After about 45 minutes driving, the road changed from tar to dirt, signaling our arrival in Bolivia. The border migration office is basically just a small mud hut in the middle of the desert. Here our minibus dropped us off and we split into two groups of six to fit into the two 4x4's (both Toyota Land Cruiser's - all the tour companies seem to use them exclusively.) South Africans need a visa for Bolivia, so we had to hand our passports to our driver who would give them back at the migration office in Uyuni. Formalities out the way, we tossed the packs on the roof, piled into the car and headed off into the desert!

The 6-person group in our car was composed of: the two of us, Jamie and Ileana - a couple from Australia on a similar mission as us (quit jobs and travelling the world), and Michelle and Ferencia - two dutch girls just finished their studies and travelling around South America (and who could both speak Spanish!) We didn't get to know everyone in the other car as well, but did enjoy chatting with Manda, Barry, Kristy and Fiona. Everyone was really nice and we all got on well.

The first day of the trip (Monday 19 March) we stopped at a number of lagoons. All around are huge snow-capped mountains, so even though the sun is shining, it is pretty cold. Although at around 11am-ish we able to have a swim in some hot-springs! We continued on, visiting more lagoons and interesting rock formations etc. The highest point of the trip were the geysers, at around 5000m. We made it to the overnight stop (around 4400m) at around 2pm-ish. After lunch we got back in the 4x4's (one of us stayed behind for a nap-nap...) and drove a short distance to visit... another lagoon - this one had hundreds of flamingo's in it! Back at the accomodation, we all enjoyed chatting over tea and biscuits. That night we all struggled to get to sleep - still wide awake at 2am. When we did eventually fall asleep, it was restless and bad :-/ At least we were warm enough :-)

Tuesday we woke up all feeling pretty miserable - due to the altitude. We packed bags and continued on the journey - visiting more lagoons and rocks. We stopped for lunch at a lagoon, surrounded on all sides by snow-capped mountains, which was really beautiful. In the early evening we arrived at our overnight accomodation - a small hostel in a village just outside Uyuni. There we had hot showers and flushing toilets - luxury! Dinner was great - steak (probably llama), chips and wine :-) Had a cool time chatting over dinner. We were lower than the previous night (about 3500m-ish) so we all slept much better that night! - apart from me, who by now had come down with the flu :-(

Wednesday we woke up early, packed the Land Cruiser and drove off towards Uyuni. In the late morning we arrived at the train cemetary, where old trains from the early 1900's lie rusting away. A short while later we were finally in Uyuni. We all left our big luggage in the tour company office and the two of us went to get our visa'sorganised. Then we headed out towards the salt flats, or Salar de Uyuni.

What a weird place - its a bit like being on another planet. The ground is perfectly flat and white for as far as the eye can see. It is extremely bright (you can't be there without sunglasses) and even though we were all layering on the sunscreen, I think every one of us got sunburnt somewhere. Lips especially took a pounding. There is a small shop/restaurant/museum out in the middle made entirely out of salt bricks, which is where we had lunch. Then we had some time to take photos - you can do some cool tricks with perspective which make for some pretty weird photos. It was just after the rainy season, so some parts of the flats were still covered in water, producing a glass-like mirror effect. We were dropped back in town at around 3pm - the end of an amazing 3 days :-)