Bolivia - Oh my God! Words nor pictures have the ability to explain just how amazing this country is. The natural beauty of the south west is something unexplainable. I have spent the last 3 days on a 4x4 desert safari which ranks among the greatest experiences of my life! After being stamped into Bolivia at the most basic of border crossings, I spent 3 days in the wilderness of South West Bolivia. During the first day I took in a white lagoon, a green lagoon, a Salvador Dali desert stone scene followed by a hot spring which was awesome. At one point we managed to reach 5,000m a.s.l. where I almost passed out before looking at some geysers. Needed a coca fix here! Later we went to a red lagoon which was inhabited by lots of pink flamencos. The first night was spent playing jenga and drinking rum only to be interupted by an indigenous woman weilding a top-of-the-range 60 gig photo iPod! She wanted one of us westerners to charge it up and tell her how to use what was presumably a lost or stolen gadget! Slept badly as we were at 4,300m and it was king freezing! Every turn left me feeling like I had just finished 90 mins plus extra time! Day two was a longer less inspiring day yet we still saw some fascinating scenery such as a natural stone tree, some more spectacular lagoons, a volcano and a salt flat which was only at 3,600m! Night 2 was spent in a relitively luxurious hotel made of salt. Our beds were even made of the stuff! I even had the luxury of a two hour window of electricity to charge my modest 1 gig iPod shuffle. Day three was the day we had all been waiting for. We woke up at 6am and headed out to the worlds largest salt flat - the Salar de Uyuni. Basically a big flat load of salt half the size of Holland! Here we watched the sun rise and took some amazing perspective-mocking photos. On arrival in Uyuni we queued up whilst the only bank in the town was having an atm fork-lifted into place under military police guard! Watched a parade which was part of Bolivian Independence weekend. I stayed in a luxury hotel for the one night in Uyuni. Highlight of the evening was having a platoon of military policeman run past waving machine guns! On of them hand-signalled his displeasure at us staring at them in amazement! After a good sleep I boarded a packed bus for Potosi. 6 hours of mountainside hell - again!