Uyuni itself was pretty quiet and nothing going on... Basically a place just to stock up on snacks and water for the crossing... The crossing was another one of the AMAZING parts of the trip!! Had been looking forward to it for ages, after seeing the salt flats and atacama desert on planet earth!! HAHA!

We set out in four wheel drives with all your clothes food and water for the next three days, with drivers and two chefs... The first day we visit a train graveyard (weird) a place to buy all the obligatory tat made from the salt from the flats... Then they start to come into view and are amazing! It is SO bright from the reflections all around and pretty cold! You can climb up on mounds of salt, see pools of water with minerals in that have burnt through to the surface of the salt... the salt hotel, made purely from guess what...? Salt!! Then stop for lunch at an "island" in the middle, where you spend about two hours doing the photos that you see everyone doing on the flats!! Because they are so flat and like a blank canvas, you can be standing on people's heads, hands... popping out of bags, pringles cans... and as mark wanted to do, crush me on his hand!! nice! Absolutely amaxing being there, and we only saw a tiny amount of them! We had crossed them by the end of the afternoon of day 1, saw another MUCH smaller salt flat, then reached our place to stay for the night. Some people played football outside as the sun was setting... ALOT of cards were played on this trip in the places to stay at night... not much else to do!!

2nd day is crossing more of bolivia and heading into the atacama. We saw Vicuñas on this day, a wild type of llama that the alpacas were bred from. llamas were bred from guanaco, but we didnt get to see any of them... We stopped off at many lagunas and rocky outcrops, where we saw flamingos (they can survive anywhere!!) and vizcachas (a type of chinchilla thing, quite cute!) and basically just amazing scenery! The place we stayed on this night, laguna colorado, apparently reached -25degrees during the night!! Thank god our sleeping bags are good!

The third day is the final crossing of the bolivian part and then into chile. Up and off in the dark and we visited geysers and got out for some photos, probably the coldest place ive EVER been to! quickly took photos and jumped staright back in the van... Some people didnt even get out! then stopped off for lunch at another laguna, where there are natural hot springs right in the middle! Mark went straight in... I wasn't sure, but then when charlotte did, I had to too!! You have to be as quick as possible getting out of clothes and into the water as its minus god knows what degrees!! When mark got out his hair and swimming shorts froze!! We then went on to laguna verde which is beautiful, and (not suprisingly given its name) so green!! Drove through "dali's landscape" as it looks so much like something he would have painted with weird outcrops and everything.. then through the last snow covered mountains into chile... Amazing few days!

xxx