Climbing gently out of the desert, we soon descended again via narrow dry gulch. To the north the landscape was looking much more mountainous, but as we emerged from the gulch, the landscape opened up into a broad gently descending gravel plain, lined with many 4WD tracks. Another vehicle emerged onto a parallel track and, for a few kilometres, we raced side by side through the gravel, leaving long plumes of dust in our wakes.

The end of the gravel plain brought us to the region of the lakes, past the dry salt bed of Laguna Ramaditas, then over a ridge to take in the beautiful view of Laguna Honda. Its pale coffee-coloured waters, framed by purple mountains, were still covered by a thin sheet of ice late in the morning.

 

Heading on, we passed small salt-covered Laguna Charcota to reach Laguna Hedionda, just one further ridge away. Again, the lake lay in a superb setting with the surrounding mountains reflected in its salt rimmed surface, while flocks of flamingos dabbled for algae in the water channels that formed between the beds of salt.

 

The next and last of this string of lakes was Laguna Cañapa, directly in front of a volcano and home to yet more flamingos, their delicate forms reflected in the still waters between the salt deposits and the shore.

Leaving the lakes, we crossed over a stony pass, Pasito Tuntun (bump bump by name and by nature) to travel briefly along a dirt highway that links the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Ahead lay the impressive profile of 5865m Volcan Ollague, smoke drifting out of a side vent on its western flank. It was time for lunch and, as usual, Marco had the perfect location; the strangely eroded pink and cream rocks of an old volcanic flow with more impressive views of smoking Volcan Ollague.

Leaving the highway and the desert, we passed into an area where the hillsides were green and yellow with stunted shrubs and tussock grasses, and where small herds of skittish vicuña bolted as the 4WD passed.

Descending to the long salt bed of Salar de Chiguana, we were treated to a smooth drive along its bed to reach the small town of San Juan de Rosario. We were now in a flat landscape of dry fields, where reddish sheaves of harvested quinoa were waiting to be winnowed.

Finally to the north, a whitish line appeared on the horizon; we had reached the immense salt flats of the Salar de Uyuni. Skirting the southern edge of this huge dry lake, we reached the curious Olivos Salt Hotel, built entirely of blocks of salt cut from the bed of the Salar. Looking out from the hotel in the fading light, we could see the dark shapes of the islands and the distant blue mountains across the vast white bed of salt.

Our appetites for tomorrow's travels were well and truly whet and, after a feast of llama on a bed of quinoa at our salt block table and on our salt block chairs, we retired to the comfortable mattress on our salt block bed base for the best night's sleep on the trip - we were now only at 3650m, an altitude that seemed almost normal.

The edge of the Salar de Uyuni

Day 5 - Crossing Salar Uyuni

Dinner in the Salt Hotel

 

It was a brilliant sunrise, with scarlet clouds above the flatness of the salt, the fine tesselations on lake's surface lighting up as a spidery network when they were struck by the first rays of the sun. We left this and continued on across the smooth salt surface to Isla de los Pescadores, a hilly island surrounded by a sea of salt and populated with tall cacti, up to 12m tall and over a thousand years old.

We followed the well-marked trail up through the cacti, with many fascinating views across the lake to 5400m Volcan Tunupa on its northern shore, arriving at a lookout at the island's highest point.

From here, it was fascinating to watch the changes in colour of the salt surface from shades of blue to brilliant white as the sun passed through a band of low diffuse cloud and eventually broke out to take the chill from the morning air.

 

Descending to the salt edge, we were greeted with a freshly baked cake courtesy of Elena and steaming hot coffee to warm us up, set out on a picnic table made from slabs of salt.

The absolute whiteness of the lake lends itself to photographic illusions due to the loss of size perspective with distance, and, during breakfast, we were amused by a group of Israelis setting up various poses, e.g a photo that would appear as a tiny person sitting on another person's hand and other such variants.

Breakfast over and a wander out from the island to look more closely at the hard, strangely polygon-patterned salt surface completed, we headed off again for the 80km crossing of the vast whiteness of Uyuni to the village of Colchani on its eastern shore. How Marco must have enjoyed that drive after several hundred kilometres of rough dirt roads.

On the way, we stopped to check out the Ojos de Agua, small holes in the salt surface, filled with water and large halite crystals, some tinted in greens and pinks.