Bolivia - 30 July to 10 Aug (Uyuni)

---

After flying back to La Paz, I took a bus directly to Oruro. Was very lucky that this was a good connection with the train to Uyuni, as the trains only run on certain days and apparently the bus journey is a rough option.

Arrived at Uyuni at 3am in the morning! I just love arriving in a strange place in the middle of the night, in the freezing cold, on my own and without a hotel reservation...fantastic. Luckily I found two girls who had a reservation at the same hostel I was thinking about. We all hopped into a taxi and paid him a ridiculous amount to drive us about a block to the hotel..

Standing in the street and knocking on the locked door of the hostel for about 5 minutes until they finally woke and let us in was also a highlight. Luckily they had a spare room for me, as I wasn´t looking foward to door knocking at that time of night..

I had a day to look around Uyuni and that was really too much. There is a lot of nothing, dust, internet cafes and tour operators (for the salt plain tours) and gringo bars.

The next day I set off in a 4-wheel drive for a 3 day tour of the salt plains and far south west corner of Bolivia. They say you should choose the tour operator according to how good the driver is. I had no problems with the driver who was at least enthusiastic, if not fluent in English.

The group was a dud, as is was made up of an Italian who didn´t speak the whole time (not his fault if he can´t speak English), two stuck up and unfriendly English girls and a nice Swiss couple. Never mind, the scenery made up for it.

The first day we saw the amazing salt plains which formed when the lake dried up (Salar de Uyuni) including the Salt Hotel which is made entirely from salt. Also saw Fish Island (Isla de los Pescdores) which really has nothing to do with fish at all. It is covered in giant cacti which grow about a centimetre a year. Stayed in the tour´s basic accommodation, but at least it had a shower. One of the English girls was in the middle of her shower when they decided to turn the hot water off - I guess she must have deserved it.

Day 2 was fantastic. We visited serveral different lagoons, the best being the Red Lagoon. This is something out of a fairytale - the lagoon is a deep burgundy color in parts and there are heaps of bright pink flamingoes on it. The tour cost of $70 US is worth it just to see this sight. Also was worth absolutely freezing to death to get the picture - I cannot ever remember being this cold.

We stayed in a "basic refuge" at this location - they were not joking, "basic" being the operative word. No showers and you don´t want to hear about the toilets. It was so cold that when we were fed dinner, there was a kind of feeding frenzy going on, as we wanted anything to help us be a bit warmer. No heaters in rooms of course, so we piled so many blankets onto ourselves that we were pinned down and found it hard to turn over. I awoke in the night to find all mine fallen off onto the floor...

Day 3, we were woken at 5:30am in the freezing morning and had to fumble to get up and pack in the dark (only had torches), to be ready to leave. We headed straight for the Geyser basin, which looked spectacular at that time of the morning with the sun just rising. There were also some hot springs but no-one in our group went swimming as they could not bear the thought they would have to get back out again into the freezing air. In fact it took until about 12 midday before i could feel my feet again, they were so numb from cold.

As part of the tour those people going to Chile were transferred onto a bus which took us across the Chilean border to San Pedro de Atacama. This occured in Bolivian time, which means we stood around waiting for over an hour until they were good and ready to leave.

---

Photos

Uyuni
As you can see, there is a lot of action in Uyuni..

Fish Island
View of the massive salt plains from Fish Island

Red Lagoon
The picture does not do this place justice. Its up there in my "most beautiful places i´ve ever seen" list

Geyser Basin
View of the steaming geysers at dawn