SO, the salt flat tour. Its a pretty standard 'gringo' activity but deffinately for a reason!

We set off from Tupieza for a 4 day, 3 night tour ending in Uyuni. Since there were 7 of us booking together we found 3 other people and got two jeeps to drive the route in convoy. The first day was a fairly short day. We drove to the top of the hill we cycled down the previous day and looked out at the landscape which was still very impressive. The people in the other jeep bought a spiderman and batman when we stopped a few mins earlier.... just picture the scene - quanto es batman?! They figured we could have some fun with them. And fun we did! Some great pictures on the salt flats on day four - more to come on that - and a particularly fine backstreet boys routine done by the super heroes about 7 hours into a jeep ride!

The first day was mainly looking at various sceneries and climbing higher and higher. We had tomales for lunch which are corn things with llama and veggies in. We ate the llama in a field of llama, so thanked them for it!

At points in the four days we were at 5000m above sea level. We stayed in a tiny village where the food was great, cooked by the cook we brought with us. The beds though! 7 of us in a dorm. Most of us felt like we were awake for more of the night than we were asleep!

We had to get up at 4.20am on the second day as there was so much ground to cover. We drove past stunning snow capped mountains. I wore denim shorts and a jumper as i figured it would warm up. In the morning it was VERY cold though! and it did not warm up. At one point it snowed. oops! We stopped in a deserted town called San Antonio, which is apparently where the devil lived for a while before going to the mines in Chile! Very amusing story told compleely straight faced by the guide. He also mentioned that the devil returned to Bolivia 5 years ago to mine for silver in the worlds second biggest mine. The guide TOTALLY belived this!

We also saw some volcanoes, swam in hot springs and walked around some geysers. Lastly Laguna Verde - green due to the minerals in it. The mountain behind it is where NASA do moon training because the terrain is the same! Basically, alot of the things i learnt about in geography i finally got to see! So cool.

On the third day we went to Laguna Colorado which has an amazing red tinge and up to 30000 flamingoes. I have to saw I saw a lot but I dont think it was 30 000! Saw a dead one though!! We also saw a few other lagoons and ate lunch next to one. The night was spent in a salt hotel! The walls, floors, bed stands, tables, chairs, etc were all made from salt blocks! Cool and the first chance for a shower despite it being cold!

The last day once again had lots of driving. We have pretty much exhausted and word games. Two solid hours of celebrity followed by hours of 20 questions can get a little old!

The salt flats were amazing though. Since it is rainy season there was a little rain on the flats but it produced the most amazing reflections. Imagine a completely flat landscape which goes to the horizon and is completely white! We got some amazing perspective photos which is the classic thing to do, and an awesome video of us crawling out of a pringles packet which will be uploaded when I get somewhere with faster internet!

All in all the tour was amazing. The food was amazing the whole time. Suddenly producing warm home made hamburgers, pasta, spaghetti, etc at all times of day. Tea breaks, the lot! One guide spoke english and really joked with the group and the other didnt speak english but was clearly a bit of a joker!

The three extra people on our tour were nice enought but lets say we werent all that worried when we went different ways in Uyuni!

Uyuni, where we ended up, was not much of a town. Luckily we were all in bed by 7.30, without dinner and sleeping by 10pm latest! The next day we went to visit the train cemetary, wearing our cowboy hats and primed to plot our train robbery using the abandoned trains! Unfortunately we didnt get very far as most of the group has been suffering from dodgy stomachs and therefore we got back into town pretty quick! Killed most of the day sitting in a restaurant and then went to the bus to La Paz for 8pm.

What a bus ride. We had been told that only 60% of the road would be paved so we took some sleeping pills. Great idea. Everyone apart from me fell asleep fairly quickly, except for me. I was very awake. I was awake throughout the hour we sat in complete darkness going nowhere, and noone else was awake so I wasnt quite sure what was going on! Finally the bus driver came in and said something in spanish of which i only understood the word dangerous! and he kind of mimed that we should get off the bus. I went to the toilet and saw hundreds of people walking outside. We roused all the people who were completely asleep and went outside to discover that the bus could go over thiss stretch of road only if it was lighter so we had to meet it at the other end! It was about 1am! Headtorch and the wit to memorise the number plate and we all made it back on. It seems that all the buses leave Uyuni for La Paz at the same time so there was a lot going on! Other than the rockyness of the road the rest of the bus ride was uneventful!

And so I find myself in La Paz.

xxxxx

p.s. tomorrow i cycle down the most dangerous road in the world.... x