Salt Flats & Pumas in Uyuni

On the first of our five days in San Pedro we booked and paid for a salt flats tour to Uyuni to make sure we didn’t miss out. By 7pm the day before our departure we still hadn’t heard anything from the company to confirm our pickup so we decided to go check in person. Good thing we did as they didn’t appear to have any plans for us or even know that we were booked in for the following day!

With the minor hiccup resolved, we were collected as promised at 6am the morning following in a van before collecting the rest of our group and heading to the border. We made it to the border by 8am just before the sun rose when our driver set up a table and served breakfast. Man it was cold!

From here we drove to the Bolivian border control where we swapped from van to 4x4 with a new driver who would take us to Uyuni. On this day we stopped by Lagunas Blanca & Verde as well as some thermal hot pools and some geysers.

The real highlight of the day was Laguna Colorado. Here was saw the vivid red lake with 3 types of flamingos strutting through the shallows amongst vicuñas and llamas munching the surrounding grass (a rare sight here). The orange colour produced by the type of plankton here in the water is best viewed on calm days and from above.

From here we began a relatively long final leg to our first nights accomodation. About an hour in to the bumpy ride, our guide yelled “puma!” as Kenzie and I looked up and out of our dusty back seat windows to see a puma within 100m of us chasing some vicuñas.

Initially it chased the youngest before an adult courageously turned to face the puma and fend it off enough to give the young time to escape. The puma then chased the adult before both disappeared over a slight hill out of our sight. I guess we’ll never know if the puma got its feed or if it went hungry.

This was a highlight of the journey and something we definitely weren’t expecting! Our guide told us he sees no more than 5 pumas a year with usually only 1 hunting.

Our accomodation that evening was in the quaint small desert town of Villa Mar.

With day one as our day of lagunas, day two was our day of rocks.

In between the rocks we did also check out the Anaconda Canyon.

After a stop at the local pub for some local beer, we were on our way to our second nights accomodation in a hotel made of salt!

Our third and final day began at 4am as we loaded the car and hit the road to catch sunrise over the salt flats.

After the sun had risen we relocated for brekky before heading deeper in the salt flats to capture our own takes of the iconic photos we had all seen online.

Lucas

Mar 3, 2025