A first-person YouTube travel video by Nate Buchanan (uploaded March 16, 2017) documenting a visit to Bolivia's Uyuni Salt Flats. The hosts (Kara and Nate Buchanan) and a local guide narrate arrival from the market, crossing wet flats in rubber boots, a three-course picnic on the flats, driving ~70 miles (~50 km until the island becomes visible) to Incahuasi (Fisher Island), hiking the island and learning its local name/origins and geology (petrified coral), watching an expansive sunset, and staying at a nearby salt hotel. The video includes travel logistics (flooding risk vs. mirror effect), visitor statistics (~200 cars/day), and local cultural/geological explanations (Incahuasi naming, ~900-year-old features).
Questions this video answers
March 16, 2017.
70 miles.
About 50 km.
About 200 cars a day.
Approximately 900 years old.
Chapters
We have arrived.
So we're just now leaving the market and we are about to go to the salt flats for the first time. We were given some big rubber boots because apparently it's really wet. It's not even lunchtime yet and we have already had a huge day.
This place is unreal.
I can't believe we're here.
Looks like hot springs.
This is what we call ojos de agua, usually in Spanish. Every place where there are springs we call it ojos. But this place is not actually springs.
Anytime I see something bubbling out of the earth, I just assume it's hot. This is actually cold. It's very confusing. So these holes go all the way down to the underground rivers and it's just the oxygen coming up from the river flowing beneath the surface.
Can I offer you some chocolates?
Of course, yes.
My city, Sucre is known as the chocolate capital of Bolivia.
The Bolivian salt flats.
This is incredible.
I can't believe. Just keeps getting pret.
This is so crazy.
I just want to go walk on it forever and ever.
We just drove 70 miles into the middle of the salt flats to this island. Once we got like 50km out, you could start to see it and it felt like we were going to be there any minute the entire time. The depth perception here because it's so flat is so messed up. Also, we learned that we're super lucky with the rain situation going on because if it rains too much, it's flooded and you can't make it to the island. But if it doesn't rain, then you don't get this beautiful mirror effect. All in all, we're crazy lucky and feel super grateful to be in such an amazingly beautiful place. And now we're setting up for lunch.
Time for a picnic.
I don't think this picnic spot could be beat anywhere else in the entire world.
They fed us a delicious three course lunch in the middle of the salt flats. I felt like we were the only ones here. But we learned that 200 cars a day come into the salt flats but you hardly see anyone. But I really like it when we do see a car drive by because it just shows how huge this is.
Got to this island and we're about to hike to the top.
So the name of this island is the Fisher island officially, but we call it Incahuasi. Incahuasi means the house of the Inca, but it's not related to the Inca. Inca itself is related to one of the first people coming from the community in the volcano to live here in the island. And his Nickname was the Inca. So after him they named this island the Incahuasi, the House of the Inca.
This one is one of the highest and it's approximately 900 years old. In the back of the island we will see millennial one.
All of what this is beautiful. Simba. All of that is Bolivia. And behind the mountains, that dark spot, that's Chile.
Without thinking too much, how long do you think it would take you to walk to the other island?
Six hours.
Well, that island is 55 kilometers away, so it will take you 11 hours on an average speed. That's why. That's why being so flat, it's also a little dangerous.
This is the best 360 view ever. Just salt flats as far as you can see.
We are literally at the very top of an island in the very middle of the world's biggest salt flats.
So when all of this was under the ocean, these were coral reefs and these are natural coral formations. All of them were preserved by the volcano activity that throw in the ashes and with the effect of the water, petrified the coral, they covered the coral and took the same shape as it. And they preserved all of this, including the whole island.
Oh my gosh. With the cactus and the mountain and.
The salt flats and the cave, for me, this is the perfect natural frame.
Now we have a two hour drive to where we're gonna watch the sunset.
Making a quick pit stop for the.
Obligatory obstacle illusion pictures, little behind the scenes.
Okay, now open wider.
Okay.
We found the perfect spot to set up to watch probably the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen.
They just set up this table for us and now we're having cocktails and watching the sunset.
We just got to our salt hotel. It's just on the outside of the salt flats and the whole thing is made out of salt.
Oh.
Wow.
Our room is so cool. The walls are basalt. The bed frame is made of salt. The nightstand is made of salt. The desk is made of salt. There's salt all around the outside of the room. Just like loose. Like I could pick it up and eat it.
I love this place.
I need you to go farther away.
Okay.
Ready? Yeah, fine.
No, no, no. Okay, now.
Did it look cool?
Yeah, but you need like this long hand.
On your hand. It's like three steps.
All right, ready? Carol, let's kiss all three.
Okay.
No, no, no, no. Wait, wait. I need you to go closer to your hand with your face when you kiss him.
Like this?
Yeah. More, more. Okay, perfect.
One, two, three.
No, it failed.
My sock got really sweaty inside. My boot, so I'm dried it out.
