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Really not my day! It all started harmlessly enough wandering the fascinating witches markets admiring the dried llama foetuses. At noon, Gonzalo picked us up and walked us to his favourite steakhouse near the bus station where we are going to catch the bus to Oruro to get the train to Uyuni. Here is where it started to go horribly wrong, as on the way down the steep downhill steps, I rolled my ankle - badly. In fact as I rolled it I surged left and pushed an old local lady into a wall. I instantly felt it swelling in my shoe. I toughed it out and walked to lunch, a very nice steak with sausages - one of them a blood sausage! Once I got up, I could hardly walk and limped the 2 blocks to the bus station.

The bus trip I spent with my shoe off and foot elevated across Sarah’s knee. It was painful but I was getting used to it. The bus seemed to take forever to get out of La Paz, stopping a billion times to let people on and off. We passed through some unbelievably desolate towns on the way to Oruro - and none more than Oruro itself, which we finally got to at 6:30pm, half an hour late. Gonzalo wasn’t happy, he was off the bus in a flash with our bags in a taxi and yelled at the taxi driver who sped down back streets to get us to the train station so we didn’t miss our 7pm train. We just made it and had to throw our bags on the bag carriage ourselves. Of course, the one time I had to run for something was when I had a sprained ankle! Anyway, more to Gonzalo’s relief than ours, we were on the train safely and off to Uyuni.

Just 200kms from Oruro, it would take us a staggering 7 and a half hours to reach our destination - the train was rickety and old and there were several parts where we had to stop and wait for the other trains to pass, presumably as it went to just a single track for much of the way! There was no food or drinks to be purchased on the train but we were all given a cup of tea and a dodgy cold hamburger by the non English speaking staff. For our entertainment they played the movie City of Angels which was in English with Spanish subtitles. I watched it against my will though boredom. About 2 hours into the trip, I suddenly started to feel ill in the stomach and burping a lot. At first I thought it was the motion of the train, but then I went to the bathroom...hmm still not feeling any better. For most of the rest of the trip I was in the bathroom spewing from both ends, probably about 8 times in total. Luckily most of the carriage was sleeping through this and didn’t notice me monopolising the one toilet. The trip was agonisingly slow as I looked at my watch every ten minutes praying that an hour had slipped past. There was complete blackness most of the way and every emerging light I was hoping was Uyuni only to be disappointed.

With the train surging along the creaky tracks at 30km per hour, we came to a sudden stop at 2am for what appeared to be no reason. I was ready to kill someone but finally at 2:30am we arrived and I was suddenly feeling a little better but exhausted. We met our guide Wilbur who took us to the hotel and explained we would have as late a start as we needed tomorrow and that he would be next door if we needed him. With that I hit the bed and tried in vain to get some sleep.

At 6am after I continued to lose my breath vomiting, Sarah decided she had enough and got up to get Wilbur to get me to a doctor. Luckily, just one block away was a 24 hour clinic / hospital. So the three of us walked up the street, or limped in my case although my ankle pain had somewhat faded in the pain stakes that the rest of my body was going through. The street was in complete disrepair so I was lucky not to re-sprain my ankle and the sun was alarmingly hot for 6am. We got to the clinic and the nurse cannot speak English. Wilbur translated that there is no doctor until 8am. In the meantime, she took my blood pressure and temperature. As the nurse rolled up my sleeve, she jumped back and started speaking in a panicked manner in Spanish. Looking at my arm, I realised that I was peeling very badly from the sunburn on the Inca trail. Wilbur asked me what was wrong with my arm. He and the nurse then both laughed as he explained to her that it was just sunburn. Luckily I can’t understand what else they are saying about me in Spanish.

Then the doctor walks in, a young guy with slicked hair, a black leather jacket and jeans - great, I was being treated by Bolivia’s Fonzie! No surprise that he doesn’t speak English. The doctor presses very hard on my stomach which hurts a lot and we have to translate through Wilbur for him to know that. Obviously the doctor does not understand the universal language of face pulling when you are in pain. He tells me through Wilbur that he wants to give me three injections, take blood and keep me in the hospital for three days. No way. I get Wilbur to ask him for pills and tell him I have to keep moving. We go back and forth several times and even when I think he understands he keeps talking about needles. Wilbur keeps saying I have ‘bilus’ and we say we don’t understand and Wilbur frustratingly says he can’t translate as his English is not that good! Eventually the doctor reluctantly agrees to give me a prescription but he also writes a long note in Spanish for me to give to a doctor in Chile in 3 days if I am no better. I oblige, I guess even in Bolivian villages doctors need to cover their ass. I get my drugs and are surprised at how cheap they are (less than $30), but I guess cheap drugs are par for the course in Bolivia. I limp back down the street and take my drugs and sip on water. At 10am we get going. I can’t eat anything, not that I would have been enticed anyway but the repulsive breakfast room at our Uyuni dump of a hotel.

Our tour starts at the eerie train cemetery just off the salt flat where old British trains from 100 years ago rust away. We climb them and play in them but my interest doesn’t last long due to my lack of energy. At least I have stopped vomiting at this point. From there we proceed to the stunning salt flat and stop at the edge to marvel at the mining and refining process which is ridiculously primitive. The manual labour required to make salt is incredible and we do a short tour of the tin shed where the manufacturing happened. We feel obliged to make a purchase of a salt souvenir on the way out, opting for a candleholder rather than the suspicious looking bag of salt.

We drive for half an hour or so to the salt hotel. As we are driving I fall asleep but when I wake up 20 minutes later it feels like we haven’t moved as the scenery is identical. At the hotel my urges for the toilet give way and I have to use the disgusting toilet at the hotel. Amazingly, people are staying there which while it is structurally ok, the slat hotel is not fit for guests.

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