Salta - Uyuni

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We trudged to the bus station and jumped on our midnight bus to the border, arriving there after a fitful 7 hours sleep, ready to cross into Bolivia. We had to walk the mile or so to the border crossing, where there were no problems at all, and entered Bolivia. During our walk down the one road of the border town to the bus station we knew we were in Bolivia, the huge bags of coca leaves being peddled the major give away! Our first Bolivian bus was quite a shock to the system after the fantastic transport in Argentina, an old bus bumping over pot holes on a dirt road for three hours to the small town of Tupiza, although the scenery was beautiful the whole way, skirting the sides of mountains, along the top of huge canyons and through tiny tunnels in the great red cliffs. Despite the scenery, and the ride comfort, we all still managed at least a bit of a nap, Dani doing impressively well! A couple of miles out of the town the bus suddenly came to a stop, with huge piles of rocks across the road, we figured a landslide, and so everyone got out and started the walk with there bags, us three glad that we had rucksacks and not the bundles of children, food, clothes etc. wrapped in sheets tied to the backs of the local women. Unsure of the distance into the centre we just kept on walking, following everyone over a tiny, rickety old footbridge spanning the 300m over the river, although fears were reduced due to the lack of any water. Eventually we arrived and soon found a hostel, even more shattered after our walk we rested for a while before attempting to venture out, it still being quite early in the day.

That night we met some Canadian girls in our hostel and ventured out for dinner withthem and a load of other travellers before celebrating our entry in to a new country witha few glasses of (very cheap) wine! The following day we had arranged to go on a horse back tour of some of the surrounding area along with the two Canadians. The landscape of red, green, grey and cream mountains didn't get tiring, rocks eroded in all sorts of bizarre shapes and huge cacti dotting the ground. After 3 hours (some tours could go up to 7 hours) we were all very happy to be getting off the horses, and looking at some of them I'm sure that they were glad we were getting off too! For lunch we searched for a place still serving a set meal, always the cheapest option for a lot of good food (three or four courses including entre, soup, main and pudding all for no more than $2), although couldn't find one, instead heading for a little cafe/bar in which we ended up sat next to a table with a mummified human skull on it that the owner was preparing for his, rather creepy, museum.

The next day we headed out on our 4 day tour around the southwest of Bolivia, culminating in the salt flats of Uyuni, the worlds biggest. We would spend the four days travelling around the dirt roads in a 4x4 with our guide/driver, cook and the two Canadian girls mentioned. On our first day we saw some spectacular scenery, rock formations and rivers where the locals panned for gold, eating lunch on a huge plain full of llamas. After lunch, which consisted partly of llama tamales (stuffed corn balls), we set off again, eventually ending in the village we would spend the night nestled between some snow capped Andean peaks, a days drive from anywhere! There were a few jeeps in our convoy, the isolation meant that it wasn't safe for one jeep to go alone in case of breakdowns, flat tires etc (both common occurances), and we soon ended up playing some local boys, no older than nine or ten, at football. The game was actually surprisingly close, due partly to their skill and partly because none of our group could function properly at 4500m! The second morning (we were up at 5am) lead us to a ruined village, once full of gold from a nearby mine, where legend has it that all the men went crazy due to their wealth and started slaughtering each other. Hoping around the ruins we also saw a few vizcachas, large rabbit sized mammals with long tails and an amazingly warm looking coat we think related to chinchillas. Not long after our first stop we passed a small hamlet where we witnessed a man gutting a llama and emptying its intestines, turning the stomachs of a few people in the group! We also saw more llamas, vicuñas and flamingoes on one of the lakes we stopped at that day, other lakes full of borax, salt and other minerals glistening white in the bright sun. Before lunch we stopped in some natural thermal springs where we all welcomed the 32 degree bath despite the air temperature being close to 0. Our two final stops of the day were a lake of strong sulphuric acid backed by a huge volcano and some geysers, surreal bubbling pools of mud and more toxic chemicals at 200 degrees. That night we slept in another very basic hostel in the middle of nowhere at nearly 5000m, suffering from the cold at night despite heavy llama wool blankets and sleeping bags! Our second to last day on the tour first lead us to a red lake full of flamengos, the edges steaming due to volcaninc activity and the red mountains behind reflecting on the surface, an amazing sight. Our drive through the Atacama and Siloli deserts was spectacular, stopping at various impressive rock formations and lakes, all the while dropping to a more managable altitude for our last nights stay, in a hotel built from salt bricks, including beds, tables and chairs. The fourth and final day took us onto the 12000km2 salt flat for sunrise, the endless white quite surreal in the orange, pink and purple early morning glow. We visited an island on the salt full of 1200 year old cacti for breakfast before setting off once again across the endless white, stopping at the 'eyes of the salt', holes where the water beneath has broken the surface and perfectly cuboid crystals of salt the size of my palm were found.

After the salt flat our tour was finished and we settled in to a hostel in Uyuni, a very quite town, its sole purpose being a gate way to the salt flats, to catch up on some sleep and rest before heading to the worlds highest city, Potosí, a gruelling 6 hour bus ride away on yet more dirt roads.

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