We didn't spend the night in Uyuni, but the hamlet of Villamar doesn't seem to achieve Google Maps validation.

So, up at 4am to get well onto the salt flats before dawn. Except our jeep really had given up the ghost by this point and we were spread out across the other three jeeps. Luckily Fabrice and I were the slowest to get ready (well, I was) and so we ended up in the jeep of the people we knew. Simon and Caitlin were split into the other two and endured much disgruntlement due to the jeeps having to wait half an hour for them.

No harm done, we all made it onto the flats and watched the sun rise over the expanse of white nothingness. Stunning.

It essentially looks like a frozen sea. The edge looks like a coast line and the islands look like, well islands.

After stopping off at Isla Incahuasi for breakfast and a spot of cultural education - plus some amazing photos over the salt flats - we headed out to the middle of nowhere to try our hand at zero-perspective trick photography. As there are no features to give perspective, the camera can play all kinds of tricks in the right hands. In our hands the camera mostly just took crap blurred photos. However, we did get some pretty cool shots in the end. It's a surreal place.

Once the drivers got really bored of waiting for us - they even managed to fix our jeep - we headed to the beautiful town of Uyuni for lunch and the end of the tour. By beautiful I mean dusty dump in the middle of nowhere.

At lunch we unexpectedly bumped in Cessie from Fabrice's work, who was just heading out on a tour. We knew she was in the rough vicinity but expected to miss her. Good to catch up and share a few tales.

Before saying goodbye to the group we headed to the famous train cemetery. For some reason the Bolivians have dumped a load of 19th century trains just outside Uyuni. A strangely fascinating place, although obviously in a severe state of decay the engines certainly beat today's equivalents. Prime place to catch tetanus on the rusting metal too.

And that was that. A hugely enjoyable 4 days, and another few hundred photos to deal with. Definitely one of the best things we have done, I loved it.

All that remained now was to catch our transfer to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. This was to be another 7 hour journey in a 4WD jeep, punctuated by another night in a very basic hostel. We shared our jeep with an older Belgian couple, who in turn shared a delightful tale of being in a severe bus crash in Bolivia a year earlier. Nasty.

Hmm, not a good point to end on. Sorry!