It would be unfair to squeeze all the natural beauties we saw on tour of Salar de Uyuni and Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa in Bolivia into one blog post. So after part 1 (which includes all the facts you have to know before going on this tour and all the stops we made on our first day of the tour) here is the part 2 with all the incredible stops we made the second and third day of the tour. Prepare yourselves for some extraordinary nature – amazing lagoons, incredible colours (photos below are not edited!), volcanoes and flamingoes!
5. San Agustín
We started the second day of discovering this southeastern part of Bolivia in the San Agustín village, where we could buy some food in the local store and see the overview of the interesting landscape from the nearby viewing point. People who live in the areas of the Bolivian Altiplano are mostly growing quinoa, which is an undemanding and altitude-hardy plant, and breed llamas.
6. Llama’s pasture
If you think llamas are cute, you will be in heaven when visiting Peru and Bolivia. Especially here, in the heights of Bolivian Altiplano, the experience of seeing so many llamas in their natural environment is really something special. The llamas were eating grass, feeding the little ones and just enjoying themselves in an amazing green pasture with little creeks and the mountains in the back.
7. Valle de rocas
This part of Bolivia is full of volcanos, some actives some not anymore, which have formed many lagoons and different rock formations. The “rock valley” is one of the latter, stopping here means admiring the interesting rocks and the volcanoes in the distance. You can still see the smoke getting out from some volcano’s craters.
8. Laguna Cañapa
There is a rule – every lagoon has at least one volcano rising in the background. So you can imagine that a salty lake, with some Andean flamingoes in it, and a volcano make a picture perfect spot.
9. Laguna Hedionda
If we were excited bout a few flamingoes at the first lagoon, the second lagoon we visited – Laguna Hedionda – was a heaven. It was absolutely full of Andean flamingoes eating and flying from one part of the lagoon to another. Unfortunately they are a bit afraid of the people, so you cannot really get too close to them.
10. Laguna Ramaditas
Another beautiful lagoon. The white on the shores of all the lagoons is borax, which is used as a component for making detergents, cosmetics, and enamel glazes. However, as this is the area of national park, it is forbidden to extract it.
11. Árbol de piedra
The stone tree is isolated rock formation, which the sand, that the wind carries around, shaped in to the shape of a tree. It is about seven meters hight and surrounded by other interesting rock formations.
12. Laguna Colorada
The Red Lagoon, as the Laguna Colorada is named in English, is definitely the most beautiful of all the lagoons we visited. The colours of the water, thousands of flamingoes and the whole scenery are just breathtaking. This is the lagoon where the flamingoes breed. After baby flamingoes are born they eat the read algaes and from them they get their pink colour.
13. Géiseres Sol de la Mañana
Geysers of Sol de la Mañana, the morning sun volcano, are creating a big geothermal area that extends over 10 square kilometers between 4800 and 5000 meters above sea. The area, which has intense volcanic activity, is full of sulphur springs field, covered with smoke, and boiling mud lakes. The smell is not the most pleasant, however, the views are pretty amazing.
14. Termas de Polques and starry sky
We ended our second day of exploring Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa in a pool of Termas de Polques. This hot spring has around 29 degrees Celsius and is heaven compared to the outside temperatures that are at nigh below 0 degrees. The pool is outdoor and has no electricity, so when visiting at night, you also get a free view of the magical starry sky. Because there is no light pollution in the wider area you can see the star constellations perfectly.
15. Desierto Salvador Dalí
The desert of Salvador Dalí has landscape that resembles several surrealist paintings from Spanish painter Salvador Dalí. If you know his work, you will be amazed by the similarity and felt as you stepped on Dalí’s canvas.
16. Laguna Verde
The Green Lagoon got its name from the colour of the water. However, the water here is, as they’ve told us, green only when it is really windy. The exact green tone of the water is depending on the disturbance caused to sediments in the lake by winds. So when we visited it was apparently not windy enough, but the view of the lagoon and the volcano it was still nice.
17. Laguna Negra
The way to the Black Lagoon leads along a narrow valley, full of green water creeks and rocky cliffs. The path ends on a picturesque rock with amazing view of the black lake with some ducks playing in the water. A really scenic end to our exploration of the area. It was time to head back to Uyuni, with a snack stop in the market of little town San Cristóbal. In the evening we were already on a night bus, heading back to Bolivian capital La Paz.
© of photos Klemen Krulec, Vanja Vodenik
Visited: May 2018
Really great pictures and wish to visit those places sometime.
Thank you! Hope you will have an opportunity to visit once! 🙂