So, we are returned from our 4 day Tupiza-Uyuni trip and what an amazing trip it was!

We had a few problems getting there. It appears that for every good bus journey in Bolivia you must suffer a bad one - and this one was pretty bad.

We left just 10 minutes late from Sucre on our 'semi-cama' bus - supposedly with large reclining seats and a modicum of comfort but 'semi-cama' seems to means something different here as we were just on a normal bus, who knows what the 'economico' buses are like!

Anyway, all was going well until 3 hours into the journey when we hear this massive 'clunk' and are jolted, kind of like when you knock the back wheels of your car on the curb and it knocks them out of line for a second. This was followed by lots of shouting from the rest of the bus, and a dazed Madeleine and Joe trying to work out what the hell was going on. When the shouting refused to subside the bus driver decided to actually pull over and we all leapt off of the bus.

Turns out a lorry coming in the other direction had clipped the back end of the bus, taking out 2 windows - hence the shouting from those passengers showered in glass. There were a few cuts and grazes and some very scared children (and adults), but otherwise everyone was fine.

So now it's time to work out what to do. This, of course, involves standing round and discussing it in loud voices for at least half an hour. And every person on the bus has to follow the driver around to inspect the vehicle, go and find the lorry, and to make lots of suggestions about what to do.

After an hour or so on the side of the road the driver taped up the windows with some plastic and we were on our way again, only to stop 10 minutes later in a town. Everyone leapt of the bus and we, of course, thought they knew something we didn't. Maybe there was another bus, or something to eat, somewhere to get warm? No, the lorry was there and they all wanted to go and look at it and shout abuse at the driver. 2 more hours of various people - ambulances, police, the lorry driver - coming and going, with the crowd from the bus following them around at every opportunity, and we finally got another bus and could make our onward journey.

By this point, however, rumours had started about whether we would be able to complete the journey anyway. The drivers were due to go on strike and nobody knew at what time, would they just stop on the road at an allotted time? Also, we had to pass through Potosi which is notorious for blockades, would we make it through there? Luckily, everything was fine. We slept like babies - apparently the way to get to sleep on a bus is to go through 3 hours of drama beforehand - and made it to Tupiza around 7.30am. The bus was due to go on to Villazon but they did get caught up in the strike at Tupiza, which was completely blockaded, so it doesn't seem they made it to their final destination.

We headed straight to the hotel where we had tried to make reservations for our tour of the southwest and the salt flats, only to find out that they had cancelled our reservation because the online payment hadn't worked. And they couldn't put us on the trip at the last minute. Great. So we head off around town searching for aother company. We had done a lot of research previously to try and get a good trip - the salt flats have become so popular that there are hundreds of operators with varying levels of quality and safety. Luckily this research meant we had come to Tupiza to start the tour, where the better companies seem to be, so we managed to find a good tour fairly easily. Getting money to pay for it was impossible - and nearly sent Madeleine over the edge - as we didn't have the right combination of Passports and credit cards with the correct names on them, but the company were very sweet and let us pay at the end of the trip.

So, we were finally sorted and on a trip. The next hurdle was getting out of the town as it was completely blockaded by taxis and combis. A truck took us part of the way but we then had to walk along the railroad to get out to where the jeep was waiting for us. From that point forward, happily, it was pretty smooth sailing.

The trip was amazing - the landscape just took our breath away. We started in Tupiza - Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid land - which is full of rocky mountains and cacti. We then headed out on a circuit of the southwest, visiting sand dunes, multi-coloured mountains, lagoons of unimaginable colours, deserts, volcanoes, wetlands full of ice, hot springs, tiny villages with just 10 families living in them, geisers, moonscapes of volcanic rock, ghost towns, and finally ending up on the Salar de Uyuni - a 12,000km stretch of salt flat that is one of the most surreal things to experience. We could try to describe each of these things but it's impossible, so we will just let the photos do the talking (although it would appear we have lost the cable for the camera so it may be a couple of weeks before we can update photos).

The days were pretty warm but the nights were absolutely freezing, and we were staying in the most basic accomodation possible - four walls and a tin roof basically. We were definitely thankful that we had lugged our sleeping bags around for the past 8 weeks - it had suddenly become worth it. On our final night, however, we stayed in a salt hotel - literally a hotel built entirely of salt - brilliant.

So now we are in Uyuni, exhausted and cold but totally exhilarated by our trip. Night bus back to La Paz tonight and then we fly into Paraguay tomorrow before heading to Brazil. Less than two weeks left of our trip now - feels very odd to think we wil be home soon - where has the time gone?