The salt hotel was pretty comfortable to stay in. There were only two other groups of people, a couple from Buenos Aires, and a family of five, so the hotel was creepily empty at times.
Almost everything that could be made from blocks, was made of salt. The bed platform, side tables, non-load-bearing walls, floor, all from salt. We were warm at night so I guess salt blocks also have good insulating properties.
Our driver picked us up at 9am, and we were off for the final day of the tour.
Rainy season is in Jan-Feb, and so at this time of year, the salar is covered with water, around 10cm depth when we visited. We drove out slowly, for about 30 minutes at 5 km/h (to minimize salt water splashing under the vehicle). We drove past workers collecting the salt. Some were making conical piles about 1m high, which allowed the salt to dry out. Others were shoveling the dried-out salt into trucks, which is then taken to refineries.
The salar reminded us of lakes after winter, when the surface is melting but there's still ice underneath. However there was no worries about falling through -- under the water is 1.5m of solid salt, 12,106 sq km big.
A lot of other tourists walked through the salt water in their bare feet, but we didn't feel the need.
After lunch, we drove to the Train Cemetery just outside Uyuni. There's dozens of rusting old steam locomotives and other train cars, just sitting in the middle of sand. It's a b/w photography dreamscape. I took a whole bunch of pictures, in the hope that a couple may actually look good. I don't have a good eye yet for b/w pictures.
Our driver dropped us off at our hotel in Uyuni, Los Girasoles Hotel. The 4-day tour seemed much longer than the 5-day W trek, maybe because the scenery changed so quickly.
We walked around town, with not much to do except find a place for dinner. All the tourist places have the same menu of pizza, llama burgers and pasta. We had resigned ourselves to attempting pizza again, until we walked by a restaurant with rotisserie chicken (the range was outside on th sidewalk). It was pretty good, served with decent enough fries.
After we went to a bar and celebrated with a Potosina, a local beer. We haven't had any alcohol since we've been in Bolivia, to help adjust to the altitude. At 3669m, Uyuni is lower than the 4200m+ of the tour. Our remaining cities in Bolivia are Potosí (4070m), Sucre (2750m) and La Paz (3660m), before we return to closer to sea level in Santiago.
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