I had an incredible three days in the Salar de Uyuni salt flats - I visited such diverse places, including some of the most unusual, beautiful and interesting things I've ever seen in my life!

It started and ended in the small dusty town of Uyuni. It had been a long bus journey from Potosí and I was glad I wasn't sitting next to the window as it seemed a bit hairy at times - the bus leaning at an awkward angle, very close to the edge of the road. We arrived in the early evening and it was very sunny so we went to the main street and sat outside with a beer, trying to avoid the children pelting each other with water bombs. On the way back to he hotel we bought some hot barbequed llama ribs, which were very tough and chewy but tasty.

Later we had a tasty pizza dinner at Minute Man resturant and then wandered around the market stalls and shops, picking up snacks and props to take funny perspective pictures on the Salt Flats.

Day 1

We began our three-day trip around the Salt Flats at 10:30am the next morning, loading our bags into and on top of the 4x4s. Our driver, Pedro, was joined by his wife, Jaqui, who was our cook for the next few days - they were good fun, intermittently arguing and making up. We took it in turns to plug in our ipods to the car speakers and Jaqui danced along to the songs she liked. It was a bit disconcerting that they both pushed against the windscreen every time we met a vehicle coming the other way to prevent the huge crack in the glass falling through!

We first visited the 'train cemetery' just on the edge of Uyuni - a somewhat bizarre tourist attraction - basically a dumping ground for old trains that had once been used to transport the salt and minerals mined in the Salt Flats. Most of the trains were entirely rusted and covered in graffiti but it was interesting to climb on them and take photos.

On the way to the Salt Flats we stopped in a little village in which the church and a museum and many other things had been built from blocks of salt. It was principally a salt mining town but the locals also made all sorts of little souvenirs from salt and sold them to the hoards of tourists passing through every day.

Then we drove into the Salt Flats proper - probably the strangest landscape I've ever seen - vast plains of blinding white salt. It looks like snow and ice so my brain expected it to be cold but the sun was beating down outside. Our local guide, Juan, explained that they were created as a result of volcanic and seismic activity shifting part of the ocean up to this height of around 3,700 metres above sea level. Apparently these Salt Flats are roughly the same area as Northern Ireland!

We went during rainy season so some areas were wet, creating amazing reflections. The hills on the horizon were all reflected beneath so that they looked almost as though they were floating! We saw a part where subterranean pressure made the surface water bubble and look as though it were boiling when in fact it was normal temperature.

When we stopped for lunch, Pedro opened the boot causing one of our bottles of wine to fall out and smash on the ground (boohoo, it was good Chilean wine and cost 70 Bolivianos, about £7). Jaqui cooked up llama steak and salad while we had fun taking silly photographs.

Further into the Salt Flats there are a few small 'islands' - dark, vegetation-covered hills that rise up out of the white expanse. We stopped at Fish Island, which is blanketed in huge cacti, which were hundreds of years old. We climbed up to the top to take in the view - it looked so strange, this forest of cacti in the middle of the white sea of salt.

In this area the salt ground was very dry and cracked. We spent some more time taking silly photos - by the time we were finished lying on the salty ground all our clothes were ruined - white and hard with salt.

At sunset we went to visit some caves where pre-Inca people had buried their dead (Cementerio de los Chullpas). Apparently a local shepherdess had died in there some years back and since then the people believed the Devil lived in there and knew the place as Cueva del Diablo. We also saw some 'cactus corals', cactus-shaped pieces of coral that survived from the time when the area was under water.

The place where we spent the first night was in the 'altiplano' (highlands) area which had vegetation (they even grew quinoa, it was hard to believe in this rugged terrain) and they had llamas and vicuñas. We had dinner and lots of wine followed by singing and dancing to various people's ipod playlists and playing games, led by Danie, until late into the night.

Day 2

On Day 2 we were up at 5:30am for a quick breakfast and back into the jeeps. We drove through a very different landscape - semi-desert with volcanoes and strange rock formations. For lunch we stopped at 'the stinky lagoon' that smelled of sulphur. It was 4,125 metres above sea level. Lots of flamingoes lived there - it was absolutely silent and I found it so peaceful and relaxing to sit and watch them.

We drove on past some more lagoons and stopped to see the 'stone tree' and other strange rock formations. We arrived at the huge Laguna Colorado that had hundreds of flamingoes and pink water from the red algae that lived there. We didn't stop for long as it had become very windy and cold.

Where we stayed that night was freezing so I slept with all my clothes on! We started watching the film Vicky Cristina Barcelona on Carla's laptop but the battery died half-way through. We played cards for a bit but didn't stay up late as we had to be up at 4:30am the next morning.

Day 3

We drove through the dark to arrive at an area with geysers just as the sun was coming up - jets of steam shooting up out of the ground - it was amazing, I had never seen anything like it before. This was at 5,000 metres above sea level and the temperature outside was about -10oC, brrrr!

Driving along watching the sunrise over the plains was breathtaking - I realise this sounds embarrassingly cheesy but I felt like it was the nearest thing to heaven I've ever seen - we were so high up with mist calmly moving across the vast emptiness in front the blinding sunrise. Then we passed a lagoon with flamingoes standing still and sleeping while the mist swirled around them and the sun reflected off the water - it was truly magical. The truck carried on to the thermal baths up the road but I walked back to the lagoon to enjoy the view in peace for a while.

I managed to hitch a ride back to the thermal baths with a passing truck of local people, chatting to them in my half-assed Spanish (it was only a 15 minute walk but at that altitude any exercise is taxing so I was very grateful!). I had an invigorating dip in the 35+oC naturally hot water - it felt so good, I could have stayed there all day but breakfast was waiting for me so I had to move on.

After breakfast we drove through the Seloli Desert, known as the Salvador Dalí desert due to the likeness to the backdrop of many of his famous paintings. Some of the mountains have unusual red and orange swirls in them due to the iron and other minerals present there.

We stopped at Laguna Verde (Green Lagoon), in which copper and other minerals have turned the water green. It sits at the bottom of a volcano and reflects a perfect green-tinted mirror image of the mountains and sky, it was so beautiful, I wished there was a way I could capture it and take it home with me!

On the way back to Uyuni we passed another big lagoon with lots of flamingoes, I didn't realise at first glance but in the distance there were thousands more of them - it was spectacular.

Our last stop was at Rock Valley where we had fun searching for shapes in the strange rock formations.

As we approached town the landscape became greener and we saw loads of llamas and donkeys. In the distance we saw some enormous tunnels of sand whipped up by the wind. On this final day alone we covered 450km (over 800km across the three days) and it was a very bumpy ride.

After three jam-packed days it was good to get back to Uyuni for a shower, to watch the end of Vicky Cristina Barcelona (a stange, amusing, thought-provoking film) and have an early night. It's funny how much bigger this little town felt after our time in the wilderness.