I`m now in La Paz in Bolivia having had the most incredible 3 days in the salt flats and Atacama desert!

Last Tuesday it was Abi`s birthday so I skyped her in the morning and then some of us went for lunch in the central plaza in Sucre. In the afternoon we went quad biking which was incredible. We got there at 2pm and we were kitted out with helmets and given a practice on the quad bikes and then all of us started on the 3hour journey through the dusty and barren parts outside of Sucre. Most of it was off road and we went so fast on them. After an hour or so we stopped and had a play around on them, and I went on the back of Leon`s dirt bike which was awesome! It was dark by the time we got back and we went straight for a drink at a Dutch bar and then went back to the hotel before dinner. I definitely want to go quad biking again, it was so fun!

On Wednesday the England game was on at 10am here so we all headed to the Dutch bar again which showed all of the world cup games. We went for luch and then chilled out in the hotel for a bit before getting taxis to Potosi. It took three hours to get there but our driver didn`t know where our hotel was so we had to ask lots of people. When we finally got to the hotel we checked in and went straight out for dinner the other side of the town. Potosi is the highest town in the world at 4500 metres so it was really hard walking uphill as the air was so thin! It was really cold as well! The place that we went for dinner was an old castle like building that was built by the Spanish and then food was amazing there.

We had the day to wander around Potosi on Wedneday so Tim, Jo, Teresa, Chris and I went around together. The buildings were realy nice and they were lots of churches. It was once the richest town in the world as there is a silver mine there so they made 70% of the world`s money at one stage! There wasn`t too much to do there but it was really cool walking around and seeing all of the traditionally dressed women, the people there are tiny! After lunch we had to get a 5 and a half hour bus to Uyuni. Chris had trivial pursuits on his iPhone so we played lots of that and played games so it didn`t seem to long a journey. The landscape the whole way was just barren land with a few remote mountain homes dotted around. There was a dust road that wound through the mountains and there were so many cacti and lots of lamas. When we arrived at the hotel we got ready to go out for dinner. It was Leon`s 28th birthday today so we got him candles and made him a card. We went to the best pizza restaurant in Bolivia which is owned by a German guy who married a local girl. We went to a bar afterwards and Leon did the drink challenge they had there as it was his bithday. It was 10 drinks and shots and he did it in a minute and a half and didn`t feel too good afterwards!

On Friday we started our 3 day journey in to the salt flats and Atacama desert. We got jeeps from the hotel, there were 3 of them between us. I went with Jo, Tim and Joe and our bags were tied on top. We stopped just before the salt flats at a lama market and bought a couple of souvenires. At the edge of the salt flats there were mounds of slat that took someone half a day to do a 5 metre squared section for which they got paid the equivalent of five pounds! We then drove for an hour to a little island where we had lunch. While we were waiting for our cook to make lunch we walked to the top of the islands, which was so hard with such little oxygen, and took lots of photos. The island used to be under water once upon a time so it was mostly coral and there were lots of cacti too. The view was just incredible, such bright bue sky and such white ground! We had lama for lunch on tables and chairs made from salt and then spent an hour or so taking lots of cool photos. There is no depth in the photos as it`s all white so we took photos of people being fried in a frying pan, sitting on someones hand, hanging from someones hair and lods of others, you`ll have to see the photos!

We then drove across the salt flats in our jeeps for 2 hours unitl we reached the salt hotel. There was absolutely nothing around it and it was all built from salt. Inside there was lots of salt on the floor which was quite cool. We had coca tea and biscuits when we arrived and then just played cards on the tables made from salt until our cook made dinner. She was a really sweet lady who wore traditional Bolivian clothes and a bowler hat which was too small for her head so it rested on top lol, she came with us the whole way.

We had to get up at 6am to begin our drive through the Atacama desert. The jeeps were loaded up again and we drove to a small village an hour away called San Juan to buy water etc. We then went to see the biggest volcano in the area which was so amazing, it was smoking so we took lots of photos there. We then went to a couple of lagoons and had lunch by the second one where there were so many flamingoes. The mountains were just beautiful, and the remoteness of it all made it even more so. We then drove through the actual desert for an hour until we reached `Arbol de Piedra´, the tree of rock. It was a huge collection of rocks in the middle of all the sand which had been blown from a volcanic eruption. Driving through the desert listening to Kings of Leon, with amazing mountians in the distance was just incredible! The terrain then turned really rocky and we drove to Colorada lagoon and stayed in huts there. It was so remote, but loads of tourists do the jeep tours every day so there were about 20 others staying in the same little building. The wind was so strong and the temperature reached minus 9 or 10! We had coca tea and bisuits again when we got there and did the same as the night before and played cards and had some drinks before and after dinner.

On Sunday we got up at 5am, packed up the jeeps again and headed off to the hot springs. We stopped on the way at some geysers but it was dark so we couldn`t see much, it just smelt very sulphery. It was minus something so we got undressed in to our bikins so quickly and jumped in the hot spring which was amaaaazing. We stayed in there for about an hour and watched the sun rise over the mountains and dormant volcanos. We got changed back in to all of our layers and had pancakes and fruit for breakfast before heading to a green lagoon. It was at the base of huge twin volcanoes and because of the wind it was such a bright turquoise colour! The landscape is like how you`d imagine Mars, it just didn`t feel like we were on Earth! There were so many clusters of rock that had been blown out from all the eruptions and the mountains were all different colours of orange, brown and yellow!

We then drove for 6 hours all the way back to Uyuni stopping on the way for lunch. It was Chris`25th birthday so we made him a chocolate bar statue thing with lots of candles on lol. The journey back was fine as the scenery was so phenomenal! We caught the end of the England Germany game which was shocking and then went back to the pizza place there before getting on the night bus to La Paz. I`d bought lots of aprazalam and diazapam so I took some of them and slept amazingly on the bus. You can pretty much buy any kind of drug in Bolivia and sleeping tablets are 15p a tablet, amazing!

We arrived in to La Paz really early yesterday morning and went for breakfast at a great place near our hotel. Tim, Teresa, Jo, Chris and I then wandered around the Witches`market which had lots of lama feoteuses and other gross things. Most of the shops around that area sell the same lama wool things and inca figurines. We walked to the presedential plaza where there were lots of peole feeding the pigeons and eating ice cream. It has a really nice feel to it, but it`s strangely quiet for a city! We all met up for our last dinner as a group with Leon as our leader and went for some drinks afterwards.

This morning Jo and I went for a walk and then came back to the hotel and wrote our blogs. We`re meeting our new tour leader this evening and two new girls will be joining me, Jo, Chris, Teresa, Tim, Joe and Bram the older guy. I`m so so excited about going to Peru tomorrow, can`t believe that there is only one more country left!!!