Atacama Desert & Salt Flats, Bolivia

From the oasis of San Pedro de Atacama, we headed into Bolivia and continued through the desert on 4x4s for three days. San Pedro was approximately 2500m, but upon entering Bolivia the first day we got up to 4800m and slept at 4200m which is quite a jump in altitude. Combine that with freezing temperatures at night and the smell of diesel fuel (for cleaning the refuges floors) not surprisingly a few people on the tour felt pretty ill. A constant headache at that altitude is common and luckily that was all I had to deal with.

Our third day in the 4x4s was spent on the Salt Flats near Uyuni, Bolivia. You can do some cool camera tricks out there, with no depth perception. Wish I could have spent more time making stupid pictures out there. They harvest and process some of the salt by hand for consumption, so if any are interested the going rate for 50Kg of salt is about 9 Bolivianos (about $1.3 CAD), flight to Bolivia not included.