From the border with Argentina, we took a night bus to Uyuni to see one of Bolivia’s main attraction: the Uyuni Saltar. Villazon is connected to Uyuni by a dirt road, so we enjoyed an 8h hour journey with no air-conditioning, still, it wasn’t as uncomfortable as I first thought. The road was rather narrow, with sharp curves and occasional water crossing (there was no water now though). Often, the bus took a detour from the road on the map onto the open land, it seems they are building a new road. We arrived at Uyuni at 2am and found a hostel for 40 bolivianos pp where we spent the night.
The next morning, we went to find out which company we’d choose. We were interested in a 1 day tour of the saltar, the prices were ranging from B120 to B150. Many companies offer the same, but some only offer half of the itinerary for the same price (careful)! First impressions were strongest with Giselle Tours as we were promised to see the train cemetery, Colchani village, salt hotel, Isla de Pescado, water reflections, sunset with wine + lunch. All good, we were booked in on the next day and had a free day.
Salar de Uyuni on a budget
Train Cemetery
We decided to go see the train cemetery ourselves as it only was 10 blocks away from the city centre. Don’t expect something like a train cemetery in the middle of nowhere. It’s very close to Uyuni, there’s a lot of trash everywhere and if you visit it when all the tour companies go (10:30am to noon), it’s crowded with tourists. We were lucky as on our first day, there was no one and we had the whole place for ourselves.
Camping at Salar
Next, we had the idea of going camping onto the saltar. You can take a bus for B10 and get off at Colchani, from where it’s some 5km to the saltar. Or you can do it like us, hitchhike and the locals will take you there for about B5. After more than an hour of walking, we found a destroyed salt house, by which we decided to build our tents as it would provide a shield from the wind. We watched an incredible sunset of colours of pink, orange and green with Maté and a bottle of rum. Later we cooked rice and hid in the tents as it started to rain a bit with very strong wind! It was very windy for half of the night, but our tents survived! 
Sunrise
We got up early to watch the sunrise, it was bloody cold, but we were rewarded with a moon like scenery, with the stars and moon lighting up the salar white. The sunrise was nice, the sunset better.
The Day Tour
We had high expectations due to our early visit to Salar. We were excited what today’s gonna bring. We ate empanadas and fresh juice at the local market for breakfast and then waited for the company to pick us up. We were picked up at half 11 instead of half 10, still wasn’t too late. The company then changed cars because ours didn’t have enough petrol, accumulating more delay..
We were brought to the train cemetery we saw yesterday with only one difference: the people. All the tour companies go here in the beginning of the day, there were more than 50 cars and crazy Asians flying drones.
Next, we went to Colchani again crowded with tourists. There was a market with nice but overpriced things, so we just looked. We had lunch here instead of the Salt Hotel, another inauspicious change to our itinerary.. The lunch itself was nice - meat, quinoa, salad and coke.
We then visited some thermal waters, drove for an hour across the salt flats at 90km/h! and finally made it to the Salt Hotel There were a lot of international flags (Czech Republic missing :( ), the Salt Hotel (used by tours to have lunch, it isn’t an actual hotel) and the Dakar Monument made from salt!
Another hour of driving brought us to the Isla de Pescado. It’s a volcanic island with many cactuses, creating unique landscape. We had one hour here, so we walked around the island, barefoot on the salt. It actually wasn’t as flat as we imagined, some of the salt was pretty sharp. We took a lot of pictures of the white nothing. On the horizon floated some islands - evaporating salt perturbed our perception!
It was time to head back, the driver told us it wasn’t for sure we’d see the reflections. A girl who was on the tour with us then told everyone she had to be back at 8pm in Uyuni for a bus. That would ruin the sunset as well… we were all pissed and thought about possible solutions with no other outcome than boycotting the departure.
We arrived to a place, where salt flats were covered with 10cm of water, creating stunning reflections in the salt. The landscape, people and sky were all mirrored in the water and everyone took a lot of photos. What an amazing experience to end the day by watching the sunset here, unbelievable! We boycotted the departure and instead of 30min, we spent an hour and a half at this spot, everyone but the Argentinian girl was happy.
Suggestions
Choosing the tour
Carefully choose the tour operator, the day tour is enough but can be ruined if you go with some asshole company (we weren’t happy with ours). Also, you can see the train cemetery yourself as well as Colchani - if you’re a group of friends or mates from the hostel (you must be 7), you may ask the company to tailor make your trip so that you spend maximum time on the actual Salar. Also make sure to bring enough water and to charge your camera. For B750$, the 3 day tour takes you to the Salar, Lagunas with flamingos and geisires. We heard it’s amazing, but if you only want to see the Salar, you might just go for the day tour..
For budget travellers
If you’re on a budget, you can either go camping to the Salar like we did (B20$ for roundtrip ticket + 5km walk each way). It was incredible! Otherwise, you may ask around for a public bus that goes to the middle of the Salar for about B20$, allowing you to experience this incredible place at a fraction of the cost. It could be hard to find this information, but if you eat out at the market, the locals might help you out.
Don’t skip the Salar, it’s incredible! If you are limited by time, we’d go for the reflections for sure. Finally, the Salar might be inaccessible due to the rain season or some highlights such as the reflections might vanish during the dry season (May onwards) so just bear this in your mind.
