Bolivia

On the South side of the Salar de Uyuni lies the small village of Atulcha. It doesn’t have much more than a few houses but it does make an interesting stop on the tourist route of Uyuni and its surroundings. There is a simple museum about Quinoa, the grain of the Incas. The cycle of the plant, its many uses and the customs and traditions that come with it are explained by a local. Ask the man from the museum to bring you to the mummies of Atulcha, called the Qhatinchu Archeological Site. He’ll take you on a small walk outside the village across a small hill where there are a few caves with mummies that are in quite good shape!
Atulcha is not the only place around the Salar the Uyuni that has a salt hotel but this is a quite nice one. The walls, tables, benches, beds, etc are all cut out of blocks of salt. Luckily the mattresses are not made of salt and are nice and soft!

Ever dreamed of climbing a mountain? This could be your chance. Claimed to be one of the worlds easiest 6,000+ meters, Huyana Potosi rises tall right outside La Paz. In just two days you can make it to the top and back to civilization in the city. Ice axes, ropes and crampons are necessities and this is no trekking peak. Ascending to the peak is rewarding – this mountain has a real pointy peak and offers outstanding views of the altiplano, the Cordillera Real (The Royal Range) and the gleaming white peaks of the nearby Illampu mountain.

Dinosaur findings have a tendency to be in the strangest places and this is no exception. On an almost vertical slap of rock inside an active cement quarry is largest known collection of dinosaur tracks in the world. Thousands of dino footprints crisscross the now steep limestone wall creating more than 250 trackways made by six different kinds of dinosaurs in all sizes, including Tyrannosaurus Rex. You can catch the Dino truck to the site from the main square in Sucre.

The south-west corner of Bolivia, straddling the border to Chile, is a unique area on this planet. It is protected as a national park but the beauty of this region reaches way beyond the borders of the park. The arid altiplano landscape is dotted with volcanoes such as the active Ollagüe (5863 m) where you can see smoke rise from its side, and the perfectly symmetrically shaped Licancabur volcano (5920 m) on the border with Chile.
The park and region is however mostly known for its many lakes that all have different colours from white to blue, green and red. The most famous ones are the Laguna Verde, at the Licancabur volcano and the Laguna Colorado. The colours of these mainly salty lakes come from different algae and plankton. It is this algae that attracts the three different species of flamingos that are present in high numbers at most of the lakes. This area keeps surprising because there is still much more to see. There are geysers and bubbling mud pools at Sol de Mañana, there are hot springs to warm up on a chilly morning, rock formations such as the Arbol de Piedra and there is the rabbit with a long tail called viscacha.

Only discovered in 2003 by two local men, Cueva Galaxia is a small cave but quite different from usual caves with stalagmites and stalactites. The cave has only a few small chambers with pretty ceilings that look more like web-like structures, kind of like deteriorated tree leaves - or like inverted corals - leave it up to your imagination!
In this small area just south of Salar de Uyuni there is also Devil’s Cave (Cueva del Diabolo) with sacred burial chambers. Around these caves and on the hill above the caves you get pretty views of the area. Furthermore is the area full of petrified cacti.

If you wonder what the ** is after the name of the Galaxy caves - it stands for the two men who discovered this site.

The largest salt lake of the world keeps on amazing people and should be on the itinerary when visiting Bolivia or even South America. At an altitude of about 3600 m it is part of the Bolivian Altiplano. This enormous salt lake is dry most of the year but for a few months there is some water in the lake turning it into a huge mirror. When the lake is dry you can drive across admiring the vastness and because there is a the lack of depth it is popular to make fun photos with different objects. Other attractions are the small local salt production places at the edge of the lake where you can see the locals dry the salt and make salt bricks to use for constructing houses and hotels for tourists. Incahuasi island is another popular stop and pretty much in the middle of the salt lake where there is a trail that leads to the top of this cactus-filled island.

If you like deserted places, the train graveyard just outside of Uyuni is a true gem. A collection of turn of the century (end of 19th start of 20th century) steam locomotives and trains are spread out in the desert. Uyuni used to be a major crossroad of train tracks for transporting minerals away from the mines. Since the decline of the mining industry in the area, the old steam train were also abandoned and put to rest in the desert. For most tour groups this is the first stop on the standard tours in and around the salar de Uyuni. To avoid the crowds and for better light it is better to go late afternoon.

Formerly the bottom of the prehistoric lake formed in the high plateau between the Occidental and the Royal range shared between Bolivia and Peru. This area now has an attraction very different from the numerous Inka remains. The flat clay was transformed by underground rivers and torrential rain and wind and the area now boasts strangely shaped pinnacles and deep winding canyons consisting of sedimentary clay, volcanic ashes and the occasional congregation of gravel and pebbles. Some of the towering clay pillars have been named according to their appearances but the real draw here is just walking around in this bizarre landscape, whether you think it looks like the moon or not...

At the northern edge of the Salar de Uyuni towers the Tunupa Volcano above the salt lake. On a day trip it is possible to hike to the crater rim at about 5,000 m or even further direction the top of the mountain. The base for the hike is in the tiny village of Coquesa, where there is not much more than a few houses and a hostel. From there you can start hiking but it makes it definitely a little easier to be driven some hundreds of meters uphill close to some caves with mummies at about 4,000 m. The hike from here is quite strenuous, especially approaching the edge of the crater where the terrain is sandy with small stones. The views are amazing though and worth the effort. When you stand about 1,500 meters above the salar you quickly forget the tough climb.

Start whistling a Western tune, saddle a horse or just put on your hiking boots to discover the region around Tupiza. This is the area where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid spent the last period of their lives and also found their death. The classic movie might not be filmed here but the real-life story took place in the desert around Tupiza. You don’t need a lot of imagination to get into a Western vibe. The scenery is stunning with red rock formations, narrow canyons and cacti galore. You can easily get a local guide to show you around on a day trip on foot or by horse to show you some of the sites such as Valle de los Machos, Puerta del Diablo, El Cañión del Inca and El Cañión del Duende.