At 05:45 am we joined a gathering group who were assembling for a 3 day journey into Bolivia and across the Salt Flats (reputedly the largest in the world) to the town of Uyuni. The stories of the trip were legendary, drunk drivers, altitude problems, poor food, poor accommodation and sub-zero temperatures at night - Why wouldn't we want to do it?

Twelve of us were loaded into a mini bus along with our luggage and "supplies" of water and food (just in case). We travelled for about 45mins and arrived at the Bolivian border, where after passport inspection and customs formalities we were divided into two groups of six and assigned to a 4x4 and a driver - Our driver was called Gabrielle, perhaps an appropriate name for our Guardian Angel. The rest of our group were Jo, Natalie (UK), Annette (Denmark) and Will (Aussie) - a good group as it emerged.

Having loaded our rucksacks on the roof, along with 4 big containers of fuel (there were strikes in the offing ) we set off. Our first stop was the white lake closely followed by Laguna Verde (Green lake), both of which had flamingos on. Thermal pools next but it was crowded so we didn't bother getting in, then the geysers (at 4850m) which were OK but not as impressive as the ones we had seen in the Atacama Desert. We then arrived at our "home" for the evening which wasn't as bad as we thought. 6 of us in one room and we hired sleeping bags as had been told it may be -210C. Lunch was then served which was much better than expected, salad with mash potato and sausages. After lunch we then went to the "red" lake (Colorada Lagoon) -How many different colours of lake do you need?

Early night and with 4 layers of clothes, our sleeping bags plus a hired sleeping bag, we felt well prepared for the bitter cold of the night - The "bitter cold" decided to have a night off and gradually throughout the night more and more layers were removed.

We woke up on the second day to snow and a Brazilian couple in the second 4x4 went "mental" - They had never seen snow before and they rolled in it, threw snowballs and made snow angels. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful with several altiplanic lagoons (more lakes) . Next stop was on the lava flow, although the volcano responsible was shyly hiding its peak in the clouds.

At the end of the day we arrived at our salt hotel in San Juan at an elevation of 3660m which was just amazing. Everything built out of salt including the walls, tables and chairs. The inside was decorated with Bolivian tablecloths and wall hangings; we had our own room. Oh, the floor was salt too! Dinner was fairly bland (not enough salt?) but we had bought some wine which was shared with our new family and the evening faded pleasantly.

The last day and the highlight, we were actually on the Salt Flats - Miles and miles of totally flat plains with no point of reference or clues to direction except the sun and the fading legacy of previous vehicles. This bizarre background allowed us all to express our latent artistic talents with a camera or if you prefer "take silly pictures", which kept us happy for over an hour.

We finally arrived in Uyuni, which was interesting insomuch as everyone seemed to wear national costume - Women in bowler hats etc. Aside from this it was not a place to linger, so after a farewell meal and an overnight stop we said our farewells to Annette and Natalie and joined Jo and Will on the bus to Sucre.