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So I left some place oh yeah - La Paz and I was on the way to Uyunni to see the salt flats. No hang on I went to Sucre first - then I went to the Uyunni. It’s getting harder and harder to remember the places especially the one where you only break the journey. Sucre wasn't much shakes but then I didn't give it much of a chance. ON the recommendation of Marta and Philipe from Poland I stayed in a lovely B&B and tried out the local market for the lunch and didn’t get sick and on the second night I met two Ozzies I'd met in La Paz who told me how they nearly got abandoned by their 4x4 driver in the middle of the desert when he went on a bender adding an extra night to their stay on the freezing plains 😉 On the never ending bus journey to Uyunni (fantastic scenery and included the longest road building project I have seen here) we drove on mud roads that were just being rolled out and in some cases on the soft mud before it was rolled on. We picked up another bus load of tourists
and locals whose bus had broke down so the bus was jointed with back packs and sundry sacks of meat. Most of the locals didn’t seem to be aware of the bell to stop the bus so the tourists pressed it for them but Claire got a little trigger happy and stopped the bus a mile away for this small man who was carrying a big load. Claire turned out to be this interesting Ozzie lass who was funding her trip by making jewelry and clothes and doing street performances and turned out to be one of the first people I met who made up the eventual crew of seven nutters who crossed the salar together. When we got into Uyunni we (Christain from Chile had joined us at this stage) had a go at finding the cheapest hostel in the town and this turned out to be a rough abode for the princely sum of twenty boliviano. Needless to say I spent the night in my sleeping bag under the covers with all my clothes on as there was no heating and newspaper stuck in the walls. Up bright and early the next day to get on a tour
and luckily we farted around so long that our preferred trip got fully booked and we ended up with the biggest crowd of messers that I have hung out with bar Tom and Hannah. The motley crew included Gemma (Oz), Mark (skid mark- uk) Adam (it melted in my hand-uk) Itai (don't touch me in the morning! Israel) Lauren (what’s the difference between the red bags and the black bags?) and Claire who I’m sure had her own silly catch phrase / silly moment but I can’t remember it at the mo. ´There turned out to be more room in another jeep but no one fancied moving as the idea that this might be the place to be was already forming. The back seat was cramped so seat wars began fairly soon.
Adam took the lead in gassing the jeep a la Dan in Nick Pfeiffers cabin on the boat in the Aran Islands but our driver Walter was made of sterner stuff and held the wheel while he struggled for air. The rest of us hung out the windows. The first stop was at the train graveyard ' most of these wrecks were made in the UK and this
was where the groups mode of taking more photos of each other than the place they were actually visiting kicked off. Next stop was at the salt plains at Salar de Uyunni. Some 40,000 years ago, the area was part of Lake Minchin, a giant prehistoric lake. When the lake dried, it left behind two modern lakes, Poopó Lake and Uru Uru Lake, and two major salt deserts, Salar de Coipasa and the larger Uyuni. Uyuni is roughly 25 times the size of the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. We first went to the place where they bag the salt: This was our first chance to take the silly photos and I was useless at it. It’s a lot harder than it looks! On then to Islands in the middle of the salt lake which have cacti that are like very old, like maybe a thousand if memory serves me right. Then onto our salt hotel for the night where the beds are made from salt as are the walls as are...well practically everything but the toilet bowls. Being a bit tired I left a few of the kids clearing all the wine from the shelves and was
very happy not to be as green as the lads were the next day. There were several stops for trips behind rocks and Adam didn´t utter a word til late in the evening. I tried a bit of free climbing on smal rocks which gave me the willies at time but I made it to the top and more importantly back to the bottom without killing myself. The following night we stayed in a freezing hostel where Lauren tried to steal a replacement pillow for hers but got caught in the act. The plan to get an early night’s sleep was ruined for most as we managed to procure some bottles of wine and then fell into our room as quiet as bombs. Up early in the dark the next day in temperatures about -10 to see some boiling springs and then for a dip in thermal baths - which were lovely. My shorts first froze to the window sill where I left them and then there were icicles hanging off then when I went to retrieve them from the car mirror. At the border with Chile the group split and some of us headed into San Pedro de Atacama
where there was another search for a ropey hostel which was successful and I met by chance Sheryl from Essex via BA who I´d been in class with so the party was on and we found an underground party on the edge of town when the bars shut
All in all it was brilliant trip, with great people and amazing scenery, Next stop Arequipa with Lauren to start my trip to Cusco.
Other photos are here but I´m not sure you can see them but try
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