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Day 1

After surviving our overnight bus from La Paz, we arrived in the town of Uyuni at about 7am. The first half of the drive was fine, however the second half I wasn't quite sure we or the bus for that matter would make it. The road was filled with pot holes the whole last leg of the journey making it impossible to sleep as the bus was swaying from side to side. We headed off to find our tour company that was to take us on our three day tour of the Uyuni Salt flats and surround areas. All together there were 7 people including our driver in the Landcruiser 4WD. A big mix of people - 1 dutch, 1 french, 2 swiss & us! Our tour left around 10 o'clock, first stop the train yard. Here are the reminance of old steam trains that used to travel to and from the coast. After this we headed to the salt flats & on the way there we got a flat tyre, not a good sign, yet this was quickly fixed while we all went & checked out the local markets. The markets had all things made out of salt, from statues, boxes, & even chess sets made entirely from salt.

After getting picked up from the market we finally were on our way to the salt flats. We were told it would be wetter than usual as they had had some heavy rain, in some parts it was up to the chassis of the car. You wonder how long the cars last out here, being covered constantly in salt. Our driver took it easy through the water, yet we saw other cars fling through with salt covering their cars.

We got to our lunch stop, a salt hotel towards the middle of the lake. Here they used salt to make everything from the walls to the tables and chairs. Here our driver prepared our lunch and we tried to take some funny photo's. By funny photos - you will see what I mean. From here we where supposed to travel to Fish Island (Incahuasi Island), yet due to the water level around the island it would be unsafe to get there. So we headed off through the centre of the lake where there wasn't any water, this is because the centre is actually higher the the edges, so we were able to try and get some better shots.

That night we stayed at a Salt hotel where we slept on beds made out of salt (obviously had matresses though) & ate our meals off salt tables & chairs. They only had basic facilities and had to run a generator to run lights at night. Tonight we saw the after effects of what the sun & salt flats can do...Ainsley's face was a tomato with a lovely sunglasses mark - silly me put cream on too late - Ouch!

Day 2

The next day we left at around 7am heading south towards the Eduardo Avaroa Reserve. Skirting around the edges of the lake, at this stage there were a few 4x4's driving the same route. The car we were following broke through the crusty, dry surface and went through into the soft mud below. It took the drivers several hours to dig the car out. Although one of the three cars had a winch they couldn't get it to work.. it was seazsed most likely due to the salt. Anyway we got out of that mess. Interestingly around the edge of the lake there was all dead coral that we used to put under the tyres, who knows how old it is, and how it got 3700 meters above sea level?????

We made tracks to a lake for lunch where we saw a flock of flamingos hanging out in the water. Off again heading south, and after about an hour we arrive at the Tree Stone, a rock sticking up in the desert that the wind has erroded to make it look like a tree. After taking some photos we continued through Siloli Desert, now this place is crazy. It is like a martian landscape with red rocks, dried river beds and a lack of oxygen because you are over 4200m above sea level. That night we headed down to our camp at the Red lagoon (4200m) which had a variety of pink flamingos.

Day 3

Today we set off extremely early to see the sun rise through the plumes of gases spewing from the many geysers of Sol de Manana. Again the landscape around here was so insane, that it looked again like an alien landscape. There were loads of geysers, some you could even put your hands over & feel the hot air/sulphar spurting out.

After, we headed over to some natural hot springs for breakfast. Kai ended up going in for a dip in the 40 degree water with an outside temp of about 4. The thermal water was spewing up from the ground all over the place. They had simply built a pool to catch it, much like our ocean baths. Our last stop before heading back to Uyuni was at the Green and White Lagoons situated on the slopes of Licancabur Valcano.

After getting back and saying good bye, we headed off to our Hostel with the famous Minuteman pizza. This was recommended to us by numerous people, so after having our first shower in a couple of nights we headed down. We were lucky to get in as there was several tour groups staying, but they reserved us a seat, lucky. So we ordered our pizzas and they were right, this is definietly the best pizza in South America by far.

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