One of the main reasons we wanted to visit Bolivia was to see the Salar de Uyuni, the salt flats. But trying to plan this visit from La Paz was starting to get daunting. The traditional way to see the flats is to take a 3-4 day tour in a 4×4 through the flats, staying in primitive hotels along the way. The reviews of the multitude of tour companies were all mixed. And whereas 80% of the time the trips sounded magical, the other 20% of reviews were stressing us out. Because being in the middle of a salt flat with no cell service at the mercy of the tour guide, potentially without water and zero access to medical services sounded dicey. Ten years ago, sure! Now, nope, we’re too old and responsible!

But we still really wanted to see the salt flats. So we started to look at other options. Outside of the town of Uyuni are a few resort hotels made entirely out of salt. These hotels also offer day trips to the salt flats, which we looked into. And they were prohibitively expensive. Where were the middle income options?!

We realized we’d need to make up this option ourselves. So we booked a flight and made a reservation at one of the salt hotels called Hotel Palacio de Sal. Our plan was to see how much of the salt flat we could see from the resort since it sits right at the edge of the salt flat, and also to book a one day tour through one of the cheap companies in Uyuni.

Palacio de Sal

We hopped our early flight out of La Paz, and landed in Uyuni just after 9am. Super early by Sturm-White standards! Our driver from the hotel picked us up and took us through the desolate desert landscape towards the hotel, while pointing out vicuña (basically wild llama) along the way. When we arrived at the hotel, it wasn’t much to look at from the outside, but the inside was perfect. Our room had conical ceilings made entirely of salt bricks, which occasionally dripped salt water off the stalactites that had formed.

Just a Casual Bike Ride

After a gourmet lunch of llama, John and I inquired into the hotel’s bikes. You can rent them for free and take them out onto the salt flats. I haven’t been on a bike in about 20 years, so was a bit worried about journeying out, but turns out you never actually forget how to ride a bike!

John and I threw on some cycling clothes, and headed out into the salt. We went down the main, dirt road that all the 4×4 tours use to enter the flats, and quickly came to a dead-end because it led to a flooded out area. We were at the end of the rainy season (during which time the salt flats are covered with water), and the beginning of the dry season (when the salt crystals dry up).

The flooded region was fine for the 4x4s, but not for our bikes, so we did an about face and headed down another road paralleling our hotel. Only to realize that it was a road leading to another salt hotel, and not out into the flats. Sigh.

So we turned back around and tried again. John started to off-road, and began to head into the salt flat away from our hotel, to see if the water was shallow enough in that region that we could bike across it. Not wanting to be left behind, I started slowly pedaling after him. Hopefully he thought this was as cute as I did – him enjoying a favorite hobby, and me eagerly trying to keep up, his wife who swore she’d never ride a bike. It turned out that the water was shallow enough to cross, so we hopped off our bikes and forded the small lake.

The salt crystals growing in the lake were stunning!

After we’d walked across, the area was still too wet to easily bike, so we walked our bikes a ways further into the salt flats. Since the salt flats are completely flat, we could easily see where all the tours were going for their first day. We started biking towards where a group of 4x4s was congregated, and got to see the ojos, areas where the salt has cracked open and water is bubbling up.

From there, John and I biked to various areas of the flats, deciding to make it all the way out to an area of the flats called Dakar and the remains of the first salt hotel. There wasn’t much to see there, but we were proud to have made it that far!

Unfortunately, this meant we had a long ways to go to get back to our hotel before dark. We started biking, but I needed quite a few breaks because I was super sore from sitting on the bike seat and bumping over clumps of salt. Also, the altitude is about 12,000 feet, and my chest felt like it was going to explode!

We made it back to the flooded area as the sun was starting to set, and it was stunning. We could walk across the shallow water and have perfect reflections!

We stayed as long as we could, then hurried back the rest of the way to our hotel, since the sun was low and the coolness of the desert was setting in. We arrived back exhausted, covered in salt, and smug. We’d just seen all the locations of the salt flat we’d most wanted to see without paying for an expensive or dangerous tour! Winning! And we also got some much needed exercise in the process, walking/biking about 15 miles!

That evening we enjoyed a delicious buffet dinner before heading outside to see the stars. Unfortunately, even though the moon was just a sliver, it gave off enough light that made stargazing harder. But, we were able to see the big dipper, Orion’s belt, and the faint Milky Way. We also saw multiple shooting stars before getting too cold and returning inside.

Back Into the Salt Mines

The next day, instead of taking a tour, we opted to walk into the salt flats and retrace some of our steps from the day before. We walked across the flooded area, again marveling at the crystals. Then we headed to some mounds of salt, presumably made by the salt mining companies, where we enjoyed making perspective pics with some unsuspecting tour groups.

The rest of the day we took it easy, reading, shooting pool, and drinking coca tea. From our room, we enjoyed one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen!

What’s Next?

The next day, we were up early again for our flight back to La Paz. But we wouldn’t stay there long, as we had a bus to Lake Titicaca to catch!