Salar de Uyuni

We reach Uyuni without any trouble and soon find the Minuteman Pizza Restaurant. A restaurant owner from Michigan I think, has set up shop in Uyuni, a very unattractive, not much going for it sort of town. The reason the restaurant is such a success is that Uyuni is the jumping off point for excursions to the Salar de Uyuni and jeep tours down to San Pedro. In the dry season you can also make it to Argentina from here. So it's on the Gringo trail. But that's not the only reason. It's because it serves the best pizza in Bolivia, if not South America, does fantastic fluffy pancakes and makes real coffee. All for not much more than the price of local food. We do try local food on arrival, llama stew and maize. I'm ok with it but Mike's not too keen on the Llama, a bit tough for his palate. So we become regulars at the Minuteman Pizza restaurant. We deserve it after the past few days. The other highlight of Uyuni is out little adventure into the Salar. Mostly, people visit this when it's dry. The largest salt lake in the world. With the wet season kicking off, we get it with about 2 inches of water on top. That's no problem. A good excuse to take a jeep tour, giving the bikes and our throttle hands a well deserved rest. Plus, salt and bikes don't mix, and if the bikes are to last until Alaska there are some things best left undone.

Very pretty

So a day's jeep tour is booked and off we head, via a delapidated train museum, a salt mine - basically piles and piles of salt - and the disused salt hotel. Not looking too inviting after 25 years. Then it's a long, slow drive out to an island with a 1203 year old cacti. This sounds pretty dull but the reflection of the sky on the water of the salar is simply stunning. A bit like the whale watching, we take hundreds of photographs. I'll post them soon enough and hopefully you'll get a glimpse of how beautiful it was.