These are the largest salt flats in the world, and they are incredible to see, formed by a prehistoric lake that dried up, there’s something so magical about the endless snowy white flats.
From December- April, during the rainy season, the rain water forms puddles across the salt flats which creates the famous mirror like landscape.
We went in July and it was dry as fuck but still really cool to see, walking over the crunchy salt was heavenly.
Unfortunately like most touristy things, the private tours are quite pricey, they are however a great opportunity to spend either one day or up to three, driving over the salt flats and even into Chile. There are loads of tour companies to choose from and if you have the money it would be quite the experience touring the flats from a 4×4.
We personally are always avoiding tours and the crowds where possible, also as we’re travelling and working on a tight budget, we don’t have lots of money to spare.
There’s something so off putting about being on a time restraint and having an experience shared with lot’s of people who you may or may not vibe with.
We read online about reaching the salt flats by foot and we decided this was the route for us. Walking over the crunching salt was so satisfying but more so knowing we saved over 100’s of dollars!
We’ll share with you how we did it so you can ditch the tour and be free on the flats!
Uyuni
We’d seen quite a few negative comments about Uyuni as a town, that it was nothing special. We didn’t have high expectations, but for us Uyuni was bloody cool!
It had an outback, old western town vibe, there’s plenty of good restaurants and if you’re around on the weekend they do a local market, which is full of local goods, if you need to grab a last minute hat (you def need it for sun protection) you’ll find all sorts of clothes and random bits there.
We loved walking around this desert town, its dusty covered streets have a lot of character and it felt exciting to be in this vast landscape.
Getting to Uyuni
There are a few options to get to Uyuni and it really depends on what country you’re coming in from, it could be Chile or Argentina, perhaps you’re already in Bolivia, we travelled from La Paz and we will give you the details of your options from here:
Bus
We got an overnight bus from La Paz, the company we used was Titicaca. It was luxurious and very comfortable, we highly recommend this company. They even handed out snacks and provided a blanket! It gets chilly on the bus, the windows were frozen, so that blanket was very much appreciated. It cost us $35 for two tickets.
Train
There’s no direct train from La Paz to Uyuni, you can get a bus to Oruro and from there you can hop on the train, you can get your tickets from the train station, there is no way to book tickets online. The train company has a Facebook group called Ferroviaria Andina or you can check on the website directly.
The train times are a little inconvenient, you leave Oruro at 9.30pm and you arrive at Uyuni at 4.23am. It’s great to be at Uyuni early and catch the sunrise but in reality it’s not ideal arriving that early, in the dark, it could be a little sketchy.
Fly
You can get a direct flight from La Paz to Uyuni airport in less than an hour. This would be the quickest way of getting there, but it will be more expensive. If you’re not a fan of windy and bumpy night buses, then this is the way to go.
Getting to the Salt Flats
Taxi
You can speak to a private taxi on the street and they will give you a price to drive you to either Colchani town for 50 CLP, where you would walk an hour from here to the salt flats, or they may offer to drive you to the start of the salt flats and wait 30 minutes, we got quoted 150 CLP for this. We decided to cheat a little and get a taxi to Colchani and walk from there.
Bus to Colchani
The bus leaves from the main Uyuni bus terminal, the bus will be going to Oruro, just let the driver know you’ll be jumping off at Colchani. It costs 5 BOB one way.
Train Cemetery
Uyuni played an important role in the mining industry in the 19th century, they had big plans to expand the train line and build a bigger network of trains, however after the mining industry collapsed all future plans came to an abrupt halt, and eventually so did the trains.
They were abandoned and left to rust, and rust they did, with all the salt blowing in the wind it sped up the decaying process, a lot of metal has been stolen over the years. It looks very different now to what it did back then.
It’s a big part of the Uyuni experience, we were excited to explore this train cemetery!
Our bus from La Paz arrived at 6am, we had already confirmed with our accommodation that we could check in early.
After dumping our bags we walked out of town to find the old trains, you can also follow the train tracks from town and it will lead you to the train cemetery. We walked for about 35 minutes, that was the start of a lot of walking for us that day.
We got there early so we had the place all to ourselves, it was so surreal seeing the abandoned trains, they weren’t normal trains they looked like something out of mad max, it felt like we were on a movie set.
We climbed on the old rusty trains, being extra careful as neither of us can remember our last tetanus shot, we explored all the nooks and crannies.
It’s a really cool experience and one not to be missed whilst visiting Uyuni. We headed straight to the main bus terminal from here, to catch our bus to Colchani! The lady at the bus station wasn’t that helpful and looked at us like we were mad when we told her our plan to walk to the salt flats from Colchani.
She actually directed us to another bus station, but this ended up being wrong and we were walking around town asking people for directions and getting sent around the houses.
Eventually we saw a friendly looking taxi man and curiously asked how much it would cost to Colchani, 50BOB seemed reasonable and we were tired of walking around without a clue where we were going.
He did offer to take us to the edge of the salt flats and wait 30 minutes for us and then take us back to Uyuni for 150BOB, we thought about it and we were tempted because after a night bus we were pretty knackered but we decided to decline because we didn’t want to be restricted by time.
Our Salt Flat Experience
The taxi dropped us off in the middle of Colchani, only 2 blocks from where the bus would have dropped us, we followed the tarmac road heading out of town, spotting the sign for the salt hotel we kept heading in that direction.
We passed Colchani’s museum, we didn’t bother going in as we were on a mission to get to the salt flats and we wanted to keep up the pace.
After we passed the museum in the middle of the roundabout the road ahead was long and straight, we walked past some little shops selling handmade clothes and some cool artwork.
One shop had a flint stone car covered in salt, we noticed a bike outside so we asked the lady if we could borrow it, what a touch that would have been to cycle there, but alas she said no, actually she kept saying NO AGUA, so I think she was either a little confused or nuts, either way we kept on walking.
The walk was actually alright it was very straight and seemed like it was going to go on forever, but ahead you could make out the sheet of salt in the distance and that was giving us the motivation to keep trucking on.
After a couple of pee stops, behind some perfectly placed mounds of rocks, the ground eventually started to change texture, first it was orange mud and then the mud turned into salt and before you knew it, we were crunching over pure salt, it felt bloody amazing, I thought crunchy snow was the one, turns out salt is the ultimate crunch satisfier.
We were chuffed to have made it, we could see all the 4x4s heading out deeper onto the salt flats, we couldn’t believe we were here and had arrived by foot! We roamed around and attempted to take some of the classic photos you may have seen online, using props like our passports and Rita’s vans. The photos were pretty shit, but us trying and failing was hilarious.
We had some pasta on us from the night bus, we always like to be prepared with food, no one wants a hangry wife. What’s better than having the freshest tastiest salt right beneath your feet. We sat on our bags on the floor and had a cute picnic , pinching the finest salt on earth directly onto our lunch, pure bliss!
After walking around more and taking in the endless salt flats, we decided it was time to start our return journey. It felt faster on the way back as we knew what to expect. We headed to the main road leading out of Colchani, the plan was to catch the bus for 5BOB, after waiting for around 30 minutes, we decided to stick our arm out and hope someone would give us a lift.
Low and behold a jeep stopped and a lovely guy that works at the salt hotel was on his way into Uyuni to grab some fruits for the guests, he told us to jump in and we had a lovely chin wag all the way back to Uyuni, what a ledge!
I have to mention that you cannot wear enough sunscreen, i ended up looking like an Oompa Loompa after visiting the salt flats, don’t even think twice, wear a hat, protect your head and face, the sun really reflects off the salt and it’s damn strong.
Overall we saved ourselves a pretty penny by doing a self tour, we had such a memorable experience. Our poor legs though, were done in, we walked over 30,000 steps that day which totalled to over 20km’s.
We wouldn’t have done this any other way, okay we wouldn’t have said no to a bike, anyway we certainly ticked this one off our bucket list.