Salar de Uyuni
Bolivia Holidays & Tailor-made Tour Itineraries

During the wet season, from December to March, the Salar becomes flooded by a thin layer of water. Towards the end of this season, as the water recedes, the flats become accessible once again, treating visitors to the surreal sight of a huge reflective surface providing a perfect mirror image of the sky above and making for some breathtaking photos.

The downside to visiting at this time of the year is the increased difficulty of driving on the flats, meaning you can't penetrate as deep into them as you would when the Salar is in its default state and could even lead to cancellation if safety fears arise.

Just two miles outside of Uyuni is this extraordinary collection of abandoned locomotives and train cars from the late 19th and early 20th century. In 1888 the then Bolivian president saw the creation of a railway line as a ticket to prosperity and fortune following the loss of the coastline to Chile. Uyuni was to be a key transport and distribution centre, as minerals were brought by train from the Andes mountains across to the Chilean ports on the Pacific coast, all on British-built train lines.

The project never bore the fruit in the way government had hoped, indeed suffering from sabotage from local indigenous communities who deemed it a threat to their way of life. The train lines were deserted once and for all following the collapse of the mining industry in the 1940s, left to be battered and corroded by the salt-infused winds.