Arriving here really felt like you`re in the middle of no-where. Added to that there`s the high altitude. Uyuni is 3665m above sea level and headaches were a constant reminder of that. We booked on to a 3day tour of the salt flats and coloured lakes and along with an Ozzie girl, Jack, and a swedish couple Yonas and Virginia and a Yank, Megan, off we went.

Now when back in England, going to the Salt Flats was going to be one of the main high lights of our trip. And they were no disappointment. The whole experience really was unique and spectacular. We had bright blue skies with fluffy clouds set against the birght white salt flats. We spent hours chorographing photos using props such as a toy dinasour. Its an amazing place to let yourself go infront of the camera and before we knew it we were all doing running kong fu kicks and acting like we were stars from a Japanese martial arts film.

That night we slept in a Salt hotel, which literally means the walls, floors, tables, your bed, are all made from salt bricks.
Before dinner, 4 local boys came and played their panpipes, guitar, bells and drums to us. The performance ended with one of the boys hitting the other over the head with his drum stick. Lets just say, i don`t think the band will stay together very long.

Day 2. Yonas had bad food poisoning but put on a brave face. We set off into the world´s highest desert, through Salvador Dali`s inspiration for his "clocks" painting. Through miles of desert with weird rock formations, until finally reaching a lake encrusted with borax and salt to create a white counterpoint for the flaming red, algea coloured waters in which the rare James famingos, and more common, Andean flamingos breed and live.
The contrast in colours was like nothing you`ve ever seen or could imagine. Lakes are not meant to be red and white.....This crazy and beautiful scenery just about made up for the disgusting accomodation we had to stay in. There were NO showers and no running water to even wash your hands. You had to pour a bucket of water down the toilet to make it flush and there were only 2 toilets for about 30 of us......poor Yonas, i couldn`t think of anywhere worse to get ill.

Anyway, we made it through the night to be woken at 4:30 to head to a live volcanos spewing out smelly fumes and steaming like a pressure cooker. Then onto the hot springs. Ahhhhhh nice! Whether it was the altitude, food, crazy early start or all 3, but Day 3 left me feeling sick and still with a constant headache. Luckily i began to feel better just in time for me to appreciate the beauty and awe of the final lake, Laguna Verde. This lake is lifeliess because its full of arsenic and its green waters reflect the 5,868m high volvano that sits in a perfect triangle behing it. It really is peaceful and stunning gorgeous place.

We arrived back in Uyuni feeling thoroughly dusty and tired but had to then get a 7pm bus. Little did we know that the bus would be so different from the ones we had been use to and that it would shudder and rattle its way all the way to Potosi.