Salinas Salt Lagoon Private tour - Day Trip from Arequipa

Salinas salt lagoon is incredibly beautiful. I was there during the rainy season so it’s not white but instead a big mirror. Our guide Elli was super knowledgeable and could answer all our questions about the region and the lagoon itself. Since we were only two guests, the whole tour was super flexible and tailored to our wishes. I can highly recommend this tour - it’s worth every penny :-)

My partner and I did the salt lagoon visit with Arequipa Tour when it looked like we wouldn’t get to Uyuni because of the Bolivian riots. The personalised tour was pretty good and I enjoyed that it did not feel rushed in any way; we were able to stop en route whenever we wanted and got to spend a decent amount of time at the salinas. Unexpectedly, we also had the best avocado I have ever had in my life at lunchtime! The salinas themselves were very nice to look at and seen fairly expansive once you are in the middle of them. We were able to take some nice photos and enjoyed walking across them. However, make sure you go after a period of good weather as if not the salt can be a bit grey. Unfortunately, this was the case with us and our guide wouldn’t stop talking about how much better it had been the week before..! In relation to our guide: Elly was very enthusiastic and knowledgable so it was on the whole good to have her as our guide. However, my partner found it confusing that the tour was carried out in a kind of Spanglish (ie sentences variously in English and in Spanish, sometimes both in the same sentence). This may have had something to do with the fact that I speak both and perhaps Elly enjoyed speaking both too. Finally, as a minor point, we didn’t appreciate when we were having a casual conversation during our walk and Elly stated that she would never want to marry a European man because she doesn’t like Europeans. We are both European (which she knew) so that opinion should probably have been kept to herself. Overall, I would recommend this tour if you don’t have time to see any other salt flats while in South America. However, it is expensive (we paid $95 each for a private tour) and definitely doesn’t compare to Uyuni (which we got to see in the end)!

With Elly (the guide) and Esteban (the driver), we spent a perfect day seeing beautiful landscapes and animals (Lamas, guanacos, vigognas, alpagas, pink flamingos, ...). Thanks to both of them !