When Is the Best Time
Salar de Uyuni is breathtaking and worth a visit throughout the year. The best time to visit depends on your personal preference, rather warm with a little rainfall or colder. We visited this place towards the end of October, the beginning of the summer season. It tends to be sunny and dry then.
But if you want to see the mirror effect on the salt flats, you should consider coming from January to March in the summer. This mirror effect is awesome to watch. A reason for a revisit in the future. You can visit the salt flats all day, from sunrise till sunset they are always magnificent.
Best Months to Visit
Location and Tips
Salar the Uyuni, or the Uyuni salt flats, is an utterly amazing place in Bolivia.
5 Facts for Salar de Uyuni
- The salt desert is located at an elevation of 3.500 m.
- The Salar de Uyuni is the flattest place on earth, and that is why it is so magical when it rains due to the reflections in the water.
- It is the largest salt pan on earth - 10,000 sq km in nothingness.
- There is an estimated 10 million tons of salt in the Salar de Uyuni.
- In the past, this was a salt lake today, the salt layer is 5 m thick.
Reviewed by Lianne
You get mixed up with other people. There were 6 people in our car, the driver, the guide (Lucho), we two and 3 Aussies—a perfect match. First, we drove to the train cemetery, which is close to the village. It is weird to see all the trains rusting away, but it has a special atmosphere, too for taking pictures. Afterwards, we visited a small factory where we could see the salt making. Then we got on the bikes for roughly 6 km/3.8 mi. It was hard to ride the bike, just as if you were biking through the snow. It does not go smoothly anyway.
After that, we had a well-deserved lunch on the salt flats. We could not see any companies there. The next on the program was a salt hotel. Which is nothing really special about it, but it had facilities. You could see all the flags and banners from visitors around the globe. And there is also the Dakar monument, which we thought added something special.
It is very huge!!! In the afternoon you visit the Isla Inca Huasi. The salt flats are full of islands, and since you cannot measure distance, it seems as if all of them were floating. Very weird. At Isla Inca Huasi we could hike a trail to the top for a spectacular view over the flats. There are many huge cactus trees on the island, and a lot of them were blooming. We also saw some birds there, nestling in the giant cactus.
The next stop was a cave, again, no other visitors were around. From inside the cave, we saw the sun coming down, and we took some funny pictures. Our guide had awesome ideas for this. Sunset itself we had down on the flat. On the one side, we saw the sun going down, and on the backside, the sky turned pink and purple, even more beautiful. We have never seen such a landscape before, and we can totally recommend you to go here. This was only day 1 of our 3-day tour there. The next day we visited coloured lakes, volcanoes and spotted a lot of wildlife!
