Budget Travel
South America
The world's largest salt flat. The world's most dramatic road. Under fifteen dollars a day.
The Forgotten Atlas — Field Report
The world's largest salt flat. The world's most dramatic road. Under fifteen dollars a day.
The Salar de Uyuni is 10,582 square kilometres of salt crust at 3,656 metres above sea level, in the southwest corner of Bolivia. In the dry season it is a vast white plain that stretches to the horizon in every direction, broken only by the Isla Incahuasi — an island of fossilised coral and giant cacti in the middle of the salt. In the wet season a thin layer of water covers the surface and creates the largest mirror on Earth: the sky reflected so perfectly that the boundary between it and the ground disappears. Photographs of this place go around the world. Standing in the middle of it is something that photographs cannot prepare you for.
Bolivia asks you to work for it. The altitude, the roads, the remoteness — it gives nothing easily. What it gives when you persist is extraordinary.
The Forgotten Atlas
La Paz sits at 3,640 metres above sea level — higher than most Alpine peaks. The airport is at 4,061 metres. Walking uphill with luggage will leave you breathless in ways that feel alarming but are usually normal. Give yourself two days to acclimatise before attempting anything strenuous. Drink coca tea, which the Bolivians swear by and which genuinely helps. Move slowly. Then, when your body adjusts, the altitude becomes the backdrop for everything: the extraordinary quality of the light, the drama of the Andean landscape, the physical sense of being at the top of the world.
Bolivia is the cheapest country in South America by a significant margin. A bed in a decent hostel costs three to five dollars. A set lunch — three courses with juice — costs two dollars at any local restaurant. Transport between cities is cheap and the bus journeys, though long, pass through landscapes that justify every hour. The Salar de Uyuni tours cost thirty to fifty dollars for three days including accommodation, transport, and a guide. The Death Road mountain bike descent is the most famous tourist activity in the country and costs forty dollars including bike hire.
Fly into La Paz. Acclimatise for two days. Then Uyuni. Then Sucre. Then Potosí if the silver mines interest you. Three weeks covers the essentials.
The de facto capital. The most extraordinary urban setting on Earth — a city crammed into a canyon at high altitude, surrounded by the snow peaks of the Andes.
The salt flat. Book a 3-day tour from the town of Uyuni that covers the flat, the coloured lagoons, and the geysers at the Chilean border.
The official constitutional capital. A beautiful colonial city at a more manageable altitude. The best food in the country.
The silver mining city that financed the Spanish Empire. The mines are still operating. Tours take you inside.
The central market. Find a stall serving salteñas — meat and vegetable pasties eaten for breakfast — and order two. The definitive Bolivian start to the day.
The most ambitious restaurant in Bolivia. Indigenous ingredients, extraordinary technique, the best version of the country's cuisine. Expensive by Bolivian standards.
Two dollars. Three courses. Soup, main, and juice. The most important meal of any Bolivian day. Never skip it.
Sucre is famous for its chocolate and its churros. The combination here is one of the great breakfast experiences in South America.
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