The biggest salt field in the world. Notice the volcano in the back on one photo is about 100 km far away. Amazing wide views.

Uyuni is a small town in the west of Bolivia, basically in the middle of nowhere. It used to be the central point for trains in Bolivia. The town knew many immigrants from Europe and America who where working in maintainance of the trains and the system; most of the locomotives came from countries like England, Germany and later the US. In the train cemetary there are still some old trains lying around ( photos in a later update ).

In the nineties the Bolivian government decided – cough – was forced to privatise the train system which almost meant an overnight end to the town of Uyuni. Many people moved away to find work in other places. Luckily the town survived only because tourism picked up for the nearby salar. Nowadays the town fully lives on tourism.

Without tourism the town would be another ghosttown hit by the here devastating nightmare of neoliberalism.

Villazon is a border town on the Bolivian side of the border. Crossing the border was remarkably easy. Usually there is a rudimentary bag check or guards try to give the impression checking anything. Not from Argentina to Bolivia; to stamp-stamp done. Which took quite a long time because of the line. Anyway Villazon is nothing important, just a small town.

Hitchhiking from Purmamarca to Villazon was hard and tedious. Full sun, no shade and almost no traffic heading up north. And to my surprise no trucks either, they all take the turn at Purmamarca to head in the direction of Chile instead… After 60 km in 6 hours with including standing for two hours at the location below we gave up and took a bus. With only costed some 30 pesos, pretty cheap for Argentina.

Purmamarca in the province of Jujuy is the location of the mountain of the 7 colors. Quite obvious how it got the name. It?s full of young backpackers from Argentina, but also a pretty nice town. It doesn?t feel like Argentina though much since it?s part of the Andes area and the people look accordingly.

Another time! The trip from Cafayate to Salta is enchanting. Some photos with as extra the dique Cabral that I didn?t visit the last time. Also a nice, but very touristy place. Hithhiking was easy since we went with the same guy who picked us up in Tafi del Valle.