Saltier than chips… saltier than beef jerky… even saltier than the sea! This is Salar de Uyuni: nothing more, nothing less, than the BIGGEST salt flat on Earth!
Located in Bolivia, Uyuni is synonym with blinding landscapes of intense and seemingly endless white. As the sun shines and reflects on the ground (similar effect as in the snow), your vision has to get used to an almost permanent state of glare. Those reflections do not take from the beauty of Uyuni – best explored by 4×4 (unless you’re a hardcore biker and feel like a challenge!), a day spent at Uyuni means off-roading in the saltiest of terrains, spotting the odd giant cactus (at an oasis like spot in the middle of the salar) and getting close to friendly creatures such as vicunas.
Hands down, one of the highlights of our travels in Bolivia!
I’d love to see Uyuni very much. I keep seeing pictures of people jumping on this enormous flat salt surface and everything looks so incredibly shiny. I’ve never seen anything quite like that before, a very unique site indeed!
There is a very specific time of the year when the floor looks shiny and reflective. That’s after it rains a bit, for the ground to be shiny, but before it starts raining too much and it all gets muddy.. you’ve gotta plan around it if you’d like to observe this amazing reflections, but also luck has to be on your side, as you never know with the weather!..
Did you just see the salt flats as a day trip from Uyuni, or did you do a multi day trip? The salt flats are really amazing, but I actually found the landscapes (with mountains, various coloured lakes, geysers) around them to be even more spectacular.
Yes, we only did a day trip around the Salar. You can actually see here all we did: http://bkpk.me/1-day-in-the-largest-salt-flat-on-earth-salar-de-uyuni/
I agree that the region around is as worth it as the salt flats itself, but we opted out as we had spent several days traveling around the Atacama Desert in Northern Chile and found that the Bolivian side was very similar. Mountains, geysers, flamingos, vicunas, etc.. But for those that haven’t been to the region yet, I would totally recommend spending more time around here too! :)