Potosi Day Trips

Salar de Uyuni

Covering an area of 4,680 square miles (12,121 sq km), the Salar is the world's largest salt desert set at an elevation of 11,970ft (3,650m) and filled with an estimated 10 billion tons of salt. With picks and shovels the local people harvest the salt from the lake that once covered most of southwestern Bolivia. This region is one of the most spectacular natural attractions in Bolivia, a photographer's delight. It is a surreal landscape combining salt pans, wind-eroded rock formations, and wandering llamas in a completely unspoilt region. In the middle is Isla de Pescadores, a landmass appearing as a mountain out of the white nothingness, covered in towering stands of cactus. Laguna Colorada and Laguna Verde are other isolated marvels. One a fiery-red and the other a deep blue-green, these lakes are inhabited by flamingos and surrounded by extinct volcanoes. Nearby Sol de Mañana reeks with the smell of sulphurous gases from the geysers, fumaroles and bubbling mud pools. The village of Uyuni, to the south east of the Salar, is the best base from which to explore the area and tours can be arranged from here.

Transport: Uyuni is 6-7 hours by bus from Potosi; Opening time: Tours usually leave at 10.30am; Admission: Tours are between US$60-100

Tupiza

This little mining town in the Potosi department may not be an attraction in itself, but it serves as a popular base for tours to nearby San Vicente, the major draw card of this region. Two of the world's most famous outlaws (who many don't know were real people), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, fled the United States in 1901 to escape pursuit from the Pinkerton Detective Agency (which later became the FBI). Lured by the Bolivia's silver wealth, they headed for South America. The outlaws are rumoured to have been gunned down by the Bolivian army in San Vicente over a century ago, just days after robbing the payroll of a Bolivian mine.

Organised tours from Tupiza lead tourists along the 'death trail' of Butch and Sundance, giving visitors the unique opportunity to follow the outlaws' last days all the way to their supposed final resting place, where the billboard reads, 'Welcome to San Vicente: Here lie the remains of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'. Although many attempts to exhume the unmarked graves have been made over the years, no remains with DNA matching the outlaws' living relatives have yet been discovered.