not quite the right name for this leg of our tour but we're slightly limited by having to pinpoint everything on the map.

fully recovered after our terrible cocktail/altitude hangovers, we departed in a mini bus the next morning to the bolivian border. there we transfered to the jeep in which we'd spend the next 3 days. we were travelling with jess, lisa and two sisters from ireland, gillian and tara. this tour was by far one of the best bits of our trip so far but im not really sure i could explain it to you and do it justice.

the jeep was luckily warm and comfy and the hours we spent driving each day were actually really enjoyable. the landscape was so different and so amazing. we saw volcanos and lots of llamas (farmed animals) and vicuñas (like llamas but smaller and wild) and some of the most extraordinary lakes.

we went to the laguna verde which was a pretty colour when we arrived but as we watched it, a mineral reaction in the lake spread the most astonishing bright bluey green colour across the lake. it was absolutely amazing to watch. when we arrived we didnt think we were going to get to see its famous colour transformation beacuse half the lake had ice on it, which we amused ourselves with by skimming bits over the frozen surface.

we went to some more hot springs which were even hotter than the ones near the geysers so i finally dared to strip off and climb in. they were pure bliss.

our last stop of the day was the laguna colorada, an amazing red lake, also coloured by the minerals it contains. we stayed the night in a basic (and very cold) refugio by the lake, giving us a good amount of time to have a walk and admire our surroundings.

at dinner we sat with another tour group who were coming in the other direction. they had all sorts of horror stories to tell us about bolivia. apparently two jeeps had recently collided on this same tour, killing a car full of israelis and a car full of japanese. dont worry, our driver juan was very reliable and beeped every time we went round a corner to avoid hitting any crossing llamas.

they also warned us of trouble in sucre (not somewhere we're going anyway) where in response to the presidents pledge to give indigenous people (60% of the population) more rights, some horrible b******s had stripped some indigenous people naked and paraded them around the streets taunting them and doing horrible things to them.

the guys with all the stories (who were also english) had just come from potosi, the cente of bolivias silver and gold mining industry. they'd been there just in time for the annual sacrifice of 3000 llamas! 1000 a week for 3 weeks. they do it as a sacrifice to tío (the god of the mines/the devil). the spilt blood of the llamas serves to protect the miners from harm. they had pretty graphic photos of llamas being decapitated. apparently if you go to the mines on a friday, thats the day they all drink their favourite 96% alcohol. one shot for them, one for tío and one for pachamama (mother earth)

oh this bloody blogging takes so long! to be continued (when i have more energy)...

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so the second day we headed off, alot later then most of the groups who had to go at about 6 in the morning. the first stop was the arbol de piedra (stone tree) a weird rock formation that funnily enough..looks like a tree.

we passed many more lakes, this time in search of flamingos. juan, our driver, kept saying 'hay muchos flamencos en este lago' but most of the lakes only seemed to have about 2 flamingos very far away. then we got to this one lake that had a whole bunch of them and they were mich pinkjer than before. they were fairly close but it looked like you could get even closer if you crossed this short stretch of ice with little mounds of mud sticking out over to this bit of land. me and gillian decided to give it a try in the search for a good photo. mistake. i was about 2 3rds of the way across with gillian just behind me when the bit she was standing on gave way and she was knee deep in sulphourus mud! i was fairly useless as the bit i was standing on wasnt much more secure. she got helped out by the others and then i quickly hopped back over.

we also saw an active volcano (from a very safe distance) and stopped for lunch in what seemed to be a lava field with all sorts of strange rock formations including a lava wave.

we stopped for the day o n the edge of the salt flats, the salar de uyuni, 12,000 kmsq of salt desert at an altitude of 3650m. this time our 'hotel' was much more comfortable and less cold but not quite as much fun. it had rooms off one long windowed corridor which looked out over the very edge of the salt flats and gave a nice view at sunset.

the final day we drove straight out onto the salt flats. very strange indeed. it was just white and extremely flat for miles and miles. we visited the isla del pescado, a very stange island in the middle of the salt which is covered in cactuses including one which was 1203 years old. it was a bizarre contrast against the bright white.

we stopped off next to the 'salt museum' which used to be a hotel until the government stopped it being used as such because it was an illegal structure so it became a 'museum'. its built of bricks of salt. we werent bothered about seeing it, instead we spent about half an hour taking silly pictures, im sure you´ve seen some of them by now.

at the edge of the salt flats we reached a small town. a farming town of sorts. they farm salt. a nice old guy, also called juan, showed us how they heat the salt to extract any water. then its put through a little hand operated mill and mixed with potassium chloride and then theres this huge pile of salt that they bag up, also by hand. we watched them do it. he had a rod attatched to a very unsafe gas canister (the fire went a bit crazy when he lit it). they scoop a load of salt into these little plastic sacks and then hold the edge of the sack against the hot rod to seal it. im going to have to check the exact numbers with aislinn but they process ridiculously huge amounts of salt a day and sell it for ridiculously cheap. this is one of two major salt flats in bolivia and all the salt is for domestic consumption! apparently no neighbouring countries need it cos theyve got their own natural salt supplies. the village had lots of stalls selling dice and ashtrays and all sorts of strange souvenirs made of salt as well as having a salt statue of a llama (of course)

that was our last stop on the salt flats then we headed to uyuni, where the tour ends. juan made one last stop at the 'cemetery of the trains' on the edge of town. a bizarre place which was exactly that, a graveyard for rusty old steam trains - the first ones in bolivia.

uyuni was not exciting and me, ash, gillian and tara quickly booked tickets to la paz leaving at 8 that evening. we had lunch in a real gringo pub with millions of peoples silly salt flat pics on the wall and a disgustingly extensive sickening cocktail list. me and ash shared an llama steak. quite nice, kind of like beef. we seperated off from the others and had a wander around for a while before meeting up for a farewell dinner at the only place anyones ever heard of in uyuni, the famous Minuteman Pizza. Its run by an american guy an they make gourmet style pizzas. they open at 5.30 and close when they run out, usually by 8.30 or 9! we also purchased a large cookie and a slice of 'death by chocolate cake' to take with us on the journey to la paz. and what a journey that was....