Uyuni (Dep. Potosi)

Uyuni, founded in 1890 as a trading post, has later become an distribution hub for trains carrying minerals on their way to the Pacific Ocean ports. Uyuni is today the gateway for tourists visiting the famous Salar de Uyuni – a 10,582 square kilometeres vast, flat land of pure white salt, presenting the largest salt flat in the world, and the Eduard Avaroa National Park, which contains a number of lagoons of bright red, blue, green and white water, coloured by the mixture of their mineral content.

Places to stay

Uyuni

- Hotel Jardines de Uyuni, Uyuni
- Hotel Boutique Andina, Uyuni
- Hotel La Petite Porte, Uyuni
- Hotel Tambo Aymara, Uyuni
- Hotel Samay Wasi, Uyuni
- Hotel Los Girasoles, Uyuni

Colchani

- Hotel Cristal Samaña, Colchani, Salar de yuni
- Hotel Luna Salada, Colchani, Salar de Uyuni
- Hotel Palacio de Sal, Colchani, Salar de Uyuni

Tours

For information about tours to the Salar de Uyuni and the Reserva Eduardo Avaroa, please visit our tours section.

Sights

The Train Cemetery

Outside the town is the first or last stop on most tours of the Salar. Follow the rusted railway line, that leads out of Uyuni for 3km. On a backdrop of pure white salt, the crumbling hulks of some of Bolivians most famous trains lie in their final resting place. Amongst the redish-brown steam locomotives are the first train the country ever saw and one of the last to be robbed by the famous 'Banditos Yanquis', Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The Salt Hotels

In the 1980s there was a hotel, made entirely out of salt, right in the middle of the Salar. Unfortunately, it couldn't be properly plumbed and this caused all sorts of trouble, so it's now got a museum. Luckily, new salt hotels have been built on the shore of the Salar de Uyuni in Colchani (with fully functioning facilities) so the unique chance to experience sleeping on a bed made of salt, between 4 salt walls and with a salt bedside table hasn't been lost.