Salar de Uyuni Tour May 12 - 14

We were picked up from the tour office at around 8.30am after being told to be there at 8am and set off for the Chilean border. It was only five minutes down the road and a simple process of having our passports stamped on exit. We then had to drive for about half an hour through no mans land to get to the Bolivian Border, this gave us time to get to know the rest of the group. We already knew two of the guys, and the rest consisted of three more guys and five more girls. Our initial impressions were that we had a good group in tow for the three days ahead.

We got to the Bolivian border and expected to have to take our bags off and put them through a scanner, but how wrong were we. The immigration office was literally a little shack in the middle of the desert where they stamped your passport, nice and simple! We then split into two groups and loaded our luggage onto the jeeps which were to be our home for the next three days. Zara and I shared a jeep with two Emma's, Andrea and Matt from England, along with Shrishti and Manuela from Sweden. Our driver who turned out to be pretty amusing yet a bit of a pervert was Pablo! During our first leg of the journey he was blasting out some George Micheal, The Beatles, Elton John and The Eagles to name a few, unfortunately this didn't last as he prefered his Bolivian music.

We passed a few volcanoes on the drive, one of which was smoking constantly. We just hoped that it wouldn't erupt whilst we were close to it and luckily we were safe throughout our trip!

The first stop was the white and green lagoons - both were huge amazing lakes, surrounded by snow capped mountains with wild vicunas. Pretty amazing! Following on from this we stopped at the Dali Rock desert, one of the driest parts of the world. The next part, which we'd all been looking forward to all morning was the hot springs in the middle of the desert. There is a pool there but the water itself comes from underground and is naturally heated to around 36 degrees by the thermal springs. At this point we were 5000m above sea level (San Pedro is 2500m) so were informed that we shouldn't spend longer than 20 minutes in the water as getting out would be a huge shock to the system as the outside air temperature was about 15 degrees, but our bodies would think its below freezing doe the the altitude. The hot springs were amazing, nice and relaxing and the perfect backdrop of mountains, we wanted to stay in there longer but after about 15 minutes it actually got too hot. We all got out and tried to change as easily as possible whilst covering up in the middle of the desert. Getting out wasn't actually as bad as expected, none of us felt cold and got back into the jeeps feeling fine.

Unfortunately this was about to change as many of us now began to feel affected by the altitude. Some of us, including myself started to get banging headaches which felt like your brain wanted to burst out of your skull and others felt very nauseous. The driver offered us coca leaves and medication as this is what works wonders but firstly, I wasn't keen on mixing anything with my medication, and secondly, chewing on coca leaves can actually leave traces of cocaine in your bloodstream for 28 days! Crazy when apparently it's a completely different effect to actually taking the drug.

The next stop was to see some geysers, but having seen plenty in New Zealand and now feeling too well I went to get back in the jeep quickly only to be shouted at by Pablo. We had to make sure that every piece of dirt was out of our shoes before getting back in - almost impossible. He even shined his car at every possible moment even though were were driving through one of the dustiest places on earth. Every other jeep was thick with dirt, ours was shiny and new!

Following on from this we went to the red lagoon - yes it literally is red and amazing and also covered with flamingoes. An amazing sight even when you do feel like crap!

That evening we checked into our hotel in the middle of the desert and began to freeze once the sun had set. We were in for a chilly night at minus five degrees celsius. We all sat round drinking tea, wrapped up in layers, eating a great dinner and even having a little bit of wine. We had a really great group and all sat around getting to know each other. We braved the night and went star gazing before getting in trouble for playing the saxaphone even though Pablo was the one who told us to do it! Oops!

After a long day and being affected by the altitude we put even more layers on and tried to get comfortable in the stone beds. I had four layers on top, plus my coat, two pairs of leggings, three pairs of socks, hat, scarf and gloves and layed under about four blankets but still couldn't get warm. If you managed to fall asleep you awoke about thirty minutes later freezing cold and finding it hard to breathe at the high altitude. You could also hear everyone was in the same boat. I was told in the morning that the one time I did get a bit of sleep I started sleep walking, nothing like usual though, this time I was giving advice on what to wear and drink whilst at attitude!

After a good breakfast and realising I love dulche de leche we set off around 8.30am for our second day. We were all getting along really well now so had lots of chat and banter along the way! We spotted lots of llamas before stopping off at the rock tree - basically a rock that has formed into the shape of a tree. There were lots of rocks around in the middle of the sandy desert which was cool to see, but after a while they all kind of look the same!

After this we visited numerous lakes, some of which had flamingoes and others which were frozen solid. We also saw lots more rock formations which the boys insisted on climbing, this gave us images of 127 hours and the girls decided that staying close to the bottom was the best idea!

We finished the day at our second hotel quite early and were pleased to see that we had the luxury of twin rooms instead of dorms. It still felt freezing cold but luckily it was nowhere near as cold as the first night. I think that I only slept with three layers this time and no gloves! The evening was once again spent drinking tea, eating some awesome food (the main course was chicken and chips) and listening to some old school tunes making many of us reminisce.

Pablo told us at this stage that we wouldn't be able to take the route across the salt flats that we had been promised as there was too much water and another tour group had gone missing. Obviously we wanted to stay safe, but some of us were disappointed that we would miss out on a couple of things and we also wandered if it was an excuse because he didn't want too much salt on his precious car! We didn't have much choice on the matter though and to take a vote on whether we wanted to see sun rise on the salt lake. This meant getting up at 2.30am instead of about 6am so the crazy people we are we voted for the early start!

After listening to random tunes in the disney themed dining room we though we'd ne sensible and get ourselves four hours sleep if possible before the early start. Getting up wasn't actually too bad initially, but once we were in the jeep driving across the bumpy roads it wasn't particularly fun as I couldn't for the life of me fall asleep, I just had to keep telling myself that it would be worth it. To make matters worse our driver pretty much fell asleep at the wheel so then had loud Bolivian music on the keep him awake!

About three hours later we arrived at the Salt Lakes where Pablo fell asleep again before waking up and shouting 'siesta, siesta'! We jumped out to see the sun rise from behind the mountains. It really was amazing to see, but once again the photos didn't do it justice. It was still freezing cold at this point so we tried to amuse ourselves by taking silly pictures before going to see the salt hotel (made entirely from salt as the name says) and eating another great breakfast! So much for thinking I might lose weight in South America!

We then headed into the middle of the salt flats where the salt is two metres thick so that we could try and take some great pictures. We decided we'd have a competition, boys v girls to see who could get the best 'perception' photos. Of course this ended up involving some nakedness (not on my behalf I'd like to add) which of course meant that the girls won. Unfortunately we didn't manage to get some of the awesome pictures that other people seem to have, but we blame that on the fact that we didn't make it to Fisher Island where the pictures are usually taken.

Following on from this, we went to see where the salt is extracted and the process involved. It literally is all manual work where they dig the salt up by hand and shovel it into the back of trucks. This is one of the biggest salt takes in the world, yet none of the salt is exported!

Our final stop before heading to Uyuni was the train cemetery. The rail construction started in 1888 and ended in 1892. It was encouraged by the then Bolivian President, who believed Bolivia would flourish with a good transport system, but it was also constantly sabotaged by the local indigenous Indians who saw it as an intrusion into their lives. The trains were mostly used by the mining companies. In the 1940s, the mining industry collapsed, partly due to the mineral depletion. Many trains were abandoned thereby producing the train cemetery. It was crazy to see all of these old trains just left to decay in the desert.

That was the last stop of what was an awesome tour, with an awesome group! Unfortunately we would all be going separate ways after the tour which left us feeling a bit sad but as we've said previously, that's travelling for you!