Uyuni salt falts passable in January?
 

We are in Potosi, Bolivia and are considering crossing the salt falts. My question- are they passable right now? (it is the rainy season, and I dont care to ride a salt water lake or get stuck in some salt muck)
Thanks


------------------
Back on the road again.

sopgear.com

Excellent question! I don't have an answer for you, but i have been stuck in the Solar while on an Overland Adventure tour. It took three days before we dug ourselves out and hobbled into Uyuni, in that time not a single person drove by! We were into our reserves of food and water, things could have gone bad! I'll try to contact my friend Simon and see if the rout is passable today.

I just sent Simon a letter, hopefully he receives it soon! In the meantime, check out the mines if you haven't already. You can even buy dynamite if you wish, but if you lack the experience handling it, i would not sugest this. Talk to you soon!

We just got back from the mine tour, planning to head out tomorrow AM. From asking around, it seems that it is flooded about knee deep!! But mentira flies heavy around here. We could ride over there and look for ourselves, but its a big backtrack if we cant do it, so trying to find another scenic route south right now. Every tour agenecy here is not interested in helping us do it ourselves, only selling a tour package...
Anyone with experience KNOW?
Thanks

------------------
Back on the road again.

sopgear.com

Hello. Have you been to Sucre' yet? By far the best city in Bolivia! Too bad about the Solar, maybe next time??
Good luck!

Hi,

We have just left Bolivia - we travelled across part of the Salar de Uyuni in early January.

We only drove from Garcia to Llica, about 30km across the salt, and at that stage it was covered in about 2-5cm of water.

We weigh 5000kg, but we had no problems on the salt (we would never have risked it, except that we saw a 60 seater bus crossing the other way).

On the other hand, just a few kms back we went out onto the mud flat and got horribly stuck. I estimate we´d have been working for 2 days to extricate ourselves - assuming no rain - if we´d not been offered the services of a tractor. We´d already done a couple of hours´ work, and made about 4m of progress.

So, while the salt was very firm even when wrt, the same cannot be said of the mud, usually around the periphery and in the smaller pans in the region.

On our way back across the Salar, a few days later, there was less water on the salt, but some places still had several cm. Lots of 2WD taxis and buses were crossing - some from Llica to Uyuni which is a long way.

The pans were amazing - worth every horrible km of road to get there. The further you are from the Salar, the worse the reports you hear. Once you get there, you can see for yourself if other vehicles are crossing!

For a bit more detail, and our evening GPS waypoints, see our website.

Hope this helps.

Michael & Sandy
www.expeditionoverland.com

I wish I had read your reply before we took off!!

We set out south of themain salar. The map showed a road next to the railroad tracks. Aint no road. We went thru much of the mud and muck you got stuck in also down the tracks. My XR650 had no trouble, but partners BMW was a nightmare! Will post complete story on my site soon.
Thanks

------------------
Back on the road again.

sopgear.com

are there any good routes that give a taste of the salt, as it were, and enabling a route to CHile without massive backtracking or danger of getting stuck. I'm travelling solo so am not going to take any major risks.

thanks

richard

------------------
Richb
http://www.postmaster.co.uk/~richardbeaumont/60684/