Salar de Uyuni

From Uyuni there is a popular jeep tour to the Salar de Uyuni (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salar_De_Uyuni) and several lagoons. So I would spend the next three days in this jeep bouncing along trackless desert.

Well almost trackless. There is still passenger-train service between Uyuni and Calama, Chile. Just outside of Uyuni, and near the tracks, is the Train Cemetery.

¨Asi es la vida,¨ painted on the side of this derelict locomotive, means, ¨That´s life.¨

And here is the salt flat.

Here is the small village on the edge of the salt flat that is dedicated to mining the salt.

Complete with houses constructed from salt bricks. The eskimo analog?

We stopped at an island farther into the salt flat.

Then we left the salt flat and drove across more desert to a cave... an ancient burial site (the cross is a contemporary additon.)

And then it was to the Bolivian Sticks to spend the night.

The reason there is so much salt is that this area, millenia ago, was an ocean. The next morning there was a visit to an ancient coral reef.

Then it was a drive along a stretch of volcanoes. Here trying to set up a shot that makes it look like this guy is smoking.

Through here I would get my first look at this moss. Though it looks soft, it is hard as the rock it clings to.

The wildlife is accustomed to human tourism. This fox followed our jeep into the first lagoon.

Those are flocks of flamingoes. The salt rich water lends itself to large algae blooms that the flamingoes feed on.

The next lagoon in the chain.

Then it was a stretch of dry.

Eventually we arrived at a pile of rocks that looked as though they had fallen from the sky. From the surrounding geography there were no obvious clues as to where they had come from.

The tree.

And finally the grand finale. Laguna Colorada (Red Lagoon.)

Hundreds of flamingoes.

Salt dust storm in the distance. It is very windy through here (like Wyoming in the States.)

This is an absolutely stunning sight!

The next morning it was an early and cold (5°C) start to the geysers.

Because this is Bolivia, we were allowed to roam through the steam vents and paint pots (at our own risk.)

Then it was to the Laguna Verde (Green Lagoon.) The green color comes from the copper sediment in the water. With more wind there is more mixture and more green.

And finally, the jeep dropped us off at the border of Bolivia and Chile.

A few bounces more along this gravel road and then civilization.

It is a 3000 meter drop from here down to San Pedro de Atacama, Chile.