Atacama Desert - Day 37 - 05/11/2012 (Monday)
This was part of the trip I'd really been looking forward to. 3 days in a 4x4 crossing one of South America's largest desert. We got picked up from where we were staying in a van and we drove to the outskirts of the town where the Chile border control is based. It's almost an hour from the Bolivian border but for some reason the office is here. We queued for almost an hour as there was a huge queue and only seemed to be one person working. Back on the bus we started to climb and by climb I mean we went from 2500 meters to 4500 meters in under an hour. Apart from our ears popping everyone seemed fine when we hit the Bolivian border. The border control was just a hut in the middle of nowhere with one guy working. He must have the most boring and remote job on the planet. So boring we were told that we had to bribe the guy 15 Bolivians (about £1.40) to get our passport stamped. If we didn't pay we couldn't get in. However for some reason he didn't take anyone's money. He must have had someone watching him.
The 4x4s where waiting for us on the other side of the border (well outside the hut) so we moved all our stuff from the bus over to the cars. We had 3 Toyota Land Cruisers for 14 of us and 2 cooks who would be coming the whole way with us. We set off in convoy for about 10 minutes until we reached another hut, this time the entrance to the national park/desert. We all got our passports stamped again (not really an official stamp but its cool have the stamp as a memory).
The rest of the day was filled with lots of stops to look at the view or the many different coloured lagoons. I'm not going to write about every stop just look at the pictures when they go up on Facebook :)
I will mention the lunch stop as by this point altitude sickness was starting to kick in for everyone. You start to fill a bit like you are drunk (but with a clear head) and you have a head ache. Almost like a hangover (I would assume anyway as I've never been hung over!!) The cooks made us an excellent lunch and then after we went for a dip in a natural hot spring pool. It was so cold in the air dispute it being a clear day so the pool was great to warm up. The only problem is doing anything more than sitting at altitude makes you even dizzier than you already are and you become out if breath really quickly. It was okay getting in the pool but taking the 1 step out at the end almost killed me. This was the highest point at almost 5000 metres and would be the highest point of our whole trip.
We continued our day and about 4pm arrived to where we would be spending the night. It was already starting to get cold so we quickly moved our stuff into the shared rooms and got settled for the night. By this point everyone was feeling sick. Some worse than others but we all had head aches. One of the girls (who is ironically a doctor) got it the worst. She was being sick and had nose bleeds. We all felt so bad for her but there's not a lot you can do. One thing however that does work is coca leafs. It's the raw herb that is used to make cocaine but in leaf form its no more harmful than mint leafs. We all had a few cups of coca tea then played cards before dinner. The cooks had made us a 3 course meal and its one of the best we have had all trip. Around 9pm there wasn't a lot to do and the electric was going out soon so we all went to bed.

Atacama Desert - Day 38 - 06/11/2012 (Tuesday)
Officially the longest night of my life! No one slept for more than a few minutes at a time. With altitude sickness sleep is the best cure but no one slept. It was way to hot ion the room with all the bodies in it and my head ache stopped me from sleeping. Sarah was exactly the same. Anyone who knows me who'll know I hate getting up in the morning but I couldn't wait for morning to come.
Very groggy we had some breakfast and some more coca tea and we started to feel better. Sarah and I both still had head aches and were sleep deprived but we cracked on.
The day was very much the same as the day before. Stopping to see the sights as we went on.
That evening we pulled up at our hotel and we had a flat tyre. The poor driver who had been driving us all day then had to spend ages fixing it. The hotel was amazing. It is a hotel where everything is made out if salt. We were no the edge of the worlds largest salt flat (7500 square miles of salt and it is so flat it's used to calibrate satellites!). When I say everything I mean everything. The walls where salt blocks, the floor was salt crystals, even the beds and chairs were made of salt. We were bunking up again so dumped our stuff and went and had some more tea. I was starting to feel fine but Sarah still had a head ache. I cracked open a bottle of wine as I've been carrying it since the vine yard trip weeks ago and was sick of carrying it.
After another amazing dinner we sat around talking until 10 when the lights went out. But no one wanted to go to bed so we went and sat outside. It was freezing but no one seemed to mind. We looked up at the stars which were so clear as there was no light pollution at all and then we did some 'light art' with one of the guys camera. This will be my Facebook profile picture as soon as I get a copy. All I am going to say is it took about 20 attempts to get the final product.

Salt FlatsUyuni - Day 39 - 07/11/2012 (Wednesday)
I had a better night sleep but I can't say the same for Sarah. She still didn't sleep much. After breakfast we jumped in the vans and set off for the salt flats. We drove for hours before we stopped and all we could see was salt. Every horizon was salt with the odd mountain sticking up higher. We jumped out the vans to do some perspective photos. If you don't know what I mean look at the pictures but basically it's camera trickery you can do in places like this. From the van the surface looked completely flat but we soon realised when we climbed out that it wasn't. There were loads of tiny sharp formations coming out the group but everyone was the same height. It was so bizarre. This made it quite painful laying on the ground taking photos or kneeing for shots.
One of the guys in our van decided he didn't want to do this and just walked off without telling anyone. Lucky we could see which direction he went in before he disappeared from sight. Almost 90 minutes later when we'd finished being silly with the photos we set off after Simon. It was a fair while before we spotted him and he is lucky to be alive because it was so hot and he didn't take any water.
We drove deeper into the salt and eventually came to an island sticking out of the salt. It's an old volcano right in the middle of the flats. We climbed to the top (very slowly and out if breath the whole time) and view was out of this world. It's moment like that make the whole trip. Every direction as far as you can see is white and flat. You can clearly see the curvature of the earth! We all just sat and took in the view.
Back at bottom we had some lunch and then set off again. We'd spent all morning heading north and now we were heading for a town in the east. It was another couple of hours before we reached the edge. At this edge there were loads of people extracting the salt. It looked like a painful job. First they had to pile it into mounds to let it dry and then they had to carry it into the town. Mainly with bikes. They made about the same as 20p per kilo so it was a lot of effort for very little. We had to wait at this stop for a few extra minutes because the tyre the driver fixed the night before had just punctured again. In the town we saw how they dried the salt and packaged it. It's put me off ever having salt with anything (not that I do anyway). After another drive we got to the weirdest thing I've seen in a long while; a train cemetery. There was about 30 old stream trains left to rust in one place. They used to be used to get minerals out of the area but have since been replaced. It was really spooky to as it was so quiet. We had a wander around to take some pictures and climb on them. Some locals had also built swings and a see-saw.
Owe drive back into the town and got out at our hotel. We said good bye to the drivers and then had a couple of hours to shower and rest. Having your first shower for 3 days is such a nice experience.
That evening we went to a Mexican (no idea when why seeing as it was our first night in a Bolivian town) and after we went to the "Extremely Fun Pub". We were a bit worried by the name but to be fair it did live up to its title. They had all manner of drinks and some came in novelty cups. Some were to rude to mention exactly what they were but they were certain body parts of male and female Lammas. Someone else ordered a "little chicken" and where forced to drink the drink from a babies bottle and wear a chicken mask. As the night went on some of the group wanted to do the 10 shot challenge. Tis involved the worst 10 shots the bar served and you had to drink them as fast as you could. The record was around 35 seconds but everyone who does it gets there name on the wall. We even found the time of our old guide Alberto. I think about 6 people in our group did this. They did the 'chicken' version where you have 5 each. Everyone did it in around 90 seconds which wasn't bad considering some of the times on the wall. Needless to say these people got very drunk after this point.

Uyuni - Day 40 - 08/11/2012 (Thursday)
Our plan was to get up and get on the bus at 11 but the bus company called to say there was a strike going on in the next place and recommended we didn't leave for another few hours. This is common in Bolivia but we'd hoped we could have gone a few days before our first bit of disruption. We went into town for some lunch and then sat around until 2 when the bus arrived. We had some very sorry looking people in our group. I'm go glad I didn't do the challenge the night before!