One thing on the must-see list for Bolivia was the Uyuni Salar. I had heard so many people rave about the beautiful Bolivian salt flats: the miles of lunar saltiness stretching as far as the eye can see, the perfect reflections on the salt water pools, and of course, the hilarious photo opportunities.

I was squished into a 4WD for a three day tour of the Uyuni salt flats and deserts en route to Chile. Destination: San Pedro de Atacama. My tour company was Ripley Tours**, but I ended up in a Jeep from Colque Tours, where 1 out of 6 people had booked with the actual operator. Whenever a company can’t fill up one Jeep, they merge their tours with other companies.

**A word of warning: there was little licensing or regulation over the salt flat tours, so if you are going, try to stick with a reputable company if possible. Our driver was excellent but there was little safety or emergency equipment on board, and the other two Jeeps in our caravan had issues. One broke down multiple times, and the driver was drinking. And we saw other vehicles stuck in the flats:

There is a whole lot to see and be amazed by in the Uyuni salt flats, the Salar. It is 200 square kilometres of salt, about 12 feet deep.

The tour started at the Train Cemetery, a junkyard that was formerly the site of the first rail lines between Bolivia and Chile. Today it is a desert littered with rusty old train cars.

The salt flats did not disappoint. You could almost pretend you are on the Moon in the salt flats, glittering sea of endless white that they are…

Except that it was a sweltering 45 degrees Celsius.

On Days Two and Three of the driving tour, we left the Moon and approached the border with Chile and entered the “countryside of Dali” – an area of red-stained desert that the surrealist artist Salvador Dali used as the backdrop for several paintings.

Entering the Atacama Desert, Chile

The Stone Tree

The only company around us was one or two other Jeeps, the odd family of llamas, and flocks of flamingos, who hang out in the icy laguna water in the cold early morning hours of the desert.