Salta de Uyuni February 17
 

Hi, my wife and I are due to arrive in South West Bolivia in mid February. We are keen to ride the Salta De Uyuni however, websites indicate that tour operators close down from December to March in this area as, the Salta will be flooded and cannot be accessed?
Any one have any experience of the Salta at this time of year. Advice welcomed. Thanks Kevin.

Uyuni
 

Do you mean Salar de Uyuni? I also want to do this in about the second half of March. Am in Montevideo now heading to Brazil tomorrow.

We left Uyuni two days ago and are now in Sucre. We spent a day on the Salar - it was fabulous. We decided not to take our bikes onto the Salar but to do a one day tour in a Toyota Landcruiser instead. We too were concerned about the state of the surface and the amount of water.

What we observed was:
- the access road to the Salar through the village of Colchani is several km of very heavily rutted but rideable dirt. Not particularly pleasant.
- the first 5km ish of the Salar itself is watery and rutted, as far as the Dakar statue. Again rideable with extreme care but no fun. After the Dakar statue, the Salar was in great condition.
- our tour took us to Fish Island in the centre of the Salar, approx 80km from Uyuni. Great photos. None of the bikers we met rode out this far - I reckon they were too traumatised by the first 10km of ruts and water. We would recommend the tour. We used Esmeralda Tours on the pedestrian street in centre of town. Cost was 200BOB pp - great, safe drivers and really good value.
- 3 other bikes in our hotel. All three rode to the Salar. Two (1200gs and S10) found it very difficult and only went as far as the Dakar statue. Ironically the salt is much better after that! The third rider (1200gs) dropped his bike somewhere during the day and was awaiting medivac from Uyuni with a double leg fracture.

I hope some of this helps.
James