🇧🇴 Bolivia · Altiplano and the Andes
The Árbol de Piedra is one of those images that sum up the strangeness of the Bolivian altiplano: a lone rock, sculpted by the wind until it looks like a twisted tree, rising in the middle of an immense, empty desert. It stands in the Siloli desert, one of the most arid on the planet, at over 4,500 meters, and it is one of the most photographed stops on the famous Salar de Uyuni tour.
Its shape —narrow at the base and wider at the top, like a thin trunk holding up a stone crown— is the work of wind erosion: over thousands of years, sand-laden wind wore away the volcanic rock unevenly, carving out this whimsical figure. Around it, other oddly shaped rocks complete an almost surreal landscape, where the sense of solitude and vastness is total.
This guide covers the practical side of visiting the Árbol de Piedra: how you see it as part of the salt flat tour from Uyuni or Tupiza, what to keep in mind given the altitude, the cold and the wind of the Siloli desert, and how to enjoy this brief but memorable stop without damaging a formation this fragile and singular. It is a symbol of the patient power of wind over stone.
The Árbol de Piedra stands in the Siloli desert, in the Sud Lípez region, crossed since pre-Hispanic times by camelid-herding peoples and llama caravans that travelled the altiplano toward the Atacama desert and the Pacific coast. The name, 'Árbol de Piedra' (stone tree), is descriptive: a rock whose shape recalls a tree. Its origin is geological: it is a volcanic rock (tuff or ignimbrite) shaped by wind erosion, the wearing away caused by sand-laden wind, which over millennia carved a base narrower than the top. The Siloli desert, where it rises, is considered an extension of the Atacama desert and one of the most arid in the world. The Árbol de Piedra became part of the tourist route through the Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa, created by decree in 1973 and named after the Bolivian hero Eduardo Avaroa, who fell in the War of the Pacific. Today it is one of the most photographed icons of the Salar de Uyuni circuit. The full history of the region and its geology is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The department of silver and of the salt flats: home of the Cerro Rico that financed the Spanish Empire and of the Casa de la Moneda, of the Salar de Uyuni —the largest salt desert in the world and one of the great lithium reserves— and of the colored lagoons of the Eduardo Avaroa Reserve, on the highest and most desolate altiplano in the country, cradle of the hero Eduardo Avaroa.
Read the history of Potosí →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
In one of the most arid places on the planet, where not a single tree grows for hundreds of kilometers around, there stands a tree of stone. The paradox is not a play on words: in the Siloli desert, Sud Lípez province of the Potosí department, at over 4,500 meters, a lone rock between 5 and 7 meters tall reproduces with astonishing fidelity the outline of a twisted tree, with a narrow 'trunk' holding up a wider 'crown'. No sculptor carved it: it was the wind, grain of sand by grain of sand, over thousands of years.
Unlike the colored lagoons or the geysers on the circuit, the Árbol de Piedra does not stand out for its chemistry or its water, but for its shape: it is a sculpture carved by nature, a geological whim that has become one of the visual icons of the southern Bolivian altiplano and a compulsory stop on the Salar de Uyuni tour.
The rock is not isolated: scattered around it are other strangely shaped formations, also modeled by the wind, which together make up a small 'garden of stones' in the middle of the immensity of the desert. But it is the Árbol de Piedra, with its precarious and instantly recognizable shape, that has become the star.
The Árbol de Piedra is a textbook example of wind erosion, that is, of rock being worn away by the action of the wind. In the Siloli desert, one of the most arid on the planet, the wind blows hard almost constantly and carries sand particles that act as a natural abrasive: striking the rock over and over, they polish and wear it down across thousands of years.
The peculiar shape of the Árbol de Piedra —narrow at the base and wider at the top— is explained by the height at which the sand travels. The wind carries sand grains mostly close to the ground, so the abrasion is most intense on the lower part of the rock. The base therefore erodes faster than the upper part, producing that figure that is narrow below and bulky above, like a trunk holding up a crown.
The rock itself is volcanic in origin (it is usually described as tuff or ignimbrite, rock formed from compacted ash and volcanic material), a relatively soft and porous material that lends itself to being sculpted by the wind. The result is one of the many whimsical shapes wind erosion has carved in this desert, and the most famous of them all.
The Árbol de Piedra is inseparable from its setting: the Siloli desert, considered an extension of the great Atacama desert and one of the most arid in the world. It spreads across southwestern Bolivia, at high altitude, in a landscape of sand flats, rock formations, dunes and ochre plains, with volcanoes cut out against the horizon and a feeling of almost absolute solitude and silence.
The extreme aridity of the Siloli comes down to its position: it lies in the lee of the mountains that block incoming moisture, in one of the least rainy areas on the planet. Add to that the altitude (which thins the air), the fiercely intense solar radiation by day and a persistent wind which, as we saw, is the great sculptor of the landscape. It is a hostile environment for life, but one of bare, overwhelming beauty.
Despite that aridity, the desert is not entirely empty: along its margins and in the nearby lagoons moves Andean wildlife adapted to extreme conditions, such as vicuñas and vizcachas, and flamingos gather on the salt lagoons. The Árbol de Piedra, in the middle of that immensity, works as a landmark and a source of wonder in the heart of the desert.
Although the Siloli desert may look uninhabited, the Sud Lípez region it belongs to has been travelled by Andean communities since pre-Hispanic times. Aymara- and Quechua-speaking peoples, and before them the Lípez lordships, built an economy on the southern altiplano around herding camelids (llamas and alpacas) and making use of wild vicuñas, in one of the harshest environments on the continent.
The region was also a crossroads. Llama caravans connected the altiplano with the oases of the Atacama desert and the Pacific coast, trading highland produce for goods from the valleys and the coast. In a landscape this extreme, recognizable formations such as singular rocks could serve as reference points or landmarks on the caravan routes, though the Árbol de Piedra owes its present fame above all to tourism.
That ancestral knowledge of the territory is the foundation the area's tourism rests on today: many of the guides and drivers who cross the Siloli desert with travelers descend from those herding and caravan communities of the southern altiplano, heirs to generations who learned to move through these high-altitude deserts.
The Árbol de Piedra and the Siloli desert fell within the area of influence of the Reserva Nacional de Fauna Andina Eduardo Avaroa, created by decree in 1973, which covers around 714,000 hectares of the southern Bolivian altiplano. The reserve was conceived to conserve Andean wildlife —especially flamingos and vicuñas— and the whole set of high-altitude ecosystems and landscapes of the region.
The reserve is named after Eduardo Avaroa (or Abaroa), the Bolivian hero who fell at the battle of Topáter in 1879, during the War of the Pacific, the conflict in which Bolivia lost its sovereign access to the sea. The reserve's closeness to the Chilean border gives that tribute a particular resonance.
Management is in the hands of SERNAP (Bolivia's National Protected Areas Service), together with local communities. Protection aims to preserve both the wildlife and the desert's singular geological formations, such as the Árbol de Piedra itself, which because of its fragility needs to be shielded from the pressure of tourism (for instance, by keeping visitors from climbing the rock).
Over the past few decades, the Árbol de Piedra has become one of the most recognizable visual icons of the Salar de Uyuni tourist circuit. Thousands of travelers visit it every year as a photo stop on the four-wheel-drive tour that takes in the salt flat, the colored lagoons, the geysers and the deserts of the southern altiplano. Its curious shape and its solitude in the middle of the immense Siloli desert have made it one of the most shared images in the country.
That popularity, however, raises a conservation challenge. The Árbol de Piedra is a fragile formation: it is made of relatively soft volcanic rock and the very erosion process that created it could, in time, weaken it. On top of that comes the pressure of tourism: climbing the rock or touching it repeatedly speeds up its deterioration. That is why the advice is to admire and photograph it without climbing it, so it stays standing for the generations to come.
The Árbol de Piedra sums up the appeal of the southern altiplano well: landscapes of a strange and powerful beauty, sculpted by natural forces over millennia, in one of the most extreme environments on the planet. For the traveler, the rule is simple: look at it with respect, leave no trace and take away only the wonder and the photographs of one of the most singular corners of Bolivia.