We set off with two drivers and a cook,she was lovely her name was Vilma, like Fred Flinstones wife,she said. She shared a car with Alison and I and our new guide,Shirley.We changed guides in La Paz,Shirley is 29 years old and full of life,she is a wee chatterbox and is very adept at including everyone in her conversation.

The first night in the salt flats was a cold,cold one, we all shared a dormitory,if it had been any colder we might have all been in the same bed.I was very skilled at dressing and undressing inside a sleeping bag by this time without getting too cold.We were up at 4.30am and off to the geysers,what a sight they were too,the inside of the car kept freezing up so we got out to walk round,it was warmer outside than in the car,the car then froze up so we had to get a light,I cleared off at that point, didn´t fancy my last day in the freezing cold.The other car was a few hours behind us,it had big problems with freezing up.

After the sun came up it got pretty warm and we had a fantastic day going round all the lakes,they are different colours,red, green, white and blue ,result of algae and plankton growth in the mineral rich waters, at the Verde Laguna we were at the other side of the Volcano Licancabur,which we saw from the Attacamma Dessert in Chile .Every Lake has huge flocks of Flamingos,some are the really bright pink Chilean ones,they are beautiful,took a load of photos and some good panoramic ones but for some reason they have been deleted,hopefully I´ll get a copy of Alisons.

That night we stayed in a hotel made entirely of salt, bricks, furniture, the lot.The floor was crystal like salt,it was also a bit warmer.Next morning we headed out into the salt flats,it was bright white and blue,blue sky,by this time my eyes and nose were drying up with the high altitude,skin and nails shrivelled up too,a bonny looking ticket,I must say but it was all well worth while.

We went out to an island which had an amazing variety of cacti and beasties.We met up with Paul and Hannah again and they were having a poor,poor trip,their tour company had squashed 7 of them into one car,the food was also appalling but they were pleased to see us,they were heading off to Argentina afterwards so we wont be seeing them again.

On the way back to Unuyi we went to the train cemetery,all the trains used from the mining days are here,people used to use the trains too to travel from village to village but since the "road " was built the trains have rusted away.There is a story that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their end here but other theories say it was in La Paz.

We arrived back in Uyuni late afternoon and we took a decision to hire a private bus down to Potosi,Shirley put the money that we would have paid for bus fares towards it and off we went,it was a hairy journey,goodness knows what the public bus would have been like,at one point it looked like we were driving through a quarry and the compulsory square wheels were in evidence again!!!