Perspective photography
Isla Incahuasi
Childish
Dusty Uyuni was our second last stop in Bolivia. It felt a lot like a town that time forgot. Sleepy 'restaurants' that were no more than an extended living room of the proprietor's home were checked out. Service was extremely laid back (we're talking practically horizontal), meals could only be produced one plate at a time, and even that was with monumentous effort. Huge enticing menus were completely fictitious, it turned out to be a lot easier asking what was available and then making your choice. But since we are slowly winding down towards the end of the trip, this was all fine. I embraced the locals cavalier laissez-faire approach and adopted an 'era, we'll get fed eventually' attitude, (albeit this was severely tested when I was famished - note to self go for food in Bolivia a good bit before reaching the famished stage, otherwise you might starve to death!)
Our main reason for visiting Uyuni was of course Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world at 10,500 sq km, and Bolivia's most popular tourist attraction. Before hitting the flats we took a slight detour and went to see Uyuni's other famous attraction, the Train Graveyard. In the late 1800's this was a bustling railway hub connecting Bolivian mines with key cities in the region. But the mines dried up, and the trains stopped running. Rather than decommissioning and selling them for scrap, the trains were simply left to rot in a fascinating train graveyard just a few kilometres outside Uyuni. It’s like a trainspotter’s sick dream - full of hollow husks and skeletal remains of long forsaken steam engines. Eerie, but super cool. We had a quick stop here, for some obligatory messing about, before continuing to the Salt Flats.
The flats were stunningly amazing. The vast whiteness is surreal. Just before lunch we were dropped off with Isla Incahuasi (a hilly, rocky outcrop of land and former island in the middle of Salar de Uyuni, home to hundreds of gigantic cacti), a short distance ahead of us. Half an hour later we were still crunching our way towards the island, scale is very deceptive out on the flats. Here we chilled for a bit to have lunch and to allow those who wanted to hike up to the top. The majority of us stayed at the bottom and went messing about on the flats, trying to take funny photos.
The long flat plains of make tricky perspective photography possible. We were given over about two hours to play around, but that time was quickly used up with trial and error, as setting up photos takes a lot of work. We had borrowed some dinosaur toys from our hotel in order to get some funky pics. However trying to convince cameras to focus on both props and people proved a lot more challenging than we expected. People shots worked a lot better, so once the prop photos proved too frustrating we opted for the old fail safe of getting everyone to jump in the air - nigh impossible with 22 people! Still everyone had a good giggle. (We even had a streaker incident with one of the guys only too happy to get his kit off. We were all pleading with him Tom Jones-style "You Can Keep Your Hat On!")
Just as the sun began to set we headed for the Salt Palace Hotel. Not only is it built out of salt, but the furniture and fittings are also made of salt. Smelled kind of funky so I wouldn't have been too keen to stay here. Once the sun had set, we got to see a beautiful huge new moon rising. After our day of childish antics, this proved perfect and we continued with our 'arty' photos, with practically everyone attempting to grab the moon in their palm. An apt end to a fun day.
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