Salar de Uyuni

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Our Uyuni Tour... Three days of being driven around in a Jeep across salt flats, deserts, different coloured lagoons, geysers etc... It was amazingly beautiful but not the smoothest of rides...
Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest Salt Flat (10,582 km²), a dried up salt lake with islands.
We booked the tour in La Paz despite knowing that it would probably be cheaper to book locally in Uyuni. We did this because the agency we spoke to promised that we'd get to stay in a salt hotel. A hotel made entirely of salt. Even the beds! We didn't mind paying a bit extra, but sadly we were ripped off. (see videos for further explanation)
We took a night bus from La Paz, and the road was probably the bumpiest so far on our entire journey...
We arrived in the morning to find out we'd be going with a company called Sandra Tours and here is a WARNING: If you are going to Uyuni, DO NOT EVER GO WITH SANDRA TOURS!
Our driver/guide/cook Reinaldo was not the friendliest of people and didn't say much at all during the whole 3 days.
When Kiki asked him about the hotel, he said he had not been told that we had been promised the Salt Hotel and that it would be full by now and that we'd have to take any complaints with the agency in La Paz. Unfortunately we can't remember the name of that agency and Sandra took our vouchers back in Uyuni... If we had the name, we would name and shame them too along with Sandra Tours.
Anyway, it was amazing to see the huge salar! Salt everywhere you looked!!! And the rest of the desert landscape was like nothing we had seen before! Well, the pictures will have to speak for themselves.
Then there was the health and safety aspect... Of course we had no seat belts and there were no proper roads anywhere. We were sitting at the back which was the bumpiest, and at one point we even flew up and hit our heads in the ceiling. Monia was horrified and realized how easily she could have hurt her spine and how important it is to use seat belts!!! After returning to civilization we actually read on the internet that there are lots of car accidents on these tours and that people have actually died due to reckless drivers!!
The salt flat is at an altitude of 3,650 meters so it was pretty cold (and of course nobody asked if we were acclimatised properly to the altitude) , especially at Laguna Colorada (4300m) where we spent our last night, it was F***ING FREEZING!!! We had been told that we could rent sleeping bags, and before we left Uyuni, Sandra told us that they were packed on the bus, but of course she lied, as she does. There were no sleeping bags for Kiki and Monia, but luckily we found a lady at the hostel who reluctantly rented some to us.
We ended our tour at the Chilean border with Dominique, a guy in our group from Brazil, where we of course had some further complications... First we missed the bus that was supposed to take us to Chile and had to sit at the border for ages, waiting. Then when a bus finally arrived we were told that two of the bus tickets that Sandra had given us were no good as the dates had been scribbled on. The driver said they were "falsificados". He said we had to pay for them again and then report it in the office at San Pedro de Atacama if we wanted to claim our money back. We had no choice but to pay....
To be continued....

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Photos

Salar de Uyuni
Monia checking to see if it really is salt.

Salar de Uyuni
Kiki double checking...

Salar de Uyuni
Triple check...