Salar de Uyuni and Atacama Desert

After you’ve had your breakfast, will pick you up from your hotel in La Paz and take you to the airport for your flight at Uyuni. We’ll pick you up from the airport in Uyuni and then depart for the salt flat. Our first stop will be the Train Cemetery, where rusty old trains sit in the desert, a strange and incongruous sight indeed. We’ll also visit the village of Colchani, where you can see the salt extracting process and local handicrafts made of, you guessed it, salt. Then we stop at Playa Blanca and the salt museum, before having a look at the ojos de sal, or “salt eyes,” fascinating features created at points where surface salt water drains away. Heading further out onto the salt flats, we’ll stop to look at the hexagons that form on the surface, and take in the magnificent views across Uyuni.  

Of course, you’ll have time to take plenty of photos. From April to November is particularly interesting, when the surface of the salt flats gives the opportunity to play with perspective. Alternatively, from December to March the salt flats are covered with a layer of water, becoming a huge white mirror where the sky is perfectly reflected on the flat surface.   

Next we will head to Incahuasi, an “island” in the sea of salt. Located at the heart of the salt flat, Incahuasi is the largest of a group of islands that emerge from the salt, forming their own isolated ecosystems. The island is covered with a species of giant cacti that grow up to 12 meters high (26.25 feet), a peculiar site in the middle of the vast flats. We’ll then have a picnic lunch on the salt flats and wait for the stunningly beautiful sunset, before returning to our hotel, from where you can marvel at the night sky over Uyuni.