Why do people live here???

---

So we just finished a 3 day tour throughout the southern part of Bolivia in a place called Uyuni. We had a good group again this time. Two girls from London, one guy from Toronto and another from Wisconsin. We all managed to fit into a Toyota Land Cruiser which is the only type of truck we saw for the whole 3 days. Our guide and his wife said maybe 4 words to us the whole time which had an affect on the tip or lack of a tip.

The first day was our day on the salt flats which are the biggest in the world! They are so flat that we were able to take the crazy pics below. The average life span in the area is only 45 yrs. bc of the salt that they breath in all the time. That night we slept in a house made of salt too! Pretty much anything and everything is made of salt. They make blocks out of it and use them as bricks. The only thing that wasnt salt was the roof. Tables, chairs, ashtrays all salt!

The second day we drove into an area where there are different color lagoons, blue, green and red. They are all those colors bc of the microbes that are in the water. They strangely bring flamingos to the area too. After driving all day we arrived to our home sweet home. More like freezing cold home. No heat and no hot water. Up until that night our food was pretty good. We were all excited for dinner until we took the lid off the pot. A mix of hot dog, fries, gravy, onions and HAIR!!! We all had about 2 bites and gave up. Luckily there was another group next to us that gave us there leftover pasta. Thanks German guy.

Our last day we visited hot springs but we decided that since it was about 40 degrees out it would be more fun to watch everyone else hop around trying to get redressed in the freezing cold. The two guys werent heading back to Uyuni with us so we dropped them off at the Chilean border. After that we had a nice long 8 hr ride back to Uyuni to catch our bus. We stopped in some towns with maybe 8 people in total living there. Why they live there I have no clue. The only thing around is dust and rocks, no agriculture, no water, no nothing.

Anyway, we made it back to Uyuni finally and went to give our guides there tips, and no thank you or even a smile. So basically our guides sucked big time but at least we had a good group to hang out with...

---