Salar de Uyuni

The third and final day of our journey began ominously, despite a surprisingly comfortable night of sleep. Our tour's (Colque Tours) hired driver for our 4X4 was still drunk in the morning after a night of revelry at the dorm with the other tour workers. But fortunately, after 30 hairy minutes of driving, it was clear that our driver had sobered up and was back in good form.

Upon leaving the dormitory, we headed down a dirt road that lead straight into the Salar de Uyuni, the worlds largest salt plain with an area of over 12,000 squared km. After driving for 5 minutes along the road and taking some photos, the driver pulled a fast one on us. He made a sharp left turn off the road and into the shallow water covering the miles of salt. The 6 or so inches of water created a startling visual effect, as it reflected perfectly all the hills and mountains surrounding the plain. And, in certain directions, the sky and ground met, making the horizon indistinguishable.

After driving through the water for another 40 minutes, the salt lake gave way to a blindingly white plain of pure, dry salt. According to our driver, a full meter of salt stood between us and the ground. After an additional hour of driving over what looked like a perfectly flat snowfield, we visited a small hotel made entirely out of salt blocks, and witnessed workers extracting salt from the lake.

Arriving in Uyuni, Bolivia at midday ended our journey, with a meal of rice, potatoes, tomatoes and llama meat, capping a spectacular trip. Without doubt, Bolivia's Altiplano (high plain) region was some of the most amazing landscape I have ever seen, and making our way through those unspoiled and isolated lands for 3 days was as natural an experience as I have yet to have. The extremity of height, lack of moisture, and harshness of the landscape can perhaps only be matched by a couple of places in the world. As it is, the Andes is the world's second highest mountain range. As much as I may try to write about it, the only way to communicate the awesomeness of what I saw will be through pictures, which I will labor to produce in the next couple of days.