BY LAURA CANEPA

Maybe Phil Collins didn’t sing about the Inca, but in the days that mountains possessed both body and spirit, the immense Tunupa volcano was then a splendid woman who fell in love with Cusco, a strong and beautiful mountain: they decided to marry, and in brevity their first son was born.

However, the joy did not last long as Cusco had fallen into the seductive grasp of Cosuna, the fascinating adjacent mountain. When Tunupa discovered the betrayal, he became enraged and wanted revenge – thus striking out at the most important and beloved thing to Cusco’s heart, their recently born son.

In her despair and with a breast swollen of milk, she dug a basin in the valley and slowly poured the milk in, creating the “Salar de Uyuni”. The world’s largest salt lake.

Salar de Uyuni is a visually captivating place, one of the most stunningly beautiful places you will ever come across in South America.

Covering an area of over 12,000 square km, some 40,000 years ago the region was covered by the giant salt Lake Minchin and nowadays is a reserve of 10 billion tons of salt.

The desert can be crossed by 4×4 and, necessarily, with a guide (my suggestion is Mister Epi employed by Cordillera Traveller, based in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile), where during a trip of 3 days you will pass by surreal visions created by amazing geological formations, geothermal springs and brine coloured lakes. This S. American adventure looks something like this.

1st Day. Departure from San Pedro de Atacama at 08:00 AM – by minibus – to the Bolivian border (at 4.400 m above sea level) where the 18 passengers are shifted to three 4WD jeeps.

During the first day the group is in the Bolivian high plain visiting such wonderful places as Laguna Verde (an incredible green lagoon) and Laguna Blanca (white lagoon), located at the bottom of Licancabur Volcano, continuing to Daly Desert where it’s possible to admire a surrealistic landscape, thermal water pools, Sol de Mañana geysers –intermittent springs coming up at a 90º C– and fumaroles, and cracks with emerging volcanic lava.

The first day’s journey ends up at Laguna Colorada (coloured lagoon), the main nesting centre for more than 30,000 pink flamingos of 3 different species. The night is spent in a “folk” building (rooms for 6 people/each) in the middle of what can best be described as nowhere: a brilliant experience that you share with the other global trekkers.

2nd Day. During the second day the trip includes the Siloli Desert and the Stone forest, high plain coloured lagoons, Chiguana salt flat, ending the day in Chuvica village where you’ll find the De Sal Hotel – a hotel completely built out of salt, furniture included.

3rd Day. Finally the incredible salt desert! After visiting Pescado (fish) Island – located in the middle of the salt flat with a formation of chalky rocks, coral and seashell traces – and Pueblo Chico – located at the limits of the Uyuni desert – the tour then winds up at Uyuni City, a typical Bolivian village famous for its colour filled market.

That’s it, tour of the Salar de Uyuni over? Not really, at this point you have 2 options: a) go to Macchu Picchu, in Peru or b) head back to Chile but with a different itinerary, if b is your choice of choice, try spending the night in a surrealistic village named Villa Mar.

Either way, you’ll be sure to enjoy it.