This is the second day of our Uyuni San Pedro de Atacama tour. Our first day was great, the weather has followed us and Noah has also enjoyed every bit of the trip.

Today, after a good night’s sleep and an energizing breakfast, we left our lodgings at around 8am.

This day of the Uyuni San Pedro de Atacama tour starts at another salar

Our first stop was the Salar de Tiguana. At this salar there is a train line which runs from Uyuni, where we saw the train cemetery, all the way to Chile.

The scenery is unique; we were surrounded by volcanoes and during the day we would pass dozens of them. A truly beautiful location.

Ollagui Volcano: This is a semi-active volcano and on top of it we could see some snow and minerals. Around the volcano there are lots of rocks formed from volcanic lava. From here we could already see the border with Chile, just in front of the mountains.

At Laguna Canapa we were able to see the very deep, red-colored lake with some flamingos in it. Normally there should be more birds there, but due to the cold weather this time of the year they fly to Chile until it gets warmer.

Laguna Hedionda (Stinking Lake) has a name that makes total sense given its color and scent. It has a strong sulfurous odour and is also a dark color. It is at over 4100m above sea level and we could feel the effects of the altitude more noticeably when we walked slightly faster than normal.

Less than 1 hour later we reached the Desierto de Siloli (Siloli Desert), where the altitude is about 4700m. We had already pretty much acclimatized to it, but perhaps not quite to such a high altitude as I was walking a bit and had to stop for few seconds to regain some oxygen.

One of our last stops of the day was the Árbol de Piedra (stone tree). Here we could see some rock formations created by the wind. The wind is strong there and Noah was not very fond of staying at this place so asked to go back to the car.

The highlight of the day on our Uyuni-San Pedro de Atacama tour

And finally the sight we had been waiting for the whole day – the Laguna Roja (Red lake). This is an enormous lake with a strong red color, where we saw some more flamingos and also some vicunas (for one of the first times on our whole journey through South America). Vicunas are similar to Llamas and Alpacas but with rather softer hair, which makes their fur very expensive in clothes and souvenirs. We spent almost an hour here appreciating the beautiful views and the sun just above the mountains. The contrast of the mountains and the deep colors of the lake is very nice. The lake is located within the Eduardo Avaroa National Reserve.

It was a long journey with several stops and amazing sights, and now we are heading to our next lodgings on this Uyuni San Pedro de Atacama tour. This is a very simple house located in a small village in the middle of nowhere, where tourists spend the night when going to or coming from Atacama. As this is a small village far from large cities, the night gave us some beautiful pictures of millions of stars and we were able to see the Milky Way. Definitely a night to remember.

Everyone on our tour, as well as the people on the other 3 tours that were being hosted at the same house, slept very early as our next day would start at 4am to enable us to see the sunrise at the Geysers.

Did you miss our first post about our excursion from Uyuni to Atacama?

So click here to check our first night; or

Click here to go directly to our third and last day of the trip