To the salt flats

We had organised a pickup at 0615 for the airport. The driver was about 5 mins late but rang the hotel to advise of this from five blocks away. I could feel the additional altitude by the time we arrived at the airport at El Alto.  Additionally it was also colder; La Paz nights hadn’t been that cold even though on paper it was supposed to be similar to Puno.  Puno was frigid!

Check-in wasn’t available till 1h prior to the flight! The airline must be very efficient and have great confidence in the security queues. So we patronised one of the several badly-overpriced cafes. Actually we patronised two as the first one couldn’t get tea the way Kim wanted it but their coffee was good.

Once checked-in we went airside and realised that the large new spacious check-in area was an add-on to an older pokey airport. We left on time from a walk-up gate at the opposite end of the apron on a old but tidy Boeing 737-300.

Surprisingly, a snack box of pastries was given during the 50 minute flight. Coming in to land at Uyuni, the crew told us that we could move to the starboard side to have a better view of salt flats. I had been impressed with Boliviana de Aviacion since the time I found that my booking could not be retrieved and contacted them on Facebook; they got back to me promptly and advised that it was due to a schedule change and once they confirmed that with me, all was good again. And today, their ground staff and crew were good too.

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It was a very short taxi ride to Hostal Oro Blanco on the main drag near the railway station and main square. We had breakfast in lieu of the one we’d miss on the last day.

As it was too early for us to have the room, we went for a walk around town. While the air was cold with a slight icy breeze, the sun was very strong and warm. It was market day and we had a good look at all the household, clothing and food items on offer.

We were allocated a very sunny room on the front of the building. We rested till our tummies were ready for lunch and ventured out for our feed in one of the many places. We caught the end of the Corpus Christi procession before they walked into the church. The festival is a public holiday so banks and many tour operators were closed.

Lunch turned out more pricey than in La Paz. That was also the case with snacks etc in the convenience stores. The train cemetery looked a little closer on Google Maps than indicated in the guide book. We walked till the edge of town and a little bit more and could see it. With the strong sun, we decided against making the rest of the walk as we would see it on the salt flat tour anyway.

It was a lazy rest-of-the-day till dinner. We chose our dining venue based on who had the warmest looking heating!

Corpus Christi procession.