Salar de Uyuni!

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Hey everyone!!

Had a nightmare overnight bus journey from La Paz to Uyuni - being the economical travellers that we are we decided to get the local bus instead of the tourist bus which would have cost more than double as much.... BIG mistake... mainly because there was no toilet on the bus, the bus sounded and looked like it was about to fall apart and the bus driver seemed to be in a big hurry.... it honestly sounded like Formula 1 which is NOT what you want to hear when your sat in a 1000 year old bus! Hehe! :o) In the early hours of the morning we couldnt take it anymore so when the bus stop to change a tyre or something we jumped off the bus, ran across the desert and tried to hide behind the highest lump of sand! Hehe! After stopping a huge Bolivian woman got on (they are all really big... made even bigger by the fact they wear about 10 skirts and have huge mantas filled with everything on their backs) and squished herself into a squatting position in the aisle next to me, until she managed to wriggle herself into a seating position, sat on my feet i might add, at which point i realised that there was no sleep to be had on the stupid bus! My annoyance at the woman quickly turned into pity when the bus driver got on the bus and shouted at the woman to get off because there was no room for her and she was annoying the tourists (i guess i didnt look like a happy bunny!) .... it turns out throwing her off the bus wasnt as easy as it sounded because.... she was stuck!! ... completely and utterly stuck!! She honestly couldnt even lift herself up 1cm... how embarrasing! But with the help of a few big men (actually thats a lie... noone is big in Bolivia... i feel like a bit of a giant!!) we finally managed to pry her out of the aisle and onto a spare seat someone found! phew! :o) Things didnt get much better as we soon got on the bumpiest road in the world... im not even exaggerating... I couldnt even lean back against the seat because it was vibrating so much that it was making my back really red and itchy! Some people appeared to be asleep but i honestly dont undertand how!! Roads in Bolivia are not their strong point! :o(

We arrived in Uyuni at 7am, soooo tired, and we were greeted by lots of hungry saleswomen desperate to sell us their hotels or Salar de Uyuni tours... despite our best efforts one woman was just not to be gotten rid of so we gave in and went to her hotel! However, on the way we ended up deciding to do the 3 day tour that day instead of the next day as we were starting to run out of time and would have only spent the day hanging around anyway! We were supposed to be in a group with 3 people from Holland and an Austrian, however, at the last minute we ended up being loaded into someones car and driven to a train cementry (didnt even know they exhisted!) to join a group of 3 Australians and a UK+US couple! At the beginning we were a bit annoyed as the tour company we had been switched too has a really bad reputation and the others had all paid less than us but they were are all sooo lovely and so much fun that we soon got over it! :o)

That day we visitied the salt flats, the salt hotel (yup... theres actually a hotel made out of salt! hehe!), Pescado island (an island of huge cactuses) where we had lunch, and then drove to our hotel which was pretty much in the middle of the desert and cant really be described as a hotel, at least not in European-standards but never mind it was fun! That evening we bought wood from an old man to try and light a fire which didnt work at all because it was too windy... which explained the stupid grin on his face after we had paid him... i thought it was just because he had ripped us off (which he had!) but he probably also knew we would never be able to light a fire anyway! :o) Tea and biscuits was really lovely... dinner was ok but slightly ruined by the fact i stupidly looked behind the curtain seperating the dining room and the kitched, after hearing some weird noises, to see a woman with a big saw hacking at some poor animal and then hanging the bloody saw back up on the wall to be used for the next time.... yuk!! :o( That night turned out being a ridiculously late night with the Australians and the rum they had bought with them! Marieke cleverly went to bed but I think I was just too overly excited about being able to speak English for the first time in months! :o)

The next day we were lovingly awoken by our short, fat, annoying tour guide banging on our door shouting that breakfast was ready and that it was already 7am (he was lying... it was 6:10am!)! That day we drove across the desert, stopping at volcanos, the blue lagoon (where we saw lots of flamingos), another lagoon where we had lunch and saw even more flamingos, rock formations and then finally got to the Lagoon Colorado (colourful lagoon.... it was bright red - very cool!!) in the National Park where our "hotel" was! Our hotel room was just a massive room with lots of matresses, was absolutely freezing and was really dirty.... there was also no running water whatsoever which meant that Marieke and I had to wash our hair (because it weighed about 100kilos from all the dust!) in the sink using buckets of water from a big tank which you are supposed to use to flush the toilet! Yum! :o) Freezing doesnt even describe how cold the water was.... my head actually hurt from the coldness! Walter (our tourguide) made no effort with dinner that night, it was cold, we got nothing to drink.... which was made even harder by the fact the tour group next to us were being wined (literally!!) and dined by their tour guide and big flasks of hot tea afterwards! We managed to warm ourselves up a bit though with our rum so it was OK! :o) Going to bed that night though felt a bit surreal.... I dont think ive ever put on a hat, gloves and scarf to go to bed!! We even stole blankets from the extra beds and it was still freezing!! :o(

The next morning Walter was supposed to wake us up at 5am as we had so much to do on the last day... but he overslept and didnt wake us up until 6am! Told us we would have to have breakfast there instead of at the lagoon/hot water springs where we were supposed to have breakfast because we were running late! He put breakfast on the table, we sat down and as soon as our bums touched the seat he cleared everything away again and told us it was time to go!! We were NOT happy bunnies!! He also told us we werent allowed to go swimming in the hot water springs as there wasnt any time and we needed to drive to the Chiliean border to drop off the US/UK couple! In the end though, he dropped us off at the hot springs, took the couple to the border and then came back for us! When he came back we asked if we could have breakfast and he got cross with us saying that it was our fault that we overslept because we had been up drinking until very late and wandering around outside! We hadnt at all, it was the other group, we all went to bed at 9-10pm! Unfortunately only Marieke and I could speak Spanish so I ended up having to argue back on behalf of the group - that we werent up late and that it was his responsibility to wake us up on time as he said he would etc.! Never had a Spanish arguement before... was quite difficult! But he apologised later and actually started acting like a proper guide and telling us about the area etc.! We stopped for lunch in a small town, visited some more big rock formations, saw a bubbling, smoking active volcano, stopped in another small town and then headed back to Uyuni!

The trip was really tiring..... a lot of driving around, translating between English, Spanish and German, and we were constantly covered from head to toe in dust because some of the windows in Walters truck couldnt be closed so we were constantly choking on dust, the food wasnt good and the accomodation was horrible, but apart from that it was really amazing and definately worth it!

Salar de Uyuni is the worlds largest salt flat (nearly 12,000km squared), located in South-west Bolivia near the Andes. 40,000 years ago the area was part of Lake Minchin, which when it dried up, left behind 2 lakes and 2 major salt deserts, the largest of which is Uyuni. It contains about 10 billion tons of salt, has become a huge tourist attraction and because its so flat has also become a major transport route.

We had so much fun with the Australians and I think i will try and meet up with them in Sydney when im there! Although, to be honest we were glad to get back and get a proper nights sleep for the first time in 5 nights! :o)

Besos xxxxxxx

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