Uyuni is described as "climatically challenged".
its absolutely freezing, completely 100% arid, and in the middle of a dusty sandy salt desert that stretches all the way into Chile.

we went on a 4 day jeep ride into this desert, with all our clothes on at the same time and still had cold feet.

the first part is a desert of salt. its completely white, flat and crystally, and stretches past the horizon, so you can actually make out the curve of the earth.

later on the desert consists of massive plains with random boulders on, or stretches of mineral salts, such as borax. there are occasional lakes which are strange colours (green, electric blue, pink, white) from the minerals. nothing grows, apart from occasional tufts of spiky grass. amazingly there is an animal that lives in the middle of it all called the vicuña, looks like a llama /deer, which hangs around looking for the spiky grass. but i tripped over and fell on the spiky grass and i am still pulling spikes that are like splinters out of the palms of my hands, 2 weeks later, i don`t think the vicuñas have a good life.

there are occasional mud adobe huts in the desert. people actually live out here. they make a living from collecting the toxic minerals or piling up the salt to dry in little pyramids. its not a great place to live. however one of the villages had a football pitch with proper turf (how did they water it? this place receives less rain than the sahara) and goals with netting and terrace seating. this was odd to see because there was nothing, nothing around for miles and miles, not even roads. the buses just chose their own paths accoss the sand and the tyre tracks remain for weeks when there is no wind to blow them away. I can`t believe hwo many people lived out here. At night it is minus 20ºC. in the daytime its so sunny the bright sand means you have to wear sunglasses.

there are craters where meteorites have hit the earth, and there are boulders which have been eroded by the wind into strange shapes. the moon was very low in the sky and this made the place look even more sureal.

there was a hotel that had been made out of bricks of salt carved from the earth. i licked the wall, it was definitely salt. it cut my tongue. don`t lick walls.

we were put in a tour group with 5 others, all israelis. they turned out to be alright and we had a laugh in the back of the jeep as the kid who was driving it hauled it over rocks and hurled us down crevasses.

at night we stayed in very basic shelters and froze. we had luckilly brought some campo de solano wine with us (a very agreeable cheap bolivian wine at 1 pound fifty a bottle its very essential to any evening), so Damian took out his guitar and played along and sung, and soon enough everyone from all the tour groups that were staying there and all the guides were singing along, we were in the middle of a circle of 20 chairs and everyone thought damo was a rock star. he entertained all of them with full attention for about 3 hours.

we slept with 2 pairs of socks, leggings, trousers, 6 layers of tops, jumper scarf hats and gloves and all of it, under three blankets and goose down sleeping bags, we were all freezing cold.

this place is insane its one of the most amazing places i`ve ever seen. the photos cant do it justice its so massive and empty, and it has random flamingoes who live in the pink lake.