We arrived on the overnight bus into Uyuni just before 7am, really tired. We had the name of the agency we originally booked through, the name and address of the agency actually organizing the tour, and a contact name for someone supposed to be meeting us off the bus. However, in true Turismo Boliviano style, none of the above could be found.

At that time of morning it´s FREEZING in Uyuni, so we rushed to a cafe for breakfast where a smoky open fire was warming the place to the sound of a Celine Dion DVD.

Halfway through breakfast a woman from an entirely different agency came into the cafe and told us we were booked in with them. She wasn't asking for more money so that was fine by us!

We set off at 10.30 in our 4x4 with a guide called Loca who was quite sullen, there were 7 of us on the tour, a Japanise couple, a French couple, us and 1 American guy. The languare mix was funny as the most common language was Spanish and the French guy was the best but did not speak English, so either the American or Japanise lady translated when we got lost with Loca's speed-Spanish.

First stop, salt flats, which are absolutly amazing. White as far as you can see, looking and sounding like snow but hard, hard salt everywhere. Formed when an enormous lake dried up long ago, the main flats (Salar de Uyuni) cover 2000 square kilometres. Very little is harvested as low grade. Really easy to get sunburnt with the bring sun during the day reflecting off it. Lots of fun with photos though, playing with perspective. We stopped at a coral island covered in huge cactus, most of which are hundreds of years old, and had steak and quinoa lunch cooked by the driver on a camping stove (yum).

Sightseeing ends at about 4.30pm on these tours, You don't get below 3800m so it gets very cold very quickly. We stayed that night on the edge of the salt flats in a hotel made of blocks of salt. It was quite basic with shared dorms, but had salt beds (with matress on), salt tables, salt chairs and salt crunching under foot! Did manage a hot shower for extra 7 Bolivianos which was definitly worth it, even if the generater spluttered a bit of cold every so often. Hot soup and chicken and chips for dinner to warm us up. Conversation over dinner was funny as mainly in Spanish with a few French words thrown in and the Japanise lady translating Spanish to English for us when we got lost and Spanish or English to Japanise for her partner

H & Matt