Summary - The worst thing about gong on the 3 day/2 night tour of the salt flats was the toilets. Why is that you ask? It’s because they have you trapped on a salt flat!!! And what do they do when they have you trapped on a salt flat?! They charge you to use the toilet and give you (boys and girls) about 3 squares of a paper towel to wipe. This specific review is for the toilet at the very “first salt hotel in a world,” which charged 5 Bolivianos to accept a person’s waste.
Ambiance - Not fantastic. You know that when you would rather be in a port-a-potty, it’s not a good situation. It’s also a co-ed bathroom so hearing, but not knowing who is beside you, can be a bit unsettling.
The view while standing up and looking straight out. The wall is salt bricks and the ceiling is cheap plastic.
Cleanliness - Not particularly. You can tell that even though it costs money to visit this lavatory, the funds don’t go towards the upkeep. You can also tell that visitors who have traveled all this way have been forewarned there will not be any bathrooms for a while, making this one crucial and popular. The actual toilet itself is what was most alarming. It’s essentially a port-a-potty, but with an actual toilet - meaning that there is no flushing mechanism or water in the bowl. So if you are going number two, you better hope it hits the target.
View - The view is a door, but not a nice solid door. It’s one of those doors that when standing up, you are convinced that everyone who passes will be able to see you. However, it is made of panels that are angled in a way that comforted me once I lowered myself. When standing up, the brick/salt dividers only came up to my neck. If you enter a stall at the same time as the person next to you and they measure over 5’8,” you are sure to make awkward eye contact before descending upon the throne.
Unreliable lock and you can see the start of the panels above.
Toilet Paper Situation - Non-existent in the actual stall itself. Instead, you receive the toilet paper when you pay to use the toilet, and you better hope it’s not messy because you get like 4 squares.
Privacy/Safety - I don’t care how angled the panels on the door, I don’t trust them and if someone really wanted to check out how/what I was doing then they could. I also didn’t enjoy how low the dividers were. I am a friendly person who enjoys exchanging pleasantries but not right before “tip-off.”
View over all the other stalls.
Overall - Let’s just say by this point, we were getting a bit tired of toilets in Peru and Bolivia. I want to go “to work” in privacy and I speak for both of us when I say we wanted to throw our damn toilet paper in the damn bowl and not in a trash can or in Caitlin’s case: when outdoors, pour water over it and rub a rock on it to disintegrate it (this was their actual instructions).
