The "expreso del Sur" train to the Salar de Uyuni: the white desert in Bolivia

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We expected a long day. La Paz Uyuni is by far 761 kilometers, 229 of whom we coach them while the remaining 532 by train. In Oruro the train is ready on the track, this is the famous "Expreso del Sur." Colleague once a week, precisely on Friday, Bolivia with Argentina, arriving in Buenos Aires three days later. The onboard service is impeccable, it seems to be in Switzerland and in South America. The second-class coaches have comfortable reclining seats on which you can write, sleep, watch television. Passengers are also offered sweets and beverages. Every half hour, the staff of the train passes a dusting wagons. Indeed, despite a double closing, formed by a glass window and the other by a damper of iron, the train is constantly invaded by the sand that the winds rose dell'altipiano leaking into her car, where even breathing becomes difficult. The train from Oruro to Uyuni not carry out any stop, and could not be otherwise. In the great depression of 800 km in length and width, permanently on top of the 3,500 meters, which is the Altiplano, life is difficult. The "puna" with typical bushes tola (yellowish tufts of grass) is a plot of clods and stones constantly swept by wind and frost. Arrive at Uyuni at 21:30, after six hours and twenty minutes. Ibert expect to find, our guide, over the next four days.

Leaving the station, on the backpacks loaded jeeps depart for the Hotel del Sal, located in the middle of the Salar. The Salar is a night of entertainment!
While travel on the flat white surface and remain in silence literally melting beauty. It seems to have been, from who knows which door, in an unreal world. "I dream or are awake? But it's all true?" Are questions that anyone who presents when you arrive in this place at night. Here the image is transformed into real dreams and fairy tales and reality dissolves into visual metaphors. There is also a myriad of stars that twists the idea that we all have that dark night of fear, along with the trail of light left by the milky way, which crosses from one side to another, like a rainbow, all the sky. And stars are those who see in the distance. Are so low that you should not even raise my head to contemplate. Just look at the front. Seem to reach them but, instead, are always there on the horizon, not in heaven and on earth. Stars everywhere, up front, behind, next ... as we are enveloped by a comforting blanket of lights. Everything is so little land astronauts seem to conquer the universe, and not tourists. Try an unusual emotion, to feel alien on earth. After thirty minutes away, where Ibert is oriented following the stars, we come to the Ps. We are the only tourists!

At first light of day we get up to not lose the spectacle of sunrise. In twenty minutes, the Salar continuously changing color from blue all'azzurro, from pink to orange from yellow to white. All'apparire the horizon of the first ray of the sun our shadows s'allungano to excess on the surface. After having attended all'albeggiare, in return for breakfast. - The Hotel del Sal belong to that particular category of hotels strange and curious. Indeed, it is entirely built from bricks of salt, besides being, as already mentioned, in a very original. The charm that carries it is indisputable. Not counted, however, hot water, you are, indeed, fortunate if they find the cold, in the basin. The light is there, in the sense that there are lamps with electric wires, but the engine-start certain temperature does not work hardly ever. Therefore the lighting remains a utopia. Warming does not exist. Add to all this a night spent in white for the cold. Yet the Hotel del Sal, this hotel built in the middle of nothing and very spartan, yet it is beautiful ...! - After breakfast, start the day, who spend entirely in Salar de Uyuni, a single journey in one of the most amazing natural spectacles that can be admired. Let us start with the visit the small village of Colchani Bolivians consider that, not surprisingly, at the end of the world. The observation is apt. We must see to believe. Here, in practice, every family is a cooperative and will annually produce 20,000 tons of what, according to an estimate, is the content of 10 billion tons of salt of the Salar. We continue towards the area called Bloques de Sal where men gather to Colchani, armed with ax and shovel, salt. The way we see some salinares that s'apprestano to reach by bike, your job. Them to protect themselves from the glare of the sun on sale carry all the glasses on which are mounted lens thick and dark and cold to win the wearing of balaclavas.
From here, more than eighty kilometers separate us dall'Isla of Pescado. During Ibert teaches us the path of some curiosity. Thus we learn that the salt is the salt desert of higher (3.650mt) and in the world, has an extension equal to 10,000 square kilometers (as Basilicata). The incumbent Tunupa massive volcano 5400 meters high, the only point of reference in the Salar, indicates that we are still in the north. But soon we find ourselves in the center and then, as the eye can see, not see anything. Only the blinding white surface which contrasts with the blue sky. The blue and white are perfectly separated from the horizon line. After a while ', this is completely an illusion. A dark spot can be seen on the horizon suddenly breaking the line of contrast between the white and blue, but is not a mirage, but the Isla del Pescado. And when, some fifteen miles, the gauge seems clear we can understand the meaning of the curious name affibbiatogli. Resembles, in fact, for a fish. It 'the most amazing of the Salar. You can define it properly, not only because the island is an outcrop of land, but a real island madrepores, now emerges as an atoll dall'insolita expanse of salt, real recollection of what was the Salar in a remote geological era a huge inland sea. A giant cactus forest covering the island. The highest reaches twelve meters in height. The majority is as simple columns, but some of the form of a candelabrum. Do not lean, but because they are entirely covered with long thorns. Circumnavigating the island on foot, using one hour, then climb on top, entering along a path among the cactus. On the way we admire beautiful views of the Salar. The colors yellow, green and gray of the contrast with the white of the salt and the blue of the sky. From the summit, after a drop of fifty meters in the distance we see a dark dot moving. Is no more than a jeep.
After a break of two hours we leave the island and the Salar direct to the village of San Juan. We travel with their heads turned backwards to see one last time, the window of our jeep, the vast white expanse of salt.

Those visiting the Salar remain dazzled by the blinding light and dall'impareggiabile landscape. It 'one of the few places in the world, remained untouched, where you can admire one of the most amazing spectacles of nature.