After some initial problems getting our tour of the Salar region in Bolivia booked (people signed up with our first choice company, but never paid) we set off on Tuesday morning with 4 fellow adventurers: Katy (a fellow Warwick hero) and Flee from England, Chloe and Jean-Baptiste from France. Flee is the third person in a row who when I've told them I'm from Sevenoaks, has named one person, and I've known who they are or one of their siblings. This feels rather strange half way round the world. As soon as we entered Bolivia the landscape and roads changed dramatically - ie there were no roads. It was quickly evident why this was a 4x4 tour. The first things we saw were Lagunas Blanca and Verde (white and green). I'm not very good at describing scenery so you'll have to wait for the photos (we're in another dodgy internet cafe gggrrrr). We then took a bath in the hot springs as there was no running water in the hostel we were staying in that night. I managed to get sunburnt in about 20 minutes. Opps. I think this may have been due to the altitude - we started at around 4000m. We saw geysers next which I didn't find particularly exciting. Apparently they're better in New Zealand. We then moved onto the most impressive lagoon - Laguna Colarada. It was deep red with loads of flamingoes in and llamas being awesome around the outside. The llamas were very tame so we could approach them with ease but the flamingoes were very frightened. I did get one great photo of them flying away when I charged at them. That was a bit naughty though. We got to the hostel at around half 5 and the electricity was due to be turned on at 7, and off at 10. We sat down for a cuppa and a chat and I noticed a familiar stride in the distance but thought nothing of it. Then 20 minutes later, a tall tanned man with a small goatee appeared at the window grinning and pointing at me. It was Rob who I'd travelled around Europe with 2 years earlier and hadn't seen since we left the airport at the end of our trip! It turns out he's doing a similar trip to Jo and I with his girlfriend. I got the shakes it was so unexpected. It was absolutely freezing so we were wearing thermals, in our sleeping bags and underneath 2 blankets. This made me ridiculously hot, Jo claims it was just the right temperature. On the Wednesday it was cloudier than the first day which may the views not quite as spectacular. We saw rocks which I enjoyed climbing and posing on top of. Then more lagoons and flamingoes... before getting to a different border with Chile where we had lunch in an army base - quite a surreal experience. The border town was in the middle of nowhere with 6 soldiers in around 8 army huts, a couple of houses and an awesome tank/cannon thing which I also posed stupidly in front of. We saw another small town called San Juan before getting to our next stop for the night, a salt hotel. We had a warm shower here which made us very happy. The next day we got up at 4.30 to see the sunrise. We'd had to force our driver to do this the night before, as he'd suggested breakfast at 8. Since the sunrise was in our itinerary we told him that this wasn't acceptable. We got to an island in the middle of the biggest salt flat in the world which we had to run up to catch the sunrise properly - so we still didn't leave early enough really. This was bloody knackering and hard work considering the already high altitude and lack of sleep. But fortunately we made it just in time. We trekked down after a while and swaggered round the island admiring the views to the distant hills and nothingness. From here we made our way to Uyuni via another tiny town where we stopped for an unpleasant lunch of unspecified meat and pasta. The highlight was a domesticated llama and baby alpaca which liked to nibble on our clothes, eat carrots and run about. At Uyuni we said goodbye to our fellow travellers who were continuing through Bolivia, whereas we had to make our way all the way back to Santiago to get to New Zealand. We swapped drivers and got a couple more passengers - a policeman going to live at the border for a month (!) and a Chilean medical student/tour guide/former international rugby player from San Pedro. We got back to San Pedro in the morning after some drama at the border with not enough seats on the minibus and arguments between paragliding Englishmen and tour organiser. Luckily we were on the bus before the seats ran out! In San Pedro we grabbed a quick bite to eat and a cold shower at the public toilets. I don't expect you to understand how good this felt, but it was amazing! We changed our bus to one a few hours earlier and we're now in Santiago for the last time. We're now off to have our last South American steak until our next adventure. Sorry for lack of photos - they'll be up soon. Next update will be from a different continent! Lots of love mikey and jo xxx PS iPods do not like 4x4s. I got the unhappy iPod face twice but he has since come back to life yay! PPS Arpi - as soon as I read your message about funny hats we went searching to get some photos. We've got some great woman/bowler hat combos. Enjoy in the next update!