Uyuni Salt Flats

Greetings from Bolivia, home of the world's largest salt flats, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and the HIGHEST city and lake IN THE WORLD. That's three IN THE WORLDS in one country. Pretty impressive, right?

So after Valparaiso and Vina del Mar I took a 24 hour bus trip of ALMIGHTY BOREDOM up the Pacific coast. I slept a lot, in close quarters with a young man I didn't know, waking up in the morning looking super attractive to realise we'd both been curled up in the foetal position, his face about ten centimetres from my own. Lack of personal space. Then I watched the sea for a bit and that was pretty, then the bus boy chatted to me for a long time and we began driving through the desert, which is exciting to begin with but then gets very, very dull. Highlight of the trip was the hotdog I had in Antofagasta with ketchup, mayo, mustard AND guacamole.

San Pedro de Atacama, my destination is a very cool oasis town, totally geared towards backpackers. I went sandboarding and to the Valle de la Luna (see facebook for pics) and then splurged on a really nice meal in a posh tourist restaurant. Chile is expensive.

Then I began my 3 day Tour of Wonder.

Now, this tour was particularly satisfying because I paid about 89GBS for an all inclusive tour that included EVERYTHING you could possibly want from the Uyuni salt flats and surrounding areas, where other tour operators charged 30GBS for each sight - and there were about 9 biggies to see.

So on the first day, me and my new crew - 4 Frenchies, 4 Brits and 2 Dutchies - headed off to Laguna Blanca, very pretty, and Laguna Verde, which is supposed to be a photoshop green. As we approached, I said to our driver, José 'It's not very green' and he thought, 'spoilt, tourist brat, I bring her into the middle of this amazing scenery and she complains about colours not being enhanced enough', but he said: 'just wait.' And how cool is this - when the wind blows across the lake, it stirs up a load of minerals that then turn the water this incredible turquoise blue colour, and you see it spread across the lake with the wind. Very exciting.

Then we went to hot baths and geysers (but not the ones that go puff, just bubbling smelly mud ones) and to Laguna Colorada, a huge pink lake filled with flamingos and algae that makes everything pink. Then we went to our refugio for tea, chats, dinner and a game of Pass the Pigs, which is an awesome game, if anyone knows it.

I haven't mentioned though, that Bolivia is a pretty high country and we had ascended from about 2500m to 5000m in a day so I was feeling a little fragile and the French lady had to spend most of the day in bed being sick. But the best part of altitude sickness (other than running up a small hill for spare camera batteries and having to lean on the door of the 4x4 to stop from passing out) is the surreal nights' sleep you have. I'm pretty sure I didn't sleep much, and I had the impression that a man kept standing in the doorway of our room to check on us. Fabian, one of the Frenchies, also must have had a crazy dream because he just started screaming in the middle of the night, which Brad and Jen, who couldn't sleep found really hilarious, but mixed in with my spaced out dreams, I found a bit disconcerting.

On day two we saw lots more lagunas and a rock-tree-tree-rock, and I climbed over lots of rocks and felt like a desert explorer and kingoftheworld. Then... we had lunch and... everything is blurring into one. A volcano and lots of volcanic rock and Backstreet Boys and lollies and then a small salt flat in preparation for THE BIGGEST SALT FLAT IN THE WORLD. Ah wait, I forgot to mention that I have perfected the 'how to make your tour group look like idiots' game. You say 'hey, hey you guys, who can do the best impression of a flamingo?' and then everyone stands in a line experimenting and you take a photo, and chuckle to yourself as grown men wobble around on one leg with their heads stuck out, or bent down to scoop up algae... hehe...

Our penultimate stop was the tiny village of San Juan where we were lucky enough to witness school band practice - made my day - and the drivers drank their 'non alcoholic' beers. Sure guys. When we got to our lodgings in San Martín, Mark, other Brit, had the grand idea of climbing up to a viewing point. So we did. Still at about 4000m above sea level here. We nearly died, so we decided to drink wine to see what would happen, but it didn't do much. The moon that night was so bright through my window that I couldn't sleep again.

On day three we left at 5am to catch the sunrise on the Uyuni Salt Flats (largest in the world) and it was really beautiful. Quote of the morning was Brad's sudden: 'This is crazy. It's 5:05 in the morning. I got up at 4:30. HE (Fabian) got up at 3:30!' Fabian had forgotten to change his watch to Bolivian time. The sunrise was beautiful. Now, just to explain for those who are confused, these salt flats, as with most salt flats, were formed when a huge prehistoric sea that covered most of south Bolivia, north Argentina and Chile dried up, leaving salt deposits that are, in some places, a metre deep. It is only now I am beginning to care about physical geography. Mr Barton would be proud. We then continued on to an island in the middle of the salt flats, where all the rocks are coral fossils because it was once underwater. We had breakfast here, took some wacky perspective photos and I split three nails playing frisbee. You'd think that after two days of voluntarily not washing and wearing the same clothes this wouldn't bother me, but it did. Poor nails.

We finished the day somewhat wearily seeing the salt museum/hotel, the salt mines and a small village where they had salt factories (small and medieval). We then arrived in Uyuni, where we visited THE TRAIN CEMETARY. Have you ever heard of anything cooler? Loads of 1880s steam trains, rusted and empty and lying in heaps all over the place and you're allowed to run all over them and climb on the sides like Indiana Jones singing the theme tune to yourself whilst the rest of your tour group goes 'what's the big deal about rusty old trains?' They were not quite as enamoured as I was.

So that brings us up to today. Lunch was had in José's house, where he was greeted by his three year old son, Kevin who cried 'Daddy I've missed you so much!' What a cutie. I almost died.

Unfortunately, Uyuni is not the world's most modern city, so you may have to wait a while before I'm able to upload some photos of green lakes and me standing on top of a jeep. Off to Sucre this evening for more fun and adventures (probably just two days worth of chilling in the colonial centre). Much love x