Bolivian border control and 3 hours to Uyuni). Border crossing is in “Ollague”. Bus is a semi recliner and seats are pretty comfortable. There is toilet in board and the only stop will be border control where you can access restrooms. In Chilean side for free, in Bolivian side for small cash (I only had USD so gave $1 per person). Ride is very scenic all the way and especially around the border crossing point. We then arrived in Uyuni around 13:00 and walked to our hotel 10 min “Hotel Cristales de Sal” that we booked for £112 for 2 nights. Again, highly recommend, they have clean rooms, the hotel is made of salt bricks and served an amazing breakfast. We spent an afternoon exploring Uyuni Town and went to “Llama cafe” that serves vegetarian and vegan food and has a delicious coffee and is seriously cheap. We both ate and had drinks for £8 in total.
DAY 3 - We booked a tour with “Andes Salt Expeditions” via “Viatour” for £50 for the whole day. They picked us up from our hotel at 10:00 and we went to Train Cemetery, drove through salt flats, had many photo opportunities, went to an island, did a little hike, had lunch there that was included, visited salt hotel and a factory. We also saw lamas on the way. Tour concluded with the sunset on salt water enjoying snacks and wine. January is a great season to visit salt flats as you cane experience both - seeing dry salt flats and there are also parts that are covered with water to see an amazing reflection. We needed about additional £7 for entrances, toilets etc. We exchanged USD in our hotel for the local money. Don’t think they take GBP and I did not see any ATMs there so take some USD with you. We were in Toyota 4x4 with two other travellers and had fantastic time. We were back in the hotel for 21:00.
DAY 4 - Our bus back was at 04:30 so we arranged a taxi from the hotel for £2 to bus station. You have to pay a small fee in 2 Bolivian (£0.20) to use bus station so have cash ready for that. We then had the same journey back to Chile. Chilean immigration took a while as they manually searched our bags. At 15:15 we arrived back in Calama and called an Uber to the airport. We had booked a confirmed ticket at 20:29 with LATAM but as it was quite early we changed our flight for 17:47-19:50 for additional USD25 per person. After landing in SCL we again called an Uber and arrived in the hotel at 21:00.
There are more things to do in Uyuni if you have more time. As I did this trip on a work trip with my colleague we had very limited time, but nevertheless all that journey was well worth it.
Train Cemetery
Located in the outskirts of Uyuni town. Train cemetery hosts over 100 train cars imported from Britain. They used to serve rail links between Bolivia and neighbouring countries. It was especially important as Bolivia does not have access to the sea. Today, these locomotives especially built to operate in high altitude are left in the middle of desert to rust. Some of them have gained graffiti art and this place is a popular tourist attraction. You can climb up the old train carriages and take amazing photos that look very scenic with the clear sky in the background.
TIPS
Have cash with you (at least USD) there will not be ATMs available.
Take GenDec and crew ID as immigration will ask you how did you get into Chile.
Have mobile data for taxis and you will need it on border to fill out Bolivian immigration form.
Take toilet paper and hand sanitizer for the ride as most toilets do not have paper or soap.
There is 1 hour time difference between Calama and Uyuni.
As Uyuni is in high elevation (3700m) you may suffer from altitude sickness. Drink plenty of water and caffeine. You can also get Diamox beforehand in Boots (for altitude sickness).
Due to high elevation and closeness to equator, sun is very strong. SPF and a hat is a must. At night it gets cold though.
EXPENSES
LATAM flights £250
Hotels £100
Bus £65
Tour £50 + additional £7
Taxis (based on 2 sharing) £35
Food, tips etc £50 ish
Total £557
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