Visited directly after the epic salt flats of Salar de Uyuni, Los Lípez unbelievably matched them for spectacular and surreal landscapes.
Los Lípez pretty much neighbours Salar de Uyuni so you quickly move from a flat white world to a barren rocky desert in which you’re surrounded by some of the highest volcanoes in the world.
Thankfully only two are still active, Volcanoe Ollague being one of them.
Things started to get more surreal from Laguna Canapa, first sighting of half a dozen colourful lagoons home to flamingos.
Laguna Hedionda was one of my favourites. Despite spending over an hour walking by it I still couldn’t quite mentally digest the combination of colours, volcanoes, flamingos and geothermal activity. It was a quite stunning and memorable place to visit.
The nearby Laguna Honda wasn’t bad either, with more surreal colours in the barren landscape. Bolivia really is unlike anywhere else I’ve ever visited.
Which was confirmed by stopping at Árbol de Piedra, better know as the Stone Tree, which was carved by the wind.
As were these neighbouring surreal rock formations.
Laguna Colorada was my other favourite lagoon, if the windiest place I have ever been to (and I’ve spent quite a lot of time in Wellington…). The wind through brought out the red coloured algae to quite spectacular effect.
Particularly when combined with flamingos…
There were more incredible sights the following day, starting with a freezing sunrise at the Sol de Mañana geysers.
Polques hot springs were also steaming nicely first thing against the cold.
Salvador Dali Valley is aptly named for unusual rock formations, though I was more interested in the numerous so called rainbow mountains (after the one in Peru near Cusco) nearby.
There were more interesting rock formations on the way back to Uyuni at Rocky Valley, plus a couple of large native rabbits.
Despite it being one of the driest place on the planet there was more wildlife to be found in places, including these vicuña and alpaca.
To end with Volcano Licancabur reflected in Laguna Verde, a suitably colourful and epic way to end a few highlights of this quite incredible place.
Gosh Jonty, your best set of photos yet and that’s saying something! Amazing!!